Performative Activism: The Ultimate Marketing Strategy

Throughout the decades, companies have been known to resort to multiple branding strategies in order to boost sales amongst people based on popular trends. Presently, companies are increasingly using performative or surface-level activism as a marketing strategy to target today’s socially conscious generation. Performative activism refers to the campaigning done to gain social capital and build company reputation rather than bring about social or political change. Amidst global anti-racist protests and pushback over controversial skin-lightening products and lack of racial diversity of models in advertisements, the world’s largest cosmetic and beauty company, L’Oreal announced that it would stop using words like “whitening” and “fair” when describing its products. Johnson & Johnson announced that it would stop selling whitening products in Asia and the Middle East. Hindustan Unilever Limited is another company that jumped on this trend, deciding to drop the word ‘Fair’ from one of its most popular products, ‘Fair & Lovely’, and change it to ‘Glow & Lovely.’ These rebranding exercises came about after many cosmetic brands were called for social media posts in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, which was seen as hypocritical and insufficient. Companies like these have promptly implemented such moves as a response to the increasing emphasis on slashing down standardized beauty norms and increasing representation of varying skin tones and body types. Although these moves seem positive, it can be argued that they are considerably shallow in the face of decades of perpetuating a mindset where fair skin is equated with beauty and success.

An example of a performative marketing strategy used by companies is their gradual inclusion of diverse body types in branding. While featuring plus-size models in advertisements and billboards is welcomed as a progressive solution to counter the unrealistic standards of thinness, these standards were imposed on young women by the multibillion-dollar fashion industry itself. Even now, the body positivity movement and self-love campaigns are being packaged and used as an aesthetic or a trend for corporate marketing by companies. These companies do not have any real incentive to put an end to the conditions that lead to body dissatisfaction or self-worth and self-esteem issues amongst women. They are, however, compelled to implement marketing and PR strategies to ensure that consumers keep buying their products. Similarly, cosmetics companies will continue to sell whitening skincare and beauty products as long as there is a demand for them in the market, regardless of any changes in names or branding.

The increasing prevalence of body image issues and eating disorders amongst young women is a direct consequence of capitalism’s willingness to sacrifice the well-being of people in order to feed on their insecurities and anxieties. In a capitalist system, people have been conditioned to hate themselves and their bodies so that quick fixes that will solve all their problems can be sold to them by capitalists. Famous media personalities and influencers like the Kardashians whose target audience consists almost exclusively of young people have promoted diet culture and unrealistic body types to their impressionable viewers with products like appetite-suppressing lollipops and shakes. These products are not only potentially harmful but also are often not used by the celebrities who endorse them. These celebrities can afford personal trainers, nutritionists, plastic surgeons, and chefs while they peddle goods and services to working-class people under the pretense of achieving unrealistic beauty ideals. Kim Kardashian, who has a line of shapewear and flaunted a painful corset at the Met Gala in 2019, used the body positivity movement to advertise her new body fragrances in 2018. As part of a promotional campaign for the same, she posted a series of close-up images on Instagram that showed cellulite and stretch marks on a diverse range of body types.

Historically and even now, definitions of beauty, health, and fitness are strategically designed to keep selling products that supposedly make consumers more beautiful, healthier, and fitter. Companies tap into collective prejudices, primarily against dark-skinned people or those who don’t fit the “ideal” skinny body type, for instance, to ensure that people continue to participate in the system that exists to oppress. Now that these problematic standards and ideals are finally being challenged, companies are commodifying the counter-narrative and using it to sell the same products under the guise of newer, progressive, and more “woke” ideologies.

References

Geller, M. (2020, June 26). L'Oreal to drop words such as 'whitening' from skin products. Retrieved August 18, 2020, from https://www.reuters.com/article/us-l-oreal-whitening/loreal-to-drop-words-such-as-whitening-from-skin-products-idUSKBN23X224

Bauknecht, S. (2020, July 28). Beauty industry called on to go beyond saying 'Black Lives Matter' with action. Retrieved August 18, 2020, from https://www.post-gazette.com/life/fashion/2020/07/13/Beauty-industry-Black-Lives-Matter-Bombshell-Mented-Crayon-Case-Fenty-Sephora/stories/202007130005

Hosie, R. (2018, October 30). People are pointing out a fundamental flaw in Kim Kardashian West's new 'body positive' fragrance campaign. Retrieved August 18, 2020, from https://www.insider.com/kim-kardashian-body-positive-fragrance-campaign-has-key-flaw-critics-point-out-2018-10