Most women’s magazines simply try to mold women into bigger and better consumers.
—Gloria Steinem
Women’s magazines are packed with articles promising readers that if they lose weight, look younger, or “improve” themselves in some other way, they can have it all—the perfect love life, well-behaved kids, great sex, and a rewarding career. No problem! As if slimmer thighs and thicker hair will get you a man and a corner office. But the messaging doesn’t stop there. These so-called self-help pieces—which are monthly staples in every chick slick—are surrounded by advertisements for the myriad must-have products required to reach these goals. Coincidence? Not a chance. The placement of editorial content and advertising is as premeditated as a covert CIA operation.
To stay afloat, all women’s magazines depend on the advertising dollars of fashion and beauty products. Even magazines typically thought of as our mother’s and grandmother’s magazines, like Good Housekeeping, which was so named to cover the cleaning, decorating, and homemaking skills every good wife and mother needed to possess, showcases ads of clothes, creams, bags, and shoes. Often they are pricey, and worse, they are placed strategically throughout the glossies to lure readers to splurge on items the magazine articles suggest they need. Read a magazine piece on how to stave off the effects of sun damage, how to drop a few pounds before swimsuit season, or the ten must-have closet staples, and notice how close they are to ads for antiaging creams, weight loss supplements, and a shoe designer.
It’s an insidious relationship, and the success of both magazine and advertiser is dependent on manipulating you, the trusting reader, into obeisance to them. Thus, rather than run articles about the wisdom of “Eating for Nutrition, Not Narcissism” or “Embracing Your Imperfect Ass,” magazines find seemingly friendly ways to undermine your sense of well-being by running articles that promise simple ways to overcome difficult-to-achieve standards of beauty and lifestyle, while taunting you with slim young models in advertisements that beckon you with sure-fire fixes.
Consider this: according to a Media Awareness Network article called “Beauty and Body Image in the Media,” researchers report that “chick slicks have ten times more ads and articles promoting weight loss than men’s magazines do, and over three-quarters of the covers of women’s magazines include at least one message about how to change your body or appearance—by diet, exercise, beauty products, or cosmetic surgery.”1 It’s no wonder the beauty and diet industries are booming. (Their profits range from forty to one hundred billion dollars each year, people.)
Bottom line: magazines need advertisers to stay afloat, and advertisers need magazines to sell products. It’s a simple case of you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours, but at your expense.
Worse, research indicates that “exposure to images of too-thin, too-perfect, airbrushed female bodies are linked to depression, loss of self-esteem, and the development of unhealthy eating habits in women and girls, yet thin, young models and celebrities are favored by advertisers.”2 And according to the research group Anorexia Nervosa and Related Eating Disorders, “one out of every four college-aged women uses unhealthy methods of weight control—including fasting, skipping meals, excessive exercise, laxative abuse, and self-induced vomiting.”3 The pressure to be thin also affects young girls. The Media Awareness study cites a 2003 Teen magazine survey reporting that 35 percent of girls six to twelve years old have been on at least one diet, and that 50 to 70 percent of normal-weight girls believe they are overweight.4
When you couple these sad facts with data showing that advertisers and editors think women who are insecure about themselves are more likely to buy beauty products, accessories, clothing, and diet aids, then you can see a disturbing agenda behind the friendly product taglines and go-girl dieting-advice articles that appear monthly in the glossy pages of women’s magazines.
GLOSSY FACT
In 2011, the U.K.’s Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) banned L’Oreal advertisements featuring Julia Roberts and supermodel Christy Turlington for being “overly airbrushed.” L’Oreal admitted the images were digitally manipulated and retouched, but denied they were misleading. The company insisted they “accurately illustrated” the effects of their products, and that the image of Roberts, taken by celebrity photographer Mario Testino, was an “aspirational picture.”5
Of course, from time to time, efforts to buck these trends take place within the magazine industry. Women’s glossies occasionally forgo retouching a photo or proffer up the before and after picture of some gutsy celebrity so readers can see what’s been lobbed, swiped, washed out, or erased by a computerized retouching tool (more on this in chapter 5). Some magazines have been bold enough to showcase curvier models or actresses or claim that they “strive” to showcase women with real bodies, like when Cosmo put Adele on its December 2011 cover instead of the usual waifs. Unfortunately, despite the praise letters that pour into magazines when they pull back the curtain or buck trends, the magazine usually reverts back to its former practice of showcasing thin, flawless women’s images by the next issue.
