Beauty

Had another interesting Consumer Beahviour class today. The topic of discussion was motivation. What exactly leads a consumer to buy a product? What does he actually look in a product and how marketers exploit this?

And what better topic of discussion than the fixation with fair skin.. The advertisements of fair and lovely and that of the recently introduced fair and handsome. These ads have received a lot of flak for depicting dark skin as low in confidence and a thing to be ashamed of. To try and emulate the fair models and have a better life. These thrive on the fixation with fair skin that has been imbibed in our minds. The counter argument says that these ads depict the reality of the society..

Some say these ads show negativity and then the use of the fairness product leads to positive results. Well isn't this same as showing an add for healthcare products?- You are shown bad conditions that happen when you do not use the product.. These are forms of Negative Reinforcement..

But the difference lies in the fact that these ads thrive on social stigma, and instead of allevating them they elevate it..

And this aspect is common to nearly all the beauty products. The fixation with artificial beauty has led to severe effects on young girls who are exposed to the world's fixation with the artificial beauty (anorexia, fair skin) and causing mental trauma. Spoiling their childhood.

Well to counter this trend there are some ads like Dove's campaign for self esteem which talks about rising up and educating the kids about true beauty. To make children aware that their role models as in Barbie doll figure are unsustainbale (A real life Barbie would not even be able to stand let alone walk)

But it is a irony given the fact that the company Unilever which is the owner of the Dove brand also owns Fair and Lovely, Axe.

So this brings to the big question..

What is real beauty?

I am no philosopher to ponder on such a subject so i'll leave it at that.