Marketing through realism and this new era of art

The depiction of the human figure has evolved through time, moving further away from idealism and stylisation and more towards realism. The evident cultural shift around the significance of beauty made individuals hold higher expectations of diversity and realism within branding and marketing. However, no cultural shift is static and there is a large element of fluidity and evolution with aesthetic literacy. Companies have had to navigate, adjust and conform to the new standard of aesthetic literacy if they wanted to succeed amongst todays generation.

It is safe to say that Alek Wek challenged the commercialisation of beauty that was taking place in 1997, creating a new vision of beauty. With the transformative