Sometimes, it’s the advertisers who take the lead, all but forcing magazines to face the issue. The most prominent and far-reaching effort, of course, is the Dove Campaign for Real Women, which launched its own crusade against extreme ideals by portraying more realistic women with ordinary body types in its beauty product advertisements, using catchy taglines like “real women have curves.” Yet despite the campaign’s huge success and the positive feedback of readers and industry leaders alike, few advertisers have followed suit.
Readers Respond
“I love the Dove ads. Every time I pass a billboard, I honestly feel happier about myself. I think, These are real, beautiful women; These are my friends. I feel empowered and motivated. I feel like, ‘Hey, I’m okay!’”
—Ann, mother and court reporter
“A few years back, I pitched a story to Cosmopolitan on body dysmorphic disorder, a mental illness in which the sufferer harps on an imagined or minor physical flaw and beats herself up both emotionally and physically as a result. Of course, they wanted a picture of the subject, so I had to ask for one from my source. When the editor got a load of the picture, she wanted to know if the woman had another one because she didn’t look attractive enough in the photo to appear in the magazine. I couldn’t bear to ask the woman, who already suffered from a body image issue that is often dubbed ‘imagined ugliness,’ for another photo, so I dropped the story.”
—Anne, writer
Other efforts are much more far-reaching, forcing the fashion, advertising, and magazine industry to be more accountable. After twenty-one-year-old Brazilian top model Ana Carolina Reston died in 2006 of anorexia, weighing eighty-eight pounds, the international industry did attempt to implement changes.
Madrid, one of the world’s largest fashion meccas, took a stand against the anorexic ideal in 2006 by banning ultrathin models from the runway. In France, a bill that makes it illegal for anyone, including the fashion industry, advertisers, and websites to publicly incite extreme thinness was passed, and Spain recently developed a project with the aim of standardizing clothing sizes by using a unique process in which a laser beam measures women’s bodies to find the truest standardized measurement.6
GLOSSY FACT
Mascara ads showing Kate Moss sporting “traffic-stopping” eyelashes were banned after complaints that the supermodel’s lashes were false. The magazine and TV ads for Rimmel claimed that MagnifEyes Mascara produced 70 percent more lift with its unique vertical lift brush that helps wearers get the “London look.” The Advertising Standards Authority investigated complaints that the lashes were false and challenged Rimmel to back up their claim that the mascara provided 70 percent more lift. Ad firm J Walter Thompson (JWT) claimed Moss was not wearing false eyelashes, but couldn’t produce any evidence to back the claim. The firm fessed up that the lashes were [digitally] enhanced after the shoot. Because of lack of evidence, the ASA concluded that the images of the eyelashes in the ads may have exaggerated the benefits of the product.7
Despite these inroads, advertisers still rule the magazine marketplace, and if you flip through any woman’s magazine today, it’s clear that when it comes to beauty, clothing, and lifestyle advertisements, being young, thin, and flawless is still in.
Yet despite this “beauty in advertising” trend, most discerning women readers have learned to take advertising with a grain of salt. We may even be used to ads that take poetic license with products, exaggerating the benefits of mascara or the arousing effects of the latest perfume. Uberbeauty and Barbie doll proportions have become the norm and seem to be part of the magazine advertisement game. Further, some women may even believe they’re immune to the ads that appear around the articles they read. But as mentioned before, ad placement is strategic (more on this in the next section), and at one time, it was even guaranteed by contract between the magazine and the advertiser—yes, contract. And whether we believe we’re being influenced or not, the messaging is nonetheless subliminal. For example, an ad for Oil of Olay Regenerist Firming Night Cream might appear near a celebrity profile of, say, Diane Keaton, in which the writer lauds Keaton’s youthful appearance in the article. In the February 2012 issue of Glamour, a one-page beauty article titled “Emma Watson Knows her Beauty Stuff” depicts the Harry Potter starlet surrounded by her favorite lipstick, rouge, moisturizer, and perfume. The page immediately before and directly after the one-page article are advertisements for Revlon, featuring Emma Stone of the hit movie The Help, first surrounded by dozens of Revlon’s lipstick shades and then hawking Revlon’s Weightless Foam Foundation. The Emma Watson piece in the middle could just as easily be an ad; the Emma Stone ads surrounding the article could just as easily be editorial content. Which Emma is which? Which one is the ad; which one is the article?
We can’t remember either.
To prove subliminal messaging exists, one Harvard study had subjects play a computer game where they were exposed to a series of words shown for a few thousandths of a second at a time. Even though the words flashed by too quickly to be noticed, subjects’ brains still registered their effect. People who were shown words like “wise,” “astute,” and “accomplished” walked from the study room significantly faster than those who saw the words “senile,” “dependent,” and “diseased.”8 Subliminal advertising slips by our self-awareness undetected, so our decisions are less informed and our guards don’t even know they should be up.
