Advertising and Marketing are at the forefront of the beauty industry. I strongly believe that with good adverts and marketing you could sell the most awful product in existence. For decades brands have kept up to date with the latest marketing trends to ensure maximum sales targets are reached.
It all started many years ago with a young lady called Helena Rubinstein as she stepped off a cruise ship in the winter of 1914 in New York City, a place that will become a poster place for all things fashion and beauty. She noted that woman in New York were pasty, with 'Purple noses and grey lips' and she said that she recognised that the United States could very well be her life's work. After her passing in 1965, Helena had left behind a $60 Million dollar beauty industry in which she helped and some will say built herself and eventually created a stepping stone for the beauty brands of today.
Helena mostly concentrated on skin care, claiming her products would reverse the signs of ageing completely, whilst we know today that wasn't entirely true, back then, her clever and manipulative marketing strategies gained her worldwide status and luxury status amongst many of the worlds rich and famous. Helena's excellent marketing technique and accentuate opinion on how a woman should never age built her success with flagship stores opening all over the world in some of today's most desirable places such as London's Mayfair, Paris, New York, Chicago, and San Francisco.
As make up was frowned upon back in the 20th Centuary due to people assuming a lady with a painted face was up to no good, or a prostitute in today's society. This didn't stop Helena's desire for complete beauty domination and she eventually ventured into make up starting with tinted face powders and lipsticks. Helena was about to come head to head with a brand we all know today, which will become her main competeor and ultimate enemy, Elizabeth Arden. Born Florence Nightingale Graham in 1881, Florence worked in many stores after leaving her hometown in Toronto and eventually started the company Elizabeth Arden, in which her name would soon be on the list alongside Helena on the earliest Global Beauty Brands. The brand Elizabeth Arden is a popular choice amongst more older females within today's society with its excellent anti ageing skincare and can be seen is so many department stores across the UK such as Selfridges, Debenhams, John Lewis and House Of Frazer. Florence's main skill within the brand concentrated around the packaging and promotion of her products, she had the ability to transform any product or salon into something spectacular, no matter how rubbish or poor it may have been. Florence started to run 20 minute cinema advertisement's in 1940 which was called Young and Beautiful. Both Florence and Helena were crucial people in today's ever growing youth obsessed beauty market.
By the 1950's make up was nearly accepted everywhere and with this came another rival that both Florence and Helena hated, the brand Revlon, created by Charles Revson. Originally starting out as a nail varnish based product company, Revlon eventually ventured out into cosmetics and the rest is history, the brand is still well known and loved today. Revlon was also the first brand to embrace TV commercials and dedicated much time to the advertisement of his products.
During the years of Helena, Florence and Charles, luxury was everything. High rolling members of society wanted ultimate luxury at any cost and the product itself was just not enough. The times here are just the start of marketing beauty and throughout the years you can see how drastically it has changed and evolved. From Hollywood, Maralyn Monroe to Today's instagram stars, marketing beauty is at the forefront of cosmetic sales, as opposed to the products themselves.
Today's marketing techniques are similar to those of the 20's,30's and 50's. Companies today have embraced social media and the digital era we are now living in which massively increases their target audience and number of potential customers. Brands such as MAC cosmetics, who use popular stars or characters to entice customers, Make Up For Ever who use YouTube stars to sell more products. Brands tell us how we want to look and how we should look. These brands then pass this style on make up artists who adopt the style which then means they receive free products, these MUA's then plaster these styles onto Film stars, celebrities or pop stars which attracts wide and popular demand of a product. The whole world of marketing beauty is brilliantly done, which is why I want to focus my career upon leaving university in marketing and the promotion of cosmetics. I have read this book twice now and I can not recommend reading it enough. [Branded Beauty, Tungate Mark]
Tungate, M. Branded Beauty. Kogan Page, UK AND USA. 2011.
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