5x05 La belleza se adueña de los movimientos sociales

Las marcas de belleza saben que necesitan ser ética para que los consumidores sigan eligiéndolas. Pero, ¿qué tanta realidad hay atrás de los claims? ¿Qué pasa cuando una marca no actúa como dice que actúa? Un poco de chisme en este episodio reflexionando sobre la belleza y los movimientos sociales.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
If you' re into the worldof beauty, because it' s a
subject you' re interested in.Sure, you didn' t notice the
changes over time. If you're not interested, I' m particularly
struck by the fact that you're listening to this. But on the
other hand, if you' requite perceptive and observant, you' ve
noticed that advertising in the beauty industryhas changed a lot. With the years

(00:24):
of chemical chinga beauty you feel wewere told of magical results, of stopping
aging or imperfections, and only showedus young women thin and with perfect faces.
Now we can see a greater diversityin the models used and in the
messages that are narrated. Yes Logically, they still have biases, but in

(00:45):
the industry of beauty understood that ithad to follow the train to social movements
such as feminism or ecologism, ifit was to go from being one of
the most powerful industries to a beautifulmemory, the industry of beauty was always
political, only now it is morenotorious and probably also more marketer. For
example, at the beginning of the20th century, the life of the red

(01:08):
was considered to be some prostitutes,but when the suffragist movement had strength,
it took it as its own identification. And finally, in World War II,
the red avia was a patriotic symbol, in addition to an economic theme,
since lipsticks are products that are usuallyvery economical, very cheap, and
red lips can generate a big changein the face for little silver in these
cases that I told you it wasthe same women who took elements of cosmetics

(01:33):
and beauty to proclaim themselves. Todayit is expected not only that consumers have
a voice, but also that brandsbuild it. This is because consumers are
increasingly demanding with what they spend theirmoney on. The modern consumer no longer
chooses the relationship that gives him pricein the face of everything, but also
mixes his ethical decisions, his ideals, politics, etcetera. Feminism, ecologistism,

(01:57):
veganism, diversity, the sustainability ofracism and human rights are some of
the elements that play a fundamental rolein today' s consumer in choosing one
brand or another. If people usedto choose brands for being the most economical,
for example, if you didn't have a lot of money or
the best quality, if you wantedsomething that would last you for a lifetime,

(02:19):
for example, a large household electroor also brands that gave you a
certain status, for example, havingluxury brands or certain clothing brands makes you
have a different social and economic status. Today, marketing is not so much
moving because of that, although ifit continues to influence, other things also
influence, such as what ethical decisionsthe brand makes. So, as a

(02:44):
consumer, you have two options.Choose new brands that advocate for that which
interests you and try whether you liketheir quality or choose the usual brands,
as long as they choose to changetheir productive processes. The history of SNS
activism is not as new as itseems. We already saw that in people
beauty was always used to manifest something, but it is true that now it

(03:07):
may be much stronger. For manyyears there were beauty brands that focused on
not testing animals and including vegan ingredients, for example, and many of the
world' s beauty conglomerates for yearsmade donations and charity to different causes.
But just now they began to positionthemselves politically. Why, because many new

(03:27):
brands emerged that give hypervisibility and transparencyabout their professional ethics, leaving behind the
most classic brands. In general,these new brands emerged after the breakup of
everything with social networks, because theinfluencers of beauty fashion and others began to
generate their own brands and also beganto grow more in the market, because
there was a greater interest on thepart of the people and the new brands

(03:52):
understood this new dynamic. A veryclear example of this. It was a
very clever moment in history. Onthe one hand, the Black Lips wood
movement was happening on the other hand, the pandemic. We were in the
oven. The eye turned on howcompanies treated their employees during the pandemic,

(04:12):
given the massive layoffs, lack ofcare and all that, consumers were very
attentive to how companies treated their employeesand, on the other hand, the
brands that put such a post,very shy, very quiet on social networks
by Black Lives Matter. They hadto apologize to the consumers who were very
angry and understood that that was nota sufficient support, but rather a washing

(04:34):
of hands, because yes, allvery nice with the giving them the walk,
but the important thing is to reallygo bears. For example, I
don' t know if it's pronounced like that in a founding chutter
of WOMA. It' s anacronym UOM A. I suppose it'
s going to be pronounced differently inEnglish. He carried out the Pulp Forchange
movement by asking the world' sbeauty brands to count the number of Afro

(04:58):
personnel who were especially in higher positions. Eight percent of the executives of the
orial, five percent in reblan andthree percent of the der style were some
of the examples of Afro people withinbeauty companies. That transparency is very valuable,
because, despite the fact that thenumbers are not high, that the
banks say or that our numbers arenot high, we have a problem.