Readers Respond
“I think advertising is an important part of the content—often more interesting and readable than the stuff offered up by the editors.”
—Jennie, writer and editor
Today, we may expect more transparency from our favorite magazines or even from the brands we like and buy regularly, but the relationship between advertising and editorial has always been deeply purposeful.
Aside from the mixed messaging that editorial content and ads can promote, there is another subtle play at misdirection that some magazines employ, and while it seems innocuous enough in its impact on readers, it’s a terrific example of the coy interplay between magazines and advertisers, at the reader’s expense.
On the inside cover of many women’s magazines today, the editors share the inside scoop of what went on during the photo shoot of their celebrity cover model. The breezy piece might include the iTunes songs they played during the photo shoot, the food they ordered in, quaint or interesting facts about the location they shot in, and a personal tidbit or two about the celebrity, like how Kelly Ripa or Faith Hill arrived with hair in ponytail, wearing torn jeans and Keds, sans makeup, and carrying a box of donuts she thoughtfully brought for the crew. What the editor doesn’t reveal, however, is that when the stylist gets around to doing the cover model’s makeup and hair, she selects whatever products she wants to use, and editors later match up credits to please advertisers. Her pink cheeks? Why that’s Revlon’s Sun-Kissed Glow blush! Her lush coral lips? Maybelline’s Pinkalicious. The styling solution that makes her hair so shiny and bouncy? That’s Garnier Fructis Sleek & Shine Anti-Frizz Serum. Or is it?
GLOSSY FACT
In 2011, the U.K.’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) took yet another cosmetic company to task for false advertising. This time they targeted a L’Oreal Paris ad featuring the forty-one-year-old Rachel Weisz. The problem product? Revitalist Repair 10, which claims to target ten signs of aging. But Weisz’s complexion was apparently too pristine—as in soft, glowing, and perfect. The ASA believed the image must have been altered substantially to make her complexion appear so smooth and even, and concluded that the cream’s promised results were exaggerated and misleading.9
On an ironic side note, they also examined a similar L’Oreal Paris ad with Jane Fonda but found that Jane really did look that great!
Have you ever gone to the makeup counter and tried to snag a palette of blush or tube of lipgloss you saw on the cover celeb? If you have, perhaps you didn’t love it the way you thought you would. It just didn’t look as amazing on you as it did on, say, Kate Winslet or Katie Holmes or Kate Middleton, the Princess of Wales. Hmmm. Disappointed, you probably assumed the problem was you. But the real reason the color fell short of expectation was because those gosh darn beauty editors did the best they could to match up the color used in a photo shoot with a color you can buy in the store. They are not one in the same. It’s just never going to be exactly the right shade because it’s simply not the same product, and that’s why you didn’t love the way it looked on you.
So much for truth in advertising.
The fact is, this little bait and switch is part and parcel of the women’s magazine ad game. Here, advertisers and editors play nicey-nice and editors throw their best advertisers a bone by proffering up a few top-notch products in one of these “what is the celebrity wearing now” moments. The reality is, makeup artists use their own personal makeup palettes. There may be a couple of consumer name brands thrown in to their mix, but makeup artists generally make decisions about what to use based on their preferences and the needs of the shoot. They may blend, mix, and combine colors with the creative intention of Picasso, so a cheek color or an eye shadow may actually be the combination of four different shades of creams, gels, powders, and mineral makeup.
What’s more, colors are changed and adjusted several times over to get just the right glow for the camera and the lighting conditions. And if all the mixing and layering of texture and color doesn’t work, the makeup artist will adjust, blend, and soften for the desired effect, if not swipe it all away and start over. Who knows what cosmetics end up on the celebrity!
Bottom line: rarely is the celebrity’s lip color or eye shadow going to be a single product you’ll find at Walgreens or at the Macy’s makeup counter. That is fiction. Hell, the beauty editors may not even have attended the photo shoot. They were back at their desk, working on something else.
Instead, after the photo shoot is finished, they pore over the cover photo and match the colors that appear on the celeb’s face to a close enough looking stand-in for what’s available over the counter, or what their advertisers would like them to mention. It may be a product they’ve pulled from their sample beauty closet that’s sitting on their desk right that minute. Plus, advertisers want—or even expect—those mentions. So whose makeup is most likely to be written in to that inside scoop? It’s anybody’s guess. There’s no question that editors get close to the colors used on the celebrity, but their selections are often skewed to fit only the interests of their best advertisers—a small wink to their loyalty and ad-dollar largesse.
