Selling a super cosmeceutical: Contextualising risk in direct-to-consumer advertising of BOTOX® Cosmetic

Abstract

Botulinum Toxin Type A, otherwise known as BOTOX®, has dramatically changed the face of modern cosmetic medicine. This study examines the communication of the product's risks and benefits in online direct-to-consumer marketing by Allergan, maker of BOTOX Cosmetic, BOTOX Therapeutic, and BOTOX for Severe Underarm Sweating. Findings suggest that Allergan's heavy reliance on existing social norms of ideal beauty – as youthful, gendered, and self-actualised – for marketing BOTOX Cosmetic cultivates a meta-message of greater social and psychological risks associated with not using the product. In addition, the drug's medical indications are routinely conflated with its cosmetic purpose, resulting in a redefinition of the product as a ‘super cosmeceutical’. These observations have important implications for how social representations of risk may detract from consumer perceptions of physical harms and further promote risk-taking in the widespread pursuit of idealised beauty.

Keywords:

• risk perception
• risk communication
• risk
• direct-to-consumer advertising
• BOTOX®
• Cosmetic

Notes

1. All three websites were accessible via the targeted URLs as well as a general portal (Botox.com) that displayed hyperlinks to each of the three product-specific sites (Allergan 2005). The top referral site for BotoxCosmetic.com was Google.com (Compete.com 2009). More than 25% of total traffic generated by the site between 2008 and 2009 ran through the search engine. The search engine feeder mechanism was comparable for both BotoxSevereSweating.com (Google.com) and BotoxMedical.com (Yahoo.com). Because Allergan's Botox Portal is purposefully generic in its presentation and accounts for a small share of traffic referrals, especially for BotoxCosmetic.com, the content found on this one webpage was omitted from this analysis.