Over the last century,
the beauty industry has spent incalculable amount of money
to create the standard of what beauty is.
And for those who don't measure up, well,
there's always hope in a jar.
The copy writers are really tapping
into people's emotions,
and most often people's insecurities.
"Think how much dust and dirt settle on your skin.
A clean skin is a healthy skin."
"One day you realize you're not going to be 21 forever.
But you always want to look your best."
But today's generation of consumers are rejecting,
unrealistic and narrow images of beauty.
With that stance comes a similar expectation of the product.
Newer companies like Rihanna's Fenty Beauty
are redefining the cosmetic and fashion
industries with offerings and advertising revolving around
needs that have historically been ignored by large
multinational brands.
The stakes of turning a blind eye are costlier now,
and with over 300 billion in black dollars up for grabs
those legacy corporations, want in. Now.
Brands are starting to recognize that they have to get on
board with the inclusive beauty event or get left behind.
But can the beauty industry become a true force for body
positivity and inclusion beyond the one-off campaign?
There are a handful of large multinational cosmetic
companies in the world.
Many of which have dominated the industry
over the past century.
Historically, they have operated with an impunity of sorts
that only competition is with each other.
While new companies posing
any threat were kept on the fringe or acquired.
But in the last few years,
smaller startups have been slowly eating into their share of
the cosmetics market.
None more well known than Rihanna's Fenty Beauty.
Here we are with the creator of Fenty beauty. Rihanna.
We're going to show you how to get the Fenty Face.
I think that we can't underestimate the impact that Fenty
had on the industry.
So Fenty is a brand that was founded by Rihanna,
Robin Fenty, a musician
with a huge platform,
but also a very strong connection with
the black community
and especially the younger generation.
My students, my undergraduate students love Fenty.
They love Rihanna.
They all want to write their research paper on Rihanna and
the business that she's built.
Launched in September of 2017,
Fenty reportedly made 100 million in sales in just 40 days.
Today, estimates put the Fenty brand at
around $4 billion dollars.
When Fenty came out, it was a game changer,
I think in the cosmetics industry, in so many ways.
People were very excited that she was making
something for us,
you know, and we felt like, of course this black,
woman's going to make something that works for many of us.
And she did.
Fenty Beauty's success is rooted in products
that are made for the most underrepresented groups
and showcasing them through ads that reflect their lives.
Fenty isn't the first brand to create products
that cater to women of color.
But it came at a time when consumers expectations
of beauty were changing.
Fenty didn't just meet overlooked needs,
It sent a message to those century old companies
in doing so.
Either adapt with the times or watch customers go elsewhere.
I started researching the advertising
industry in the early 20th century.
And this is when we start to see the emergence of a modern
advertising industry.
Another shift that we see happening in the early 20th
century that is so important to the story of advertising is
a shift from reason why advertising copy, that is tapping
into people's insecurities.
One campaign that I can think of is ad copy that says,
"Will your husband love you in 20 years?",
so if you're not taking care of your skin, as time goes by,
then your skin is going to show sign of aging.
So that taps into, you know,
a fear of losing your husband perhaps to a younger woman.
And of course, you know, in business,
if something is working,
then that strategy is going to continue.
Anyone who's ever glanced at a magazine over the last
century could see those inner workings at play.
That kind of psychological appeal would only continue.
And by the age of Photoshop,
not only was the image of beauty, fairly narrow,
it was at times impossible.
We see a continuation of the emotional appeal
until maybe 2004, you know,
when Dove introduced its real beauty campaign and really got
a lot of attention for a different kind of appeal to women.
Become part of doves, largest living ad campaign
for real women by real women,
just like you and me and me and me.
The real beauty campaign was
one of the first ones I think,
to put a little more politics into
this variety of representation.
And I think it was a version of body positivity in the sense
of accepting a wider variety of bodies,
not just super thin white, feminine bodies,
particularly in terms of cosmetic advertising,
which tends to focus on women,
but at the same time it's company.
So they're trying to sell something.
They're trying to sell an idea.
That idea of real beauty did well for Dove
and parent company, Unilever.
The campaign received many awards and still garners media
attention and a claim to this day.
You guys know Dove? Dove!
They have a lot of ads about positive body image.
In three years, the company increased sales
from 2 to $4 billion dollars.
And so I think the success of that campaign of people
thinking, yeah,
Dove cares about me and how I feel about my body that other
companies were like, okay, yeah, we,
we want to make you think that too,
because we got to sell this thing to you.
But outside of the ad campaign itself,
parent corporations like Unilever have had issues embodying
the ethos of real beauty.
At the same time, Dove was promoting body inclusion,
Unilever's Indian subsidiary, Hindustan Unilever was
profiting from sales up it's Fair & Lovely
skin whitening product, including advertising,
which suggested whitening your skin would lead to better
employment opportunities.
The brand makes around 500 million in revenue
for Unilever each year.
And while companies like Johnson & Johnson have announced
plans to stop making skin
lightening products, Hindustan Unilever
has opted to just change the name to Glow & Lovely.
In a statement, the company said,
"We recognize that the use of the words fair white and light
suggest the singular ideal of beauty that we don't think is
right. And we want to address this."
The name change falls short of demands from activists to
stop selling skin whitening creams entirely because they
implied darker skin is undesirable.
