Beauty Advertising – Message and Content An explanatory study and mapping of the global beauty market’s advertising execution. Stockholmzzzzz School of Economics, Philip Jonzon Jarl, 21036 ABSTRACT By an extensive analysis of TV commercials from 38 large brands and sub-brands from beauty segments skin care and color cosmetics, the thesis provides a mapping and an insight into beauty advertisement. This is done by exploring the connection between advertising strategy, message and creative content. A general connection was found where the dominating sales-oriented approach commonly was combined with informational strategies, reaffirming messages and a content with large product focus, information heavy copy and actively participating endorsers. The less frequent, more involvement-oriented approach was more commonly accompanied by transformational strategies, inspiring messages with emotional appeals where the content often was characterized by small product focus, emotional copy and passive endorsers. The latter approach was much more common in skin care, whereas brands in color cosmetics employed very similar strategies and execution of the first kind. Furthermore, a brief discussion was made on the potential societal impact and effect of beauty advertisement, where it can be argued, based on previous research, that the dominating sales-oriented approach with reaffirming messages has a negative effect on consumers’ self-esteem and self-respect. On the contrary, the adverts with inspiring messages can be argued having a positive effect on the same. Table of Contents 1. INTRODUCTION & PURPOSE ........................................................................................................... 4 1.1. PURPOSE AND RESEARCH QUESTION ............................................................................................................ 4 1.2. INDUSTRY OVERVIEW ..................................................................................................................................... 5 1.2.1. Market size and segments ...................................................................................................................... 5 1.2.2. Market history and main players........................................................................................................ 5 1.3. DELIMITATIONS ................................................................................................................................................ 7 1.4. CONTRIBUTIONS ............................................................................................................................................... 7 2. METHODOLOGY ................................................................................................................................... 8 2.1. RESEARCH APPROACH ..................................................................................................................................... 8 2.2 SELECTION OF RESEARCH OBJECTS AND DATA COLLECTION ...................................................................... 8 2.3. TEMPLATE SETUP ............................................................................................................................................. 9 2.4. ANALYSIS ........................................................................................................................................................ 10 2.5 RESEARCH QUALITY ....................................................................................................................................... 11 3. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ....................................................................................................... 12 3.1. ADVERTISING APPEAL .................................................................................................................................. 12 3.2. KEY MESSAGE ................................................................................................................................................. 13 3.3. MESSAGE STRATEGY ..................................................................................................................................... 14 3.4. OPERATIONALIZATION ................................................................................................................................. 15 3.4.1. Framework for mapping and analysis ........................................................................................... 16 4. ANALYSIS OF ADVERTISEMENTS ................................................................................................ 19 4.2. COLOR COSMETICS (CCS) ADVERTISING .................................................................................................. 19 4.2.1. Strategic Content ..................................................................................................................................... 19 4.2.2. Creative Content ....................................................................................................................................... 26 4.2.3. Celebrity endorsement ........................................................................................................................... 32 4.3. SKIN CARE (SKC) ADVERTISING ................................................................................................................ 35 4.3.1. Strategic Content ..................................................................................................................................... 35 4.3.2. Creative content ........................................................................................................................................ 41 4.3.3. Celebrity endorsement ........................................................................................................................... 47 4.4. SKC VS. CCS ................................................................................................................................................... 50 4.4.1. Strategic Content ..................................................................................................................................... 50 4.4.2. Creative Content ....................................................................................................................................... 51 4.5. RETAIL VS. DIRECT-SELLING BRANDS ....................................................................................................... 53 4.5.1. CCS Advertisement ................................................................................................................................... 53 4.5.2. SKC Advertisement .................................................................................................................................. 54 4.6 ANALYSIS SUMMARY ..................................................................................................................................... 57 4.6.1 CCS .................................................................................................................................................................... 57 4.6.2. SKC .................................................................................................................................................................. 60 5. CONCLUSION ...................................................................................................................................... 63 5.1 EMPIRICAL RESULTS ..................................................................................................................................... 63 5.2. CRITICISM ....................................................................................................................................................... 67 5.3. SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH ...................................................................................................... 67 2 6. DISCUSSION ........................................................................................................................................ 68 6.1. PREVIOUS RESEARCH ON ADVERTISING’S SOCIETAL IMPACT ................................................................. 68 6.2. THESIS FINDINGS AND POTENTIAL SOCIETAL IMPACT OF BEAUTY ADVERTISING .............................. 70 7. REFERENCES ...................................................................................................................................... 72 8. ATTACHMENTS ................................................................................................................................. 74 8.1. ONLINE VIDEO REFERENCE LIST.................................................................................................................. 74 8.1.1. CCS ................................................................................................................................................................... 74 8.1.2. SKC .................................................................................................................................................................. 80 8.2. THE TEMPLATES ........................................................................................................................................... 86 8.2.1. SKC .................................................................................................................................................................. 86 8.2.2. CCS Lipstick & Gloss ...............................................................................................................................