Exploring cosmetics advertising in southern China (original) (raw)
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The Construction of Beauty: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Women's Magazine Advertising
Journal of Communication, 2005
As a media genre, advertising offers a unique opportunity to study how the beauty ideal is constructed across cultures. This research analyzes the content of advertisements from women's fashion and beauty magazines in Singapore, Taiwan, and the U.S. to compare how beauty is encoded and found a noticeable difference between the portrayals of women from the U.S. and from the two East Asian societies in terms of sexual portrayal. In addition, Asian ads contained a large proportion of cosmetics and facial beauty products whereas the U.S. ads were dominated by clothing. These findings suggest that beauty in the U.S. may be constructed more in terms of “the body,” whereas in Singapore and Taiwan the defining factor is more related to a pretty face. The article also discusses how feminist critiques of the sexual objectification of women in advertising may need to be considered within their historical, Western context of origin.
As a media genre, advertising offers a unique opportunity to study how the beauty ideal is constructed across cultures. This research analyzes the content of advertisements from women's fashion and beauty magazines in Singapore, Taiwan, and the U.S. to compare how beauty is encoded and found a noticeable difference between the portrayals of women from the U.S. and from the two East Asian societies in terms of sexual portrayal. In addition, Asian ads contained a large proportion of cosmetics and facial beauty products whereas the U.S. ads were dominated by clothing. These findings suggest that beauty in the U.S. may be constructed more in terms of " the body, " whereas in Singapore and Taiwan the defining factor is more related to a pretty face. The article also discusses how feminist critiques of the sexual objectification of women in advertising may need to be considered within their historical, Western context of origin.
The Beauty Ideal in Chinese Luxury Cosmetics: Adaptation Strategies of Western Companies
The aim of this paper is to determine if the standardization strategies, widely implemented by the luxury companies in international markets, can successfully adopted in the Chinese Markets. In order to verify this statement we analyse the luxury cosmetics industry in a market characterized by evident cultural differences. The cultural differences have been studied in term of beauty ideals and consumers behavior and expectations. We study four western luxury cosmetics companies. Although the first moves were mainly shaped on replication and standardization, the cultural differences force the four western companies to transform their orientation towards adaptation. This finding was partially unexpected and suggests that for specific type of luxury products the adaptation and flexibility are required despite the drift to replicate the standardized marketing strategies. These results are consistent with those of other studies suggesting the need for a balanced approach of standardization and adaptation in managing the international strategies.
Can Cosmetics’ Advertisements Be An Indicator of Different Perceptions of Beauty Amongst Countries?
Aesthetic Plastic Surgery
Background: We reviewed cosmetics advertisements from several parts of the world to study if the concept of beauty varies among different Countries. Materials and Methods: We used YouTube search engine and key words: "cosmetics", "advertisements" and the name of each Country that was included in our study in the language of the relevant Country. The faces of the models were compared against Marquardt® beauty mask template. Results: Common characteristics amongst models in different parts of the world were: symmetry, high cheek bones, small noses, thin jaws, lush hair, clean and smooth skin, white toothed smile. Latin America, USA, and Australia preferred tanned models and fuller lips whilst China, Japan, Korea and Thailand preferred milky white skin models and small mouth. Age ratio was lower amongst models in China, Japan, Thailand and Korea cosmetics compared to American, European, Indian, Australian and Arab models. Arab and South East Asia women liked intense eyebrows and used artificial eyelashes. Korean, Chinese and Japanese models had small faces with pointy chins. Conclusions: All the common characteristics noted by the two independent surgeons (GAS and LP) referred to symmetry, neoteny and health. Differences noticed reflected cultural influences in the perception of beauty.
Advertisers have spent a fortune perfecting the art of selling us products that we don't need, by appealing to our insecurities. For women these can be many, since this culture often encourages us to be dissatisfied with our bodies from an early age. The fashion industry requires us to buy what it sells." Caryn Franklin (1999. 1). "Most of the time most adult individuals do not perceive themselves to be in the market for the product being advertised. Even when they are, commercials very often miss-hit or overshoot their target. Commercials regularly miscommunicate because the actual audiences they address are quite different from the hypothesized or targeted audience "(Keane, 1991 86-87) "I'm looking for clothes that suit me to a T.