But this ad game isn’t new; ad folk have had enormous influence on magazine editors since the very first glossies. In fact, some early magazines were created with the sole purpose of supporting product advertising, with editorial features added as a secondary element to draw the reader in.
Ever since Ladies’ Magazine debuted in 1828, editorial copy for women has been influenced by something other than reader’s desires. There were no ads at this time, yet there was another influence the women’s magazine editors had to consider: husbands. “Husbands may rest assured that nothing found in these pages shall cause her [his wife] to be less assiduous in preparing for his reception or encourage her to ‘usurp station’ or encroach upon prerogatives of men,” wrote Sarah Josepha Hale, editor-in-chief of Ladies’ at the time.10 Hale went on to edit Godey’s Lady’s Book and avoided controversial topics of the day, such as slavery, abolition, and women’s suffrage, lest men get their boxers in a wad over the content of what their wives were reading.
But real ads did eventually appear, starting with Butterick sewing patterns and newly available “health remedies” like pain relievers, mouthwashes, antiseptic creams, tinctures, and feminine hygiene products, helping to morph women’s magazines into the catalogs they are today.
For the first time, women could actually purchase (either at local stores or directly through the magazine) what the magazines suggested women not only needed but also wanted. By the time women won the vote in 1920, women’s magazines were portrayed as “browse books” for the goods and products women were meant to desire—such as toasters, washing machines, irons, and vacuum cleaners—as well as a showplace for articles on how to use those products and what those products could do for women. For example, an article on effective homemaking and time-saving tips might run alongside a Hoover Vacuum Cleaner ad. Eventually, magazines—in a quasi-partnership with advertisers—provided complimentary editorial content and special considerations on layout and placements. The Campbell Soup Company, for one, advertised so frequently from the 1910s through the 1950s that the company was able to command a premium position in the magazines. Month after month, soup ads appeared on the right-hand page of pubs like Ladies’ Home Journal, Good Housekeeping, and Woman’s Home Companion adjacent to cooking, homecare, recipes, and other kitchen-related content. Unrelated articles and short-story fiction were almost considered “bonus content,” added to draw women readers to these magazines.
GLOSSY FACT
Early ads tended to be overzealous—even dangerous—in their promised benefits. Believe it or not, Lysol was first advertised as both a household cleaner and a women’s hygiene product. Hard to even imagine! But by the late 1800s, pain-relieving formula advertisements were finally banned for not only being fraudulent but also downright dangerous as well, with ingredients that maimed and killed.
This link between advertising and editorial became so standard that advertising salespeople even directed magazines on where the ads should be placed. If the magazine failed to adhere to their placement demands, it was common for advertisers to jump ship, taking their ad dollars with them—a risk few magazines could afford to take. In many cases, the stipulations were spelled out, particularly before the 1960s and 1970s. Some magazines stood up to the issue, even tried to stay afloat through nonprofit status, grants, and/or subscriptions, but they either soon folded or suffered chronic financial woes. Ms. Magazine was one of the first to call out the insidious relationship. In 1990, then Editor-in-Chief Gloria Steinem wrote a revealing piece titled “Sex, Lies, and Advertising,” in which she revealed the struggle of selling ads for a magazine that promoted a feminine agenda. In a bold move, she also revealed the placement demands commonly made by large corporations of common products. For example, the Dow Corporation stipulated that “Vivid and Spray ‘n Wash should be adjacent to children or fashion editorial,” and “Windex, Drano, Bufferin, and Clairol ads were to be placed next to a full page of compatible editorial,” and The DeBeers Diamond Company prohibited magazines from “placing ads next to hard news or antilove/romance themed editorial.”11
It’s no wonder these demands were so specific. It turns out that these orchestrated moves do have impact. A 1987 study by the Journal of Advertising Research found that the higher the rating of editorial believability, the higher the rating of the surrounding advertising.12 And while the practice of “product placement” (subliminally placing ads next to corresponding editorial in hopes of higher sales quotas for the product) is not only highly controversial but also frowned upon, it still exists. A 2005 PQ Media report that tracked product placement in so-called “other media” (aside from movies, television, books, and video games) found that the biggest segment of product placement in consumer magazines was not in small, obscure special interest publications like Garden and Gun, but in general interest women’s titles, “which contributed the highest share of product placement spending at $35.5 million that year.”13
During the Association of National Advertisers’ 2005 Print Advertising Forum in New York, top editors representing the American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME) “denied that their publications—or any major magazine titles—accepted product placements,” and certainly not the paid placements being bantered around by the PQ report. But advertisers and agency executives speaking at that same forum implied the practice was not only employed but pervasive. What’s more, a survey of members from the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) that was released at the conference showed magazines were the second most common medium for product placement deals after television.14 And this despite official “guidelines” established by the magazine industry against it (see below).
