The myths of beauty, age, and marriage: femvertising by masstige cosmetic brands in the Chinese market

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this research is to decrypt the connotative and ideological meaning of beauty ideals, age, and marriage in the femvertising campaigns launched by masstige cosmetic brands, through the lens of social semiotics. Drawn upon theories of feminism, female empowerment and gender stereotypes, we systematically analyzed the visual and verbal cues in “Marriage Market Takeover,” a 4 min 16 s documentary functioning as a centerpiece of SK-II’s global campaign focusing on Chinese “leftover women.” The findings show that the visual signs in the film largely resemble stereotypical images of women. Although some verbal signs attempt to deliver messages about “independence” or “freedom,” their strength is significantly dwarfed by the visual signs which always comply with the stereotypes of women’s beauty, age, and gender roles. Under the disguise of female empowerment, the gender stereotypes a femvertising is expected to challenge are actually reinforced. Our study suggests that the lack of genuineness in advocating women’s empowerment in femvertisings launched by cosmetic brands is ultimately subject to the conservative, persistent and stereotypical traditions of gender roles in the Chinese society.

KEYWORDS:

• Femvertising
• social semiotics
• stereotypes of women
• masstige cosmetic brands
• women’s empowerment

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This study is supported by the research project of 2017 Guangzhou Center for Innovative Communication in International Cities in Guangzhou’s 13th Five-Year Plan for the Development of Philosophy and Social Science under Grant No. 2017-JD-01.

Notes on contributors

Fei Qiao

Dr Fei Qiao (PhD, The University of Alabama, USA, ‘16; MA, University of Missouri-Columbia, USA, ‘12) is a lecturer of advertising in School of Journalism and Communication at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, China. Her research interests include brand building, marketing strategy and the examination on the effectiveness of advertising, especially on the subject of advertising creativity. Her research has been published in Journal of Interactive Advertising, International Journal of Strategic Communication, The Journal of Social Media in Society, Asian Journal of Communication, Communication and Sport, among others.

Ye Wang

Dr Ye Wang is an Associate Professor at the Department of Communication Studies, University of Missouri, Kansas City. She graduated from the Missouri School of Journalism at University of Missouri – Columbia, and holds a PhD. in journalism. Her research agenda features a focus on interactivity and engagement on websites and social media. Her works are published in leading journals, like Health Education & Behavior, International Journal of Advertising, and the International Journal of Strategic Communication. She also co-authored several book chapters on online communities and journalism education.