Beauty in Advertising

Very often we ask ourselves questions about beauty. What is beauty? How do we consider someone beautiful? Is there such a thing as beauty by standards or are well all just perfectly beautiful in the eyes of our creator.

In the short-term beauty is important because society has put so much emphasis on it being an admired and sought-after trait. You can thank marketing and advertising industries for much of that. They use it to sell pretty much everything... Some countries are more notoriously concerned with beauty than others. Some of the most successful ads in history have sold thanks to the emphasis they laid on beauty. It is especially true for the cosmetics and fashion industry, but as the trend grew in traction every industry has copied from the oldest trick in the book. Today even banks, insurance, pharmaceuticals, beverage companies, have used beauty standards to advertise.

From smoothing skin and erasing wrinkles to enlarging muscles and slimming waists, airbrushing, or "photoshopping," men and women to so-called perfection is the norm in advertising. These images don't reflect reality, yet from a younger and younger age, people are aspiring to these biologically impossible ideals.
For some, the desire to look as perfect as these models can become all-consuming, and a wealth of evidence suggests that people in the UK are experiencing serious body image problems -- a trend undoubtedly replicated around the globe. People unhappy about their bodies can develop eating disorders, turn to diet pills or steroids, or try cosmetic surgery and Botox injections.

One study found that one in four people is depressed about their body, another found that almost a third of women say they would sacrifice a year of life to achieve the ideal body weight and shape, and almost half of girls in a recent survey think the pressure to look good is the worst part of being female. These very real and serious issues are not helped by the impossible visions of perfection everywhere in our visual culture. A growing body of scientific evidence reinforces the link between negative body image and exposure to idealized images.

We have grown from being told that beauty is white to fair skin and now inclusive campaigns that value different shades & colours. Beauty used to be slim & the perfect waist but now beauty is every shape & size. The truth is these companies have figured out our biggest fantasies about perfection thus they are simply selling us our dreams. In the end we only need self-validation to be comfortable in our skin to feel truly beautiful. Beauty is in you and from within, no matter what colour, shape or size you are.