American Society of Magazine Editors Guidelines for Advertisers and Publishers 2011
Advertising Adjacencies
a. Editors and publishers should avoid positioning advertisements near editorial pages that discuss or show the same or similar products sold by the advertiser (a rule of thumb used by many magazines is, the reader must turn the page at least twice between related ad and editorial).
b. Editors and publishers should also avoid the following:
i. positioning advertisements for products and services endorsed by or associated with public figures near editorial content concerning those public figures
ii. positioning advertisements for motion pictures, television programs, recordings and similar works near editorial content concerning participants in those works
Unfortunately, the updated ASME guidelines are no more followed today than they were when Ms. Steinem found it impossible to please advertisers for Ms. magazine. Now, instead of advertisers overtly dictating to magazines where their ads should be placed, the battle for placement becomes an in-house issue between the magazine’s advertising sales department—which is trying to please advertisers and make sales—and the magazine’s editorial department, which is trying to maintain the integrity of the magazine’s editorial content while balancing the need to keep the ad dollars flowing so that they can remain in business. And though readers aren’t privy to these behind-the-scenes politics and backdoor deals, the eventual compromises are evident when they flip through the latest copy of any chick slick.
Insider Input
“We live in a day and age where advertising spills over to editorial content, and the type of content that readers want. Editors are constantly in a battle to keep advertisers happy, as well as readers. But the line is thin and often crossed. How many times have you opened up a magazine to see advertorial content spill on to editorial content? Sometimes, the reader cannot even distinguish between the two at first glance.”
—Stacy Lipson, freelance journalist
Let’s skim through a few magazines to see how the relationship between articles and advertising stacks up today, especially when it comes to beauty and body image:
From the November 2011 issue of Redbook:
Page 28: “My Almost Fling: What Happens in Vegas Gets Confessed Right Here,” a writer’s recount of the wildest moments on her girlfriend getaway.
Page 29: Ad for Jergens Overnight Repair, with the tagline, “The difference between tired skin and rejuvenated skin.”
Page 54: “Sizzling Style Tips from Diane von Furstenberg.”
Page 55: Ad for Suave Professional Line shampoo and conditioner that portrays twin women’s heads with shiny slick hair-do’s and the tagline, “Can you tell the difference? Top stylists can’t.”
Pages 61–62: “Wash Your Face Right,” an article on proper technique and steps for cleansing.
Page 63: Dove Body Wash ad; copy reads “Discover the difference of Dove nourishment.”
Page 66: “Celebeauties,” a column including three new celebrity beauty trends, one being the latest in Hollywood manicures.
Page 67: Essie nail polish ad for the shade Cocktail Bling, with the tagline “I like to arm myself with Cocktail Bling.”
Page 68: Antiaging section with an article titled “The Truth about DNA and Antiaging Products.”
Adjacent Insert: Three-page foldout ad for Garnier Dark Spot Corrector to erase age spots.
Page 69: “My Hands Are Starting to Look Like my Grandmother’s,” an article with advice offered from a dermatologist, chemist, and manicurist on keeping hands young.
Page 80: “Lazy Women’s Fitness” column, including what to eat for a flatter belly.
Page 81: Ad for Special K dark chocolate protein shakes and protein meal bars.
From the May 2011 issue of Glamour:
Page 96: “Spring Bags” (one-page feature showcasing flowered designer handbags).
Page 97: Ad for Maybelline Perfect Pastel Eye Shadow in spring colors.
Pages 118–120: “Your Top Swimsuit Questions Answered,” an article with many photos of bikini-clad women.
Page 121: Ad for Sally Hansen Wax Warmer Kit, a plug-in waxing system for no-hassle hair removal.
Page 131: “29 New Things to Do with your Hair,” a four-page spread on haircare and styles.
Pages: 130, 133, and 135: Ads for Garnier Fructis Sleek and Shine Serum, shampoo, and styling products.
Page: 144: “Seven Gorgeous Eye Ideas,” makeup tips for eyes.
Page 143: Ad for Revlon CustomEyes Shadow and Liner.
Page 196: “Can Jake Survive a Dry Spell?” Can Glamour’s male columnist go a whole month without sex?
Page 197: Ad for KY Intense female arousal gel.
