Cosmetic Advertisements and their Effects on Self-Consciousness to Female High Schoolers in Japan

Abstract

This research aims to look at current cosmetic advertisements in Japan and assess the effect it has on female highschoolers. Although there have been various studies examining the effect of cosmetic advertisements in general or the effect of imagery in cosmetic advertisements, there are not as many studies focusing on how the text affects consumers. More specifically, there were fewer studies researching how the text on cosmetic advertisements work to perpetuate beauty standards or idealized images of beauty. In this study, an experiment including 12 advertisements and a questionnaire assessing what products participants wanted was conducted. The advertisements were split into two types so that each advertisement would have a duplicate with a different text. The results were then analyzed through dividing the results into groups and comparing the different types of reasoning participants presented as well as what products were selected at different stages of the experiment. Through the experiment it was evident that the advertisements that were considered to highlight different standards of beauty led to participants feeling the need to change something about themselves whereas advertisements that focused on other aspects proved to be superior in terms of marketing and concerns from participants. It is important to recognize small aspects of our life that we do not see as harmful and reassess the influence it has on our life, which is what this study seeks to do.