Culture is what distinguishes the human civilized society from other creatures existing in the world. It finds its reflection in many kinds of human activities, including art and communication. People have accumulated the knowledge, values, beliefs, and attitudes to the whole scope of objects they have ever known in the cultural heritage and have become inherently able to transmit it to successive generations who enrich and reconsider it according to the current situation and conditions in which they live. With the emergence of the global mass market, the means of communicating cultural values and appealing to them was found in the powerful tool of advertising that constitutes a powerful tool for these purposes nowadays. However, it is important to understand how cultural values have been changing throughout the 20th century and at the verge of the 21st century; exploring cultural artifacts in advertising may be highly helpful in finding cultural reflections of the modern epoch.
Looking at the tendencies of emphasis change in advertising, one can draw the line the modern reality. It has developed greatly throughout the 20th century and at the present moment of time, it possesses enormous power of influence on the human mind, perception, and the system of attitudes’ formation. The present-day humankind represents the realm of consumers in the world market, which is essential for advertisers. For this reason, it is possible to find out much about modern opinions on such things as health and beauty as well as the changes that occurred within the field during the past century. Only by meeting the cultural standards posed for some products by the target customers, advertisers will manage to convince their customers that they need that very product as the alternative that will meet their demands the best.
One can see the practical proof for this argument on the example of cosmetics advertisements taken from different periods of the company’s existence. The company taken as an example is Maybelline. The advertisement that was used to promote its cosmetics in 1952 can be seen in Figure 1.
As one can see from the present advertisement, the Maybelline Company promoted intensive make-up that was able to make every woman much more impressive, remembered, and recognized. Taking this into consideration and looking at the picture of the ad, one can assume that unnatural beauty was more appreciated in the 1950s – women only started to use cosmetics in the post-war years, and the style of a woman was considered good in case she could use bright tones of lipstick, eyebrow liners, shades, etc. Women who did not use make-up or who wanted to seem natural were considered pale and uninteresting, so bright makeup was highly fashionable.
It is possible to make suppositions about the roots for such high popularity of decorative cosmetics and their intense usage by women around the world. The cosmetic industry only started to develop after the two world wars, the conditions of the Cold War, mass fear, and drama occupied the world that only started to rise from ruins. Thus, cosmetics became a helpful tool in making life brighter, in the liberalization of conventional strict rules of humbleness and decency. The movie industry also became colorful and vivid, so it is not surprising that women wanted to resemble the bright heroines of romantic films they saw on the screens. These are likely to be the reasons for bright colors and cosmetics becoming the indispensable element of beauty; natural beauty was considered unimpressive, so artificial means of self-improvement firmly took the ground in the market.
However, times change, and attitude to makeup turned out to have changed as well. Nowadays bright makeup is the privilege of only some public celebrities who include this element as part of their scene style. In general, naturalness and a healthy appearance are much more appreciated than bright, aggressive colors. This change has also been reflected in the Maybelline advertising campaign – nowadays the company makes a heavy emphasis on makeup elements that allow women’s skin to look natural and healthy so that the presence of makeup, in general, were not noticeable. One can have a look at the 21st-century Maybelline ad of the makeup foundation to find the proof for the point:
Concluding the discussion of cultural differences evident in advertising of different time periods, one can understand that it serves as the most sensitive indicator of human culture. This fact is determined by advertising’s close connection with the profitability of any business – in case the ads’ creators manage to perceive what customers need, they will sell more and will earn more money. Since trade always longs for the maximization of profit, advertisement becomes a true reflection of human needs, wants, perceptions, and values that constitute the cultural profile of certain groups of people at a given moment of time.
References
1952 Maybelline Makeup. Health and Beauty Vintage Ads. 2010. Web.
Maybelline Make-up Range – Maybelline Dream Creamy Foundation. 2010. Web.