Hmmm. Seems those ASME advertising “guidelines” are not given much credence.
Sure, it seems harmless—even logical—to run ads near content that’s relevant to the products being pitched, but the deeper issue here is that women readers are being played in an orchestrated way by magazines, under the guise of consideration for her interests or well-being. But historically, magazines and advertisers have always played off the woman reader, often taking on a paternalistic role about what best reflects her needs, desires, and sensibilities.
Back in the fifties, women’s magazines purported that an ideal woman should strive for family togetherness, and reader marketing surveys conducted at the time described this happy, successful woman as one who set up a comfortable married home filled with the newest, most efficient appliances and products of the day, a shiny automobile in the driveway, the latest mixers and utensils in the kitchen, a BBQ grill in the backyard, and a garage filled with cutting-edge tools.
Women’s glossies took on the role of educating women about all things domestic, including childcare, marriage, cooking, health, and the products they needed to achieve the ideal of a happy nuclear family. The table of contents in magazines like Redbook, Ladies’ Home Journal, and Good Housekeeping read like a primer for finding your inner June Cleaver, with articles on everything from efficient housekeeping to maintaining your appearance for your husband. And the advertisements blatantly reinforced these apron-wrapped standards. One 1954 Ladies’ Home Journal ad for Jergens Lotion stated, “For Jane, the best use of Jergens Lotion care is the flattery her hands get from her husband. . . . Keep Jergens Lotion and use it regularly after each chore. You can do a housewife’s job, but it’s nice to have a sweetheart’s hands.”
Magazine ads pitched everything from Del Monte Fruit Cocktail (serving suggestion: top a canned ham) and Ford cars to Ipana Toothpaste and General Electric dishwashers, plus just about every other must-have household product of the day. Advertising critics contend that these ads encoded the female identity with their role as homemakers and consumers from the very earliest issues.15
These magazines also offered advice to women readers about how to keep her marriage working, suggesting it was the woman’s job to keep it “alive.” Beginning in 1950, Ladies’ Home Journal ran a marriage advice column called “Making Marriage Work.” Regardless of the issue discussed, it was always the woman’s fault since it was her job to care for the marriage in the first place. The advice given to women included, “Don’t disturb his belongings. Don’t open his wallet or read his mail without his approval. Don’t read over his shoulder, either.”16
These magazines also offered advice to women readers about how to keep their mate aroused, how to meet their man at the door with a hot toddy or cup of cocoa, and how to care for themselves enough to attract a man in the first place. Naturally, this fell in with advertisements for toiletries and cosmetics, such as perfume, lipstick, hair dye, and lingerie. And the ads themselves promised happiness, romance, love, and excitement. Take the Revlon Company’s 1952 campaign for Fire and Ice, their iconic shade of red lipstick. It led with provocative pseudofeminist ad copy that read: “Do you dance with your shoes off? Do you secretly hope that the next man you meet will be a psychiatrist? Would you streak your hair with platinum without consulting your husband?”17 These were daring questions of the day. This was the Fire and Ice girl, a bold counterpart to the June Cleaver ideal.
Then there’s Clairol, which debuted its hair dye campaign in 1955, when few American women (other than celebrities and the wealthy) colored their hair. To ferry their product to the masses, Clairol conceived the brilliant idea of depicting the women in their ads as the girl next door. Having color-treated hair was no longer limited to actresses and high society mavens—now every woman could look like a movie star. Overnight, these low-key girl-next-door ads inspired with their slogan, “Does she . . . or doesn’t she?” Hair coloring became trendy, with the implication that not only would hiding your gray make you appear younger and more desirable, but it was a must if you wanted to keep your man’s interest. Case in point: Clairol Loving Care ran the slogan “Hate that gray? Wash it away,” with the tagline, “Makes your husband feel younger too, just to look at you!” Or the campaign by Lady Clairol cream and bleach, which brought platinum shades to American women with slogans like “Is it true blondes have more fun?” and “If I’ve only one life to live, let me live it as a blonde.”18
Ouch! Talk about unleashing an epidemic of dark-root syndrome that would pervade the next sixty years and beyond! Iconoclastic comparisons were born, like “Mary Ann or Ginger?” and later, “Farah Fawcett or Jaclyn Smith?”
