Managing Beauty – Products and People
| Published date | 01 September 1994 |
| Pages | 27-38 |
| Date | 01 September 1994 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/10610429410067414 |
| Author | Lynn Langmeyer,Matthew Shank |
| Subject Matter | Marketing |
VOLUME 3 NUMBER 3
1994
27
Introduction
Considerable evidence has accumulated that,
regardless of cultural changes in its meaning,
beauty is an effective sell. Beautiful people
like Christie Brinkley, Cindy Crawford, and
Cheryl Tiegs, are famous cover girls on
whose looks ride “millions of dollars of
advertising and marketing expenditures from
companies for clothes and cosmetics” (Foltz,
1992, p. 4F). Advertisers reportedly pay
between $1 and $2 million dollars a year to
have their products promoted by popular and
glamorous women; their beauty is believed to
add dazzle to the products.
Being physically attractive, however, does
not seem to be enough – it seems to be a
necessary yet not sufficient condition. For
instance, Pepsi had to scrap its ultra-
expensive endorsement deal with Madonna
after she came out with a controversial video
that did not go over too well with the Catholic
Church and a lot of other viewers (Miller,
1991, p. 2). It was not her attractiveness that
was an issue. Then there was that “little faux
pas of Cybil Shepherd, who announced that
she did not eat meat, yet she was a
pitchwoman for the beef industry” (Miller,
1991, p. 2). Again, attractiveness was not the
issue. Both blunders suggest that there is
more to “beauty” than a simple “good/bad
judgment of attractiveness” (Solomon, et al.,
1992, p. 23) – “beauty” would seem to be
more than skin deep.
It is remarkable therefore, that, despite the
recognition that “being beautiful isn’t
enough” and that “stars have to have
something special and almost indefinable”
(Foltz, 1992, p. 4F), attractiveness has been
most frequently defined as, and/or assumed
to be, physical attractiveness. Attractiveness
studies concentrate on “physical
attractiveness” (e.g. a small sample includes
Baker and Churchill, 1977; Belch, et al.,
1987; Bloch and Richins, 1992; Caballero
and Pride, 1984; Dion et al., 1972; Kahle
and Homer, 1985; Kamins, 1990; Ohanian,
1990; Patzer, 1985; Solomon et al., 1992).
Even when multiple items are used to
measure perceived attractiveness, (e.g. as in
Ohanian’s (1990) scale of source
credibility), the items tend to be physically-
based adjectives such as attractive, classy,
beautiful, elegant, sexy, etc.
Furthermore, Ohanian’s (1990) subscale is
unusual because it does use multiple items.
“Beauty” has been more typically defined as
“attractiveness” in advertising literature and
research, and has been measured, almost
invariably, on a single “attractive/
unattractive” dimension. For example,
Kamins (1990) identified unattractive and
attractive celebrity spokespeople (Telly
Savalas and Tom Selleck) by asking
respondents to evaluate 20 male celebrities on
Managing Beauty –
Products and People
Lynn Langmeyer and Matthew Shank
Journal of Product & Brand Management, Vol. 3 No. 3, 1994, pp. 27-38
© MCB University Press, 1061-0421
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