With the increasing amount of time being spent with eyes glued to a screen, there are more gateways than ever for advertisements to reach the public eye. And with that, there are also more opportunities to encourage people to establish a healthy self-image. But when businesses try to use their marketing platform to promote a healthy lifestyle and inspire consumers to love their bodies, I wonder if they truly care about their customers' levels of self-confidence, or if they are just attempting to attract customers by taking the celebratory approach to physical appearance and trying to not look like those "fat-shaming" businesses, such as Abercrombie and Fitch.
Abercrombie and Fitch is not only famous for its uninhabitable shops with dim lighting, deafening music, and suffocating perfume and cologne odors, but also for their black and white larger-than-life photos of topless models lying in a field, or posing sensuously in front of a barn door or on a beach. These images portray the only type of people A&F admittedly wants to wear their products: thin men and women between fourteen and twenty-five years old with flawless skin, toned muscles, full lips, and hair that looks seductively gorgeous when blown in the wind. And Abercrombie only wants these types of people to buy their products because, according to A&F CEO Mike Jeffries, cool people are thin, not overweight.
In an interview with Salon in 2006, Mike Jeffries said Abercrombie only markets to "cool, good-looking people. We don't market to anyone other than that." He went on to say "A lot of people don't belong [in our clothes], and they can't belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely." Now I get that as CEO of A&F it is Jeffries' job to reach out to the target group and also to make it clear who their target group is. So on one hand he is simply stating who the business markets to as their target group, but I wish he would have just stopped there because, on the other hand, he adds that A&F only markets to these kinds of people because these are supposed to be the "cool people." The photos of the A&F models imply that only lean, athletic, and pretty people are cool, and anyone else with bodies and faces not even close to that don't belong in their clothes.
And of course, A&F doesn't just market to athletic and thin people, but they also only hire people who look the same at least something close to an A&F model to work in their stores. And, get this, if they do hire someone who looks less than an A&F model, A&F keeps them working in the back where they won't be seen as often by customers.
Businesses are free to market to whomever they want, I get that. Lane Bryant markets strictly to women of sizes 14-32. So it should be alright for a business to market to a certain size and age group. Personally I wish there was a store that made clothes for women of my age with my measurements (I'm a size 0 from the waist up but a size 4 on the hips). However, the views of A&F's CEO about who should be categorized as cool people is horrifically superficial, and the fact that he is also apparently not shy about sharing his opinion is quite disgusting.
At least we can have a little chuckle over the fact that "Abercrombie shares are tanking" since A&F decided to keep Mike Jeffries as their CEO. (Business Insider, 2013).
And then of course there are other businesses in skin care, clothing, exercise equipment, diet food products, and perfume which all hype you into buying their stuff so you can look and feel prettier, because no one can possibly be happy with themselves unless you look like this guy:
| A&F CEO Mike Jeffries |
On the other hand, there are a few businesses who are promoting a healthy and positive self-image through their marketing tactics. We are quite familiar with Dove's Movement for Self-Esteem videos, as well as their video for revealing how photoshop completely transforms models, and their Beauty Sketch video, along with their commercials and magazine ads with women of all shapes and sizes in white underwear. Special K is also trying to promote healthy body images by addressing how women "fat talk" to themselves which ruins their own view of their bodies. Here is the video:
This is an eye opening statement. Lots of women, and men too, can be very critical about their own bodies. This campaign about ending "fat talk" is a positive thing to embrace. Next time I go clothes shopping I'm going to remember this commercial and stop myself from scowling at the cellulite on my thighs or how pale I look in the mirror. But then again, it's hard to tell if Special K really does want to encourage people to accept their bodies for what they look like (without even mentioning their diet products) even though a couple years ago their campaign was "What will you gain when you lose?" as if we all needed to lose a pound or more to gain a positive self-image. Now we have a mixed bag of positive and negative implications, so it's hard to decide what Special K's real position is. Is it "accept yourself for who you are" or, "you need to lose some weight to feel better about yourself?"