Advertisers were having a field day at the expense—literally—of women. Pandering to narrow stereotypes of female sensibilities fell to a new low when the automotive market launched its “pink” advertising campaign in the 1960s. Ford, GM, and Chrysler all made changes in car styling and details with the woman consumer in mind. These “adjustments” included brighter colors, more luggage space, extra seat positions, lower steering wheels, and easy-to-maneuver door handles that would prevent fingernail polish from chipping.19 How thoughtful. Many automakers like GM, Ford, and Chrysler also introduced a new car design, the station wagon, for the woman driver who needed extra space to cart kids and groceries around. And remember the wood paneling? That feature was added to make women drivers feel homey and comfortable, like they were relaxing in their wood-paneled living rooms.
Then there were the automakers who took the “pinking” of their cars too literally, with ad campaigns that followed suit. The 1954–55 Dodge La Femme was Detroit’s epitome of femininity, with two-toned paint jobs in color combinations heather-rose and sapphire, or the lavender and white option. The car also featured a matching rose-colored leather shoulder bag, seat upholstery with tiny embroidered rosebuds on it, and a coordinating umbrella. It was marketed to the wives of doctors and bank managers in an era when families had only one car, with the tagline, “Never a car more distinctly feminine than La Femme, the first car created exclusively for women.”20
Detroit didn’t stop there. Later developments in marketing to women included fabric slipcovers that could be changed with the season in varying fabrics and colors—just like for your sofa back home. Women could now “decorate” their cars as if this feminine touch would lure women buyers to the car lot. Luggage to match the interior was another “soft” touch. In 1959, General Motors launched its new Cadillac in powder blue, white, and of course, pink. Unfortunately, their condescending ad campaign put a mother and daughter in complementary outfits next to the car, with a tagline that touted, “One of the special delights which ladies find in Cadillac ownership is the pleasure of being a passenger.”21
Ouch, GM. Maybe they didn’t think women could actually drive the vehicle.
By the early 1970s, there seemed to be a fifteen-year gap from what appeared in ads to what was going on in real life.22 Ads that used terms like the “weaker sex” or “little women” offended feminists (and frankly, any forward-thinking woman) who rebuffed the idea of getting married, starting families, and devoting themselves to homemaking—exclusive of pursuing an education and a career path. Ads that portrayed women as subordinate to men began to infuriate the “Mary Tyler Moore” and “That Girl” audience of the day. Feminists began to protest these ads as contemptuous for stereotyping women, portraying them as sex objects, and co-opting the language of the women’s movement while hawking an underlying message that women were secondary to men.
One of the first organized protests was in 1969 in front of New York City’s Macy’s department store. It was in response to a Mattel ad in Life magazine that pitched its toy products using the following ad copy: “Little girls dream about being a ballerina or a young fashion model, while boys were born to build, learn, and find science fun.”23 Protesters claimed the ad implied mind-enriching toys were only suitable for boys, not girls. And damn, if the protesters weren’t right! Women were simply not going to take it anymore. Sit-ins and confrontations over sexist ad campaigns erupted at Ladies’ Home Journal, Playboy, and Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) on ads ranging from National Airlines “Fly me” campaign, Clairol’s “Does she . . . or doesn’t she?” and Geritol and Folgers for ads that blatantly devalued women. Feminists later began placing THIS AD INSULTS WOMEN stickers on billboards and posters.
A defining shift in advertising arrived via a 1973 perfume campaign for Charlie perfume by Revlon. The revolutionary ads displayed a pantsuited young woman engaging in traditional outside-the-home activities like walking the city streets or visiting a museum. That same year, Clairol ditched the “Does she . . . or doesn’t she” hair-dyeing tagline and portrayed women as artists, doctors, and politicians, with the feminist-slanted tagline, “To know you’re the best.” L’Oreal later hit the ground running with “Because I’m worth it.”
This type of advertising produced a number of successful brands, and sales soared noticeably among the companies using classy prowomen catchphrases and jingles that became so popular, many earwormed their way into pop culture. In the late 1970s, ads for Jean Naté fragrance featured a female jockey and the tagline “Take charge of your life.” While Enjoli’s famous jingle of the same period, “I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, and never let you forget you’re a man,” purported to take advertising to and for women by the balls, but nonetheless played to old stereotypes of gender roles. (Sure, it’s okay for women to be successful and capable, as long as she knows who really wears the pants in the relationship.)