Gender representations in East Asian advertising: Hong Kong, Japan, and South Korea (SCOPUS)
Gender representations in television advertisements have been a subject of academic research for many years. However, comparatively few studies have looked into television advertising’s gender representations in Confucian societies, particularly from a comparative perspective. This study compares the representation of males and females in 1,694 television advertisements from Hong Kong, Japan, and South Korea. It uncovers stereotypical gender representations related to age (females were predominantly young, males were middle-aged), clothing/nudity (females were more suggestively dressed, males were fully clothed), work (females were depicted more often at home, males were typically depicted in the workplace), authority (males were used for voiceovers more than females, with males being the so-called “voice of authority”), and beauty (more females than males advertised for the cosmetics/toiletries product category). Overall, gender representations were highly stereotypical in all three cultures, which may be due to a shared common cultural background based on Confucianism. In terms of the degree of gender stereotyping, Hong Kong was more gender-egalitarian than Japan and South Korea; this finding is consistent with results from Project Globe’s gender egalitarianism index and the Gender-related Development Index (GDI) by the United Nations, but not with Hofstede’s masculinity index. These results suggest a relationship between gender representations and some gender indices. Finally, this article discusses the possible effects of stereotypical gender representations on audiences in relation to social cognitive and cultivation theories.
How Chinese young consumers respond to gendered advertisements
Young Consumers, 2014
1 Purpose -Chinese girls and women represent a huge market for personal as well as household goods. The purpose of this study is to examine the effectiveness of advertisements with different female role portrayals in a second-tier city with "first-class opportunities".
Gender representations in East Asian advertising: Hong Kong, Japan, and South Korea
Gender representations in television advertisements have been a subject of academic research for many years. However, comparatively few studies have looked into television advertising’s gender representations in Confucian societies, particularly from a comparative perspective. This study compares the representation of males and females in 1,694 television advertisements from Hong Kong, Japan, and South Korea. It uncovers stereotypical gender representations related to age (females were predominantly young, males were middleaged), clothing/nudity (females were more suggestively dressed, males were fully clothed), work (females were depicted more often at home, males were typically depicted in the workplace), authority (males were used for voiceovers more than females, with males being the so-called “voice of authority”), and beauty (more females than males advertised for the cosmetics/toiletries product category). Overall, gender representations were highly stereotypical in all three...
The Growth of International Women¡¯s Magazines in China and the Role of Transnational Advertising
International women's magazines have been expanding into China for the past few decades. This expansion is, in large part, driven by global brands in need of advertising vehicles for their transnational products. In this paper, we analyze the growth of international women's magazines in China and the role advertising plays in these magazines. Through a content analysis of the advertising in three types of Mandarin-language women's magazines available in China: a Western-based, a Japanese-based and a local, we compared the content of these magazines. We found that international women's magazines are more commercialized in content than local Chinese magazines and that Western-brands dominated the advertising in international magazines. The most advertised products in women's fashion and beauty magazines in China are beauty and personal care products. We also found a significant difference in the race of models used in advertising in women's magazines in China with the Western magazine using predominately Caucasian models while the Japanese and the local Chinese magazine used predominately Asian models.
This study gives a most recent view of nudity in Chinese magazine advertising. Focusing on gender, racial and brand differences, the authors content analyzed 2,058 models in 19 Chinese consumer magazines from a stratified random sample of four months in 2009. Results showed that female models were more likely to be shown in different levels of nudity than male models, and Western models were more likely to be shown in different levels of nudity than Chinese models, as predicted. However, regarding brand origin, although Western advertisers portrayed models in higher levels of nudity, Western and Chinese advertisers did not differ in their portrayals when models were examined separately by brand origin. Our study suggests that sexism in advertising is a cross-cultural phenomenon, and Western advertising models are the trend setters of sexual images in Chinese magazine advertising. Chinese advertising is not only a “melting pot” of cultural values, but also a “melting pot” of advertising practices.