I think campaigns are just the tip of the iceberg
and can be kind of a band-aid
and changing fair to glow doesn't really
address the problems with colorism.
And that I think is where companies fall short,
is that they want this visual
representation of difference without actually putting the
politics behind it,
to understand, how are we addressing the root causes of the
lack of diversity in the first place?
How are we attending to racism and anti-fat newness within
the cosmetic industry, within the fashion industry?
Even when companies approach advertising
with diversity in mind,
the products they offer haven't necessarily reflected that.
Foundation colors cater more often to lighter skin colors.
Even today, if you go into your local pharmacy,
there are many shades for lighter skin,
but only a few for darker skin tones.
The average range of foundation shades
in a major company
might be 10, 15,
you know, depending on the brand.
What a lot of women had to do was start
mixing their own foundations.
They had to become chemists in order to get the foundation
color that they needed for their skin tone.
This is what everything looks like in my bowl,
including the powder. Okay.
So there's a little bit of something, for everybody.
I remember when I finally was allowed to wear makeup,
going to the drugstore and scanning the aisles and finding
that you know, of the one long aisle of makeup,
there was this tiny little section,
not even a full section that was meant for me,
as a black woman.
And that can make you feel small.
It can make you feel neglected.
That's certainly how it made me feel. It made me feel like,
oh, okay, my beauty matters this much
in the world of beauty.
Mine matters this much.
And I, I just don't think anyone should ever
have to feel that way,
but it is something I think a lot of people will tell you,
they have felt before.
This is KJ Miller,
the co-founder and CEO of Mented Cosmetics, founded in
January of 2017 with the goal to bring products to people of
all skin tones.
We decided to start with lipstick nude lipstick because
that's what we couldn't find.
And so we sat down and watched YouTube videos on how to make
your own lipstick and bought all of the necessary
ingredients, the oil, the wax, the color into the Mica,
and started making the lipsticks in our house.
And I created that shade. It's called Mented #5,
the first shade that we made.
And it still today, almost five years later is
one of our top sellers.
We've made millions of dollars in that skew.
And it was the first shade I made.
And you know what I think that showcases is that it's not
rocket science creating products that work for deeper skin
tones, but you have to want to do it.
You have to put effort into it.
And in the last five years,
many other indie cosmetic brands like Hyper Skin,
Beauty Stat, Bevel,
and more have also popped up to fill
this void in the market.
And just a few months after Mented launched,
so did Fenty Beauty.
Fenty started out with 40 shades.
Now Fenty has 50 shades of foundation.
They're really addressing the needs of
a wide range of consumers.
Look at that. Oh.
My vibe for summer is more, is more.
It was super exciting to see that possibility and see all
the ads that they put out with so many women,
dark skin women wearing makeup that worked for them.
Fenty is a real example of how you can appeal to a really
large audience, but still center,
the most marginalized people.
And we see that also in the Fenty Savage Lingerie
brand as well.
The centering of larger bodies and of people of color.
And while Fenty and companies like Mented center,
some of the least represented groups in their advertising,
their product can appeal to everyone.
If you think about the biggest brand,
the most successful consumer brand, the Nike's of the world,
they have a target, right?
Nike's target audience is an athlete,
but millions of non-athletes wear Nike.
Why? Because they make a great high performance product.
And I think it's the same here.
Yes, my target is people of color,
but because I'm targeting them and giving them deeply
pigmented high quality products,
that attracts a lot of different people.
I would say quite a few of
the larger beauty companies then
jumped on the bandwagon after Fenty.
I mean, that's part of the Fenty effect
that companies were following Fenty's lead.
Only a year after Fenty's launch
Cover Girl, Maybelline and Dior
all released more inclusive foundation shades.
And there are indications in the research involved in claims
testing that suggest more are on the way.
So historically,
a lot of these claims tests have only looked at white skin
and now we're seeing more and more companies ask for testing
that looks at a wider range of skin tones.
It appears that relatively recently there's been a backlog
in testing because so many more companies are asking for
tests that consider a much wider range of skin tones.
Even though large companies are
recently pivoting to create products,
to compete in this space or acquire successful startups,
maintaining that authenticity in both the product and
advertising will be key.
Consumers nowadays, especially the
younger generation of consumers.
They're very savvy.
So I think that unless a message is authentic,
unless it feels authentic to the consumer,
the consumer is not going to waste his or her time with that
particular brand.
Ultimately I support consumers having more choice,
but I do think consumers are going to
to continue to themselves.
You know, where do I want to spend my money?
Is it with a brand that has since launch been focusing on me
and celebrating me and telling me that I matter,
or is it with a brand that had the last 50 years to tell me,
I matter, but sort of got on board in 2019.
You know, it's going to be a consumer's choice.
For brands who had a hand in helping to narrow down the
image of beauty,
expanding it now means that they
must also look at themselves.
Part of the thing that I think needs to change
is that it can't just be, we put two black people in an ad
and we've got four skin tones now for you.
But it also means that we're going to
hire more people of color. We're going to hire queer folks.
So that from the start we've got people who are providing
their perspectives connected to their communities and
bringing that knowledge in at every level that is
incorporated throughout and not just about tokenism in order
to create sales, but actually transforming a company.