Having said that, I would still rather purchase products from businesses that promote and encourage a healthy self-image for ALL body types instead of bluntly excluding or shaming those who are, according to the media, not considered beautiful. In other words, A&F out, Dove and Special K in. Anyone want my A&F sweatshirts?
I'd like to also point out that it's not just businesses that have an influence through the media, but also the celebrities we see in TV shows, movies, magazine covers, and the rising number of autobiographies we see in book shops or on Amazon.com (is it just me or do more and more celebrities each year insist on publishing autobiographies so they can milk as much out of their fame as they possibly can before they turn 30? Derek Hough and Justin Bieber, give me a break.)
Jennifer Lawrence, star of the Hunger Games film series, is becoming my hero when it comes to self-image and the media. She has been speaking up in interviews about how the entertainment business constantly picks on aspiring stars to make them lose weight, along pressuring stars into getting breast augmentations, or botox injections, or butt lifts, or liposuction, or any dramatic image-altering procedure, even when they are perfectly healthy and look absolutely fine. In the last year Lawrence has talked in several interviews about her experience of being criticized for her appearance and has shared her own views on body image. In an interview with Marissa Mayer on Yahoo, she answered a question from a reporter who was asking a question by request of his young daughter in reference to being judged by peers based on one's appearance. "Well screw those people" she said, and everyone laughed. She continues her answer: "the world has this certain idea, you know. We see this air-brushed, perfect model, and then if you don't look like that then you're . . . " and she then notes that she has lots of thoughts on this subject but continues to say:
"You just have to look past it. You look how you look, and be comfortable. Like, what are you gonna do, be hungry every single day to make people happy? That's just dumb. And, you know, there are shows like the Fashion Police and things like that are just showing these generations of young people to judge people based on things that . . . they put value in all the things that are wrong and say it's okay to just point at people and call them ugly and call them fat, and then call it "fun," and "welcome to the real world," and it's like, that shouldn't be the real world" . . . "not until we stop treating each other like that and stop calling each other fat, with these unrealistic expectations for women. It's disappointing that the media keeps it alive and fuels that fire and, that's something that really bothers me, because I love to eat."
It is really encouraging to see celebrities take advantage of their platform by encouraging their fans to love themselves for who they are and learning to be comfortable with their own bodies. Honestly it is a breath of fresh air that Lawrence didn't say "I eat mostly watery vegetables and blended liquids and do crazy workouts almost every day just to keep myself in shape, and I don't feel pretty unless I can wrap a red vine around my waistline," or something else that ridiculous. Keep it up, Jennifer! If you are ever in SB let's go grab some In N' Out.
One more thing I want to talk about is how everybody with a computer now has an opportunity to promote healthy self-images to their peers. So many people have Facebook profiles they use to share their thought of the day (or hour), and plenty of other people have Twitter accounts, Instagram, Pinterest boards, and more and more people are starting their own blogs. As I think about it now, I want to take the time to write another post in the future concerning my own thoughts on body image. My thoughts now are just on how the media addresses body-image, good or bad, so my own opinions will be posted for a later time. For any of my readers who have blogs or a voice on the internet, I encourage you to take the time to reflect on your own thoughts of body image and consider how you could use your internet voice to share those thoughts with others. You may not know it, but I'm sure you have some friends, or maybe "Facebook Friends" who are struggling with the way they view their bodies, and just maybe your voice will inspire others to learn to feel comfortable with themselves.
http://www.businessinsider.com/abercrombie-wants-thin-customers-2013-5#ixzz2nhRUaxVa
http://www.businessinsider.com/abercrombie-wants-thin-customers-2013-5#ixzz2nhRJhrrY
http://shine.yahoo.com/healthy-living/special-k-39-39-fat-talk-39-ad-205200658.html
http://www.businessinsider.com/abercrombie-keeps-ceo-michael-jeffries-2013-12
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-bloom/how-to-talk-to-little-gir_b_882510.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2504201/Joan-Rivers-lashes-Jennifer-Lawrence-criticising-Fashion-Police.html
http://shine.yahoo.com/author-blog-posts/jennifer-lawrence-wants-outlaw-word-fat-220000518.html
