“Beauty Backlash” – The Reaction

After watching the short documentary, “Beauty Backlash”, I had two thoughts. The beauty industry has found an AMAZINGLY successful way to sell their products, and unfortunately they have to violate ethical guidelines to do so.

The way the beauty industry sells its products is through the insecurities of its consumers. They play on what people are self-conscious about, creating a need, and then answer this need with some expensive “potion or lotion”. This industry is hugely profitable and the business model seems to be working, from a finance prospective anyway. Not all companies in the beauty industry have chosen this business model. As depicted in the documentary, Dove, has chosen a different route. Dove is using “real” people, not models, to sell their products. While I think this is an awesome campaign/business model, I wish the documentary had gone into a little more detail as to how successful it has been from a financial standpoint.

Playing on the insecurities of their consumers is terribly unethical in my opinion. The companies are using these insecurities against consumers, and I believe they are creating insecurities in young women that may have not existed previously. I think Dove’s approach is very admirable and wish that all other companies would follow suit. Likelihood of this happening? Slim to none. Why? Money and profits. Although the documentary never mentions it, I do not believe the Dove business model is quite as profitable as it could be if it followed more traditional business practices. Who’s to blame? Well we can easily point the finger at the business industry for their unethical advertisements of skinny, skinny women, the use of airbrushing, etc., but I also think one should consider the consumer herself/himself. Consumers are obviously buying into these types of advertisements and giving their business to the beauty companies. People are so influenced by the media that they feel a pressure, of sorts, to be “beautiful”. This makes me sad. The “confident” women in the Dove advertisements are rare, in my opinion. In the documentary, a high school girl makes the comment, “I don’t have a single friend that is happy with every part of their body”. After hearing that, I stopped and asked myself the same question. My answer? The same! I do not know a single person who is 100% happy with every part of their body.

So we are left with a problem to solve. Knowing how to go about fixing the lack of confidence and self-esteem issues in people all over the world is a puzzling thought. I don’t think the beauty industry is going to just change their way of advertising so the solution is going to have to start with the consumers themselves. I think education is going to be key. Young people need to be aware of the marketing strategies used by the beauty industry and the taught to love themselves for who they are not who they are not.