(05:20):
It helps transparency and helps consumers totrust them. Today, people are looking
for perceptible and lasting changes, notan instagram post, but indeed, if
we have a problem, we aredoing this to fix it. It'
s not worth that Instagram post ifthere' s no real inclusion. It
' s no use talking about feminismand all senior positions are men. It

(05:42):
' s no use hiring models ofvarious sizes and then we don' t
sell those sizes. Basically what peoplewant from their beauty brands and their fashion
brands and in general, in theindustry is that they are transparent, that
they tell what they are doing andthat they make a real improvement, even
if it is not magical, evenif it is not overnight, even if
it is not huge, No oneasks for perfection and even those brands that

(06:06):
make mistakes can improve them and peoplegive them second chances. This is the
case of the Catbon d Vieuty brand, which the owner was quite controversial with
such anti- Semitic and other variedcontroversies, and when Kendo buys the brand,
it re- baptizes the Cabed Viutysaying that the initials are by Kinness
Digan and dwing Good. The brandalready had a very large record and was

(06:29):
very well valued as a make-up brand, vegan and many consumers after
these polemics that had the owner,the previous owner Catbond, had moved away
from the brand, but when shebuys it again another brand is detached from
the owner herself distanced from that personality, they recover many customers because people knew
it was actually vegan and tested andeverything perfect. Within all this universe of

(06:56):
activism appear the famous washing, thetruth washing, the work washing. If
you listen to me this season,we' ve talked about other types of
washing, like parpol washing, lenwashing and so on. Today we'
re going to focus on these twothat from first truth and walk washing.
When it supports social movements, itis critical for a brand to continue to
exist beyond making money by selling products, people begin to wonder effectively, what

(07:19):
they are doing or saying is real. Truth washing is when a brand says
something but does not act accordingly.In fact, sixty- two percent of
consumers believe that most brands are usingvery important social and political issues as a
branding strategy to gain more economic benefit. I' m not saying this.
I have a report from Edelman's two thousand and twenty. On the

(07:43):
other hand, a study carried outby depul Agency in the UK shows that
one in four consumers considers wok washingto be a reality, making the activism
of brands they feel growing, thatis, more and more brands do activism,
but consumers fall down feel that itis less realistic and uncomfortable when this
same survey asked people what they werelooking for in a brand of beauty.

(08:05):
Consumers said that they are ethical,that they pay their taxes, that they
treat their employees well, that theyrespect the environment, and that they do
not use social causes as a prettystrong marketing opportunity. No. On the
other hand, activism has a prettybig risk for brands. It happened,
for example, in the case ofEsfora, that, when she cut her

(08:28):
contract with Amanda Enzing, who isa right- wing influencer, she received
the boycott of a lot of peopleon social media, you understand and so
on. But the reality is thatcompanies around the world must take these risks
to move forward. While they saythey are very large risks, in the
long term they end up having morebenefits than problematic ones, because there is
one thing clear. Within the worldof activism, brands can take different positions.

(08:52):
For example, we have the superactivistbrands that are born from its foundation
with a clear purpose or a causeto which they want to adhere. These
are the cases of brands like Patagonia. Patagonia, not beer, but one
that sells clothes, such as mountainsports, that has very large environmental causes
or see an Sherris and in theworld of beauty, can also be new
brands, such as Faintivitiy, whichis the Riana brand. Then there are

(09:16):
those called paradigm breakers. They areinnovative and pioneering brands in the business,
which have well- known products andnow want to change some patterns and break
the status quo. The daring onesare those who are not super involved in
activism, but defend certain values andcauses in a coherent way. They have
attractive actions as agile postures to theproblems of the world. Clear examples of

(09:37):
these can be Starbucks or Nike andin the field of apothecary beauty in Brazil.
Finally, responsible brands make corporate actionsthat benefit me from causes such as
donations, social responsibility programs, corporateor foundations. It' s like the
most classic form of activism. Activismin company communication is not evident, but
it is a rather traditional commitment.It has no controversy, but it is

(10:01):
very stimulating for some of its consumers, who are perhaps more conservative. Let
' s say a clear example ofthis is nettle in one thing that many
consumers seem to agree is that thefirst changes are within companies. All the
campaigns that a brand can do areworthless if they are not maintained in those
principles within the organization. With thingslike ecology. That seems easy, because