By the mid-1980s, the message of female empowerment became the standard marketing ploy in hundreds of ad campaigns, something unimaginable just decades before. Not only had dozens of women entered the advertising field and begun their rise to top positions in the industry, but feminism was here to stay and feminists were uncompromising in calling out manufacturers and advertisers when their ads degraded women. By 2005, women would account for over half those employed in advertising and related fields (52.2 percent), and incredibly, the women who had criticized advertising the loudest beginning in the 1970s were now at the helm of ad campaigns.23
A DeBeers diamond ring campaign that proclaimed “Women of the world raise your right hand” encouraged women of marrying age to view diamond rings in a new light. No more were diamonds the province of the right-handed ring finger. Instead, the ads encouraged women to buy them as a statement of their independence and success. One ad’s copy touted, “Your left hand says we. Your right hand says me.” The promotion of this “me” ring was a declaration of freedom for American women who had not held this level of autonomy before. Suddenly, women with an education, career, and income to spare, married or single, gay or straight, liberal or conservative, were encouraged (albeit via a diamond company) to step up and treat themselves to an expensive bauble they could proudly parade on their right hand. “Because they can.” Sales of right-handed diamond rings soared 10 percent following the campaign, which also included tags such as, “Your left hand declares your commitment. Your right hand is a declaration of independence.”
Even esoteric products like credit cards jumped into the game when American Express created the “’80s Interesting Lives” campaign, which strove to position the company’s ubiquitous square of plastic as the “it” credit card for young career women and men who lived dynamic and multifaceted lives. The ads showed yuppies, the term of the day, living spontaneously via the two-by-three-inch card, stuffing a large piece of expensive art they just purchased into the back of a convertible, or jumping aboard a plane for an unplanned trip to the Australian outback. Suddenly, women were at the helm of the credit decision: to buy or not to buy, and they held the power. The campaign was beyond successful, doubling the amount of women applying for the American Express card. By 1984, 27 percent of American women carried the blue card compared to 10 percent just a few years prior.24
GLOSSY FACT
A flurry of magazines launched in the late 1970s and early 1980s to appeal to women who had jumped into the zeitgeist of all-achieving superwoman. Working Woman opened women’s minds to negotiating salaries, finding the right jobs, and still having a relationship or a healthy marriage, while Working Mother targeted midlevel career women who were wives and mothers struggling issue after issue to “have it all.”
But the flipside of these ad campaigns, which were—by advertising standards—strongly feminist, was the creation of the superwoman complex. Suddenly, suit-wearing, briefcase-carrying, confident women who worked outside the home and raised well-mannered children, kept a spotless kitchen, and pleased their man every night was the norm. If we women weren’t keeping up with career, kids, cooking, and pleasing our husbands, well, we must be slackers, these campaigns inferred. And it didn’t help that editorial content in women’s magazines reflected these new ultra-achieving standards as well. Stories like Cosmo’s December 1980 piece “You’re Never too Young to Fib About Your Age. It Can Add Years to Your Life!” or McCall’s March 1985 “I’m No Good with Money: A 3-Step Plan to Change All That,” as well as Family Circle’s April 1988 article “How to Clean Your Whole House in Only Two Hours,” birthed the be-all mentality that would torment women for decades to come.
Women were being challenged to go big or go home, as the saying goes, and this didn’t even take into account the ongoing messaging in both ads and magazine content that we had to be beautiful and fit as well as hyperachieving. Who the hell had time to touch up their roots, let alone get to the gym, when we were expected to juggle so much? But while today’s ads have backed off this messaging significantly, we’re still faced with the ever-present pressure to do whatever it is we do—career woman, stay-at-home mom, or independent spirit—looking beautiful, ageless, and thin, much like the women who grace the covers of these magazines.
Readers Respond
“It wasn’t until I had my first child that I realized how impossible the ‘superwoman’ standard was. Before, I would see these ads and articles and think, ‘Right on, I can be a kick-ass mother, be totally present to my children and partner, have a rewarding career, and be emotionally fulfilled.’ The reality is that ‘having it all’ comes at a cost. Ultimately, something or someone gets shortchanged, whether it’s your kids, your career, your relationships, or your sanity. I felt like I’d been swindled by our culture, especially because the message was at first so empowering.”
—Michelle, communications specialist
So the question looms, should we expect something more from our favorite women’s titles today? That depends. Did we plop our hard-earned dollars down on a subscription all to be deceived? Or did we place our trust in them by picking up the issue in the first place? Since trust is one of the mainstays of loyal readerships, it’s important to be aware of the ugly little underbelly that is the truth in advertising: that what you see is not always what you get when you read the women’s magazines. Women hold 86 percent of the purchasing power today, a far leap from back in the day when advertisers barely recognized us as consumers. Your voice counts. Don’t waste it.
Just knowing there is a fine line between misleading and blatantly false advertising in the magazines may help us be more discerning consumers, since magazines are savvy about making sure they don’t cross it. But where do you draw the line as the reader? Perhaps you’ll draw it where reasonable women are misled. Ultimately, only you can decide how advertising affects you.