A recent study in the Journal of Consumer Research found ads featuring beauty products lower women's self-esteem.
The authors, three marketing professors from the Netherlands, conducted four experiments to examine the different meanings consumers gleaned from advertised versus non-advertised products across a wide range of items, according to a press release. In one study, the authors exposed female study participants to either a beauty-enhancing product (eye shadow, perfume) or a problem-solving product (acne concealer, deodorant). The product was either embedded in an advertisement (with a shiny background and a fake brand name) or it was depicted against a neutral white background.
The researchers -- Debra Trampe of the University of Groningen, Diederik Stapel of Tilburg University, and Frans Siero of the University of Groningen -- particularly probed how the advertisements made the subjects feel about themselves.
After exposure to the advertised beauty-enhancing products, consumers were more likely to think about themselves less positively than when they viewed the same products outside of their advertisements, the authors found. The same effect did not show up when the items were problem-solving products.
The authors concluded that ads for beauty-enhancing products seem to make consumers feel that their current attractiveness levels are different from what they would ideally be.
"Consumers seem to 'compare' themselves to the product images in advertisements, even though the advertisement does not include a human model," the authors wrote in the report, according to the statement. "Exposure to beauty-enhancing products in advertisements lowered consumers' self-evaluations, in much the same way as exposure to thin and attractive models in advertisements has been found to lower self-evaluations."
Discussion Questions: Does it make sense that beauty ads affect the self-esteem of women in a similar manner to using thin models in advertisements? What would you expect beauty marketers to do with this information?