(10:24):
external actions are the first to beseen. But with social movements of anti
- racist or feminist inclusion, itis also important, for example, to
look at your staff, to havefair trade supplies respect for workers' rights,
to have Afro- women imposed bypower, people with neurodivergence, with

(10:46):
disabilities, etc. The point iswhat happens when a brand says nothing to
either side or to the other.Many times that is also interpreted as being
on one side or the other.It' s not being neutral. I
don' t have any current examplesof beauty brands, but Coca Cola,
for example, stopped all production inUkraine to protect its employees, but continued

(11:07):
to work on plants in Russia.This led him to a big boycott and
to have to stop all operations inRussia after thirty years and seven zero employees
there and shut down the plant.The positive body movement, the dipositive movement
seems to have arrived to stay andthe brands know it. Positive body is
a movement that advocates that people,especially women, feel good about the body

(11:31):
they have, regardless of their physicalappearance. The importance of this movement lies
in the problems of self- esteemsuffered by women due to the constant bombardment
of an ideal of unattainable beauty,reaching such terrible statistics that two out of
three women have complexes regarding their body. This movement, which arose mainly on
social networks, seeks to talk aboutthis problem, about the messages of the

(11:54):
mass media, such as television,cinema or even the same networks, and
how these messages, addressed to womenabout what our bodies should be, directly
affect our mental and physical health.Psychological research has shown that people who consume
body positive content tend to treat themselveswith more respect and self- care and,

(12:16):
logically, many beauty brands have understoodthat it is no longer useful to
want to sell you a perfect bodyor face the formula of eternal youth or
the thinness of that extreme. Thishas been reflected in how many brands speak
of their products, in the representationof diversity of women in their advertising and
many other things, perhaps being themost iconic example Dupp, which has been
showing diversity of ethnic age bodies.We have been racist for more than 20

(12:43):
years. He told before that manybrands put the man on anti- racist
activism when the police murdered African-American George Floyd. However, the beauty
industry remains essentially racist in many developingcountries of the bleached products of the earth
and skin are a reality with muchto do with colonialism and white supremacy.

(13:03):
But basically these products tell us thatcute skin is just white skin. Multinationals
like an Ilever, Johnson, anJohnson, Pianje and others have whitening products
in non- Caucasian countries with hiddenmessages like White Perfect of Fer and Lobley.
Other lesser- known brands are muchmore direct. A few years ago,
a brand in the Philippines campaigned toencourage dark- skinned women to fight

(13:26):
discrimination by using whitening products. Yeah,' cause if you' re white,
nobody' s gonna discriminate against you. So that' s the solution.
Apparently, the history of racism inthe world of beauty is nothing new.
He thought that in Victorian times womenwere made up with poisonous products to
be left with white weapons, becausewhite equity was equal to purity. Colonism

(13:50):
has been widespread for centuries in manyparts of Asia, Latin America and Africa
because of European colonialism and slavery.So it' s not new, but
it keeps keeping up what happens tofashion. According to Jann Chooter, founder
of Wama Buty and beauty even withits mishaps, she is much more democratic

(14:13):
and activist than fashion. Fashion,always speaking of exclusivity, is much more
resistant to proclaiming and making changes.While many beauty brands are doing things around
the world, fashion brands are fallingfar behind. Guchi, for example,
to Boca for causes like Stop HappyHate and also has a fanzine called chine
fort Change, which talks about gendermatching. However, it is an almost

(14:35):
unique example within fashion brands, especiallyluxury brands. One of the theories is
that beauty brands always had a verygood relationship with their consumers, much better
than consumers with fashion. This wasintensified mainly with social networks and with the
influencers of beauty, which are ofa niche that always seeks to connect with
its audience. On the other hand, it is normal for beauty to be

(14:58):
more involved in activism when, forexample, it is easier to have control
over supply chains, in addition toalways having to prove that their products work,
so beauty brands are used to givingexplanations and getting into social movements is
not as difficult as fashion. Andwhile the baton wears it, the new
brands that from the beginning came withvalues more mainstream brands are also putting their

(15:20):
grain of sand. If you likethis episode, don' t hesitate to
listen to the rest. I havefour podcast seasons where we talk about beauty
and Skinker from a more analytical,more scientific and also more social point of

(15:41):
view. You can also follow meon social media both on Instagram and on
tiktok. Look me up as chemicalbeauty. This is an original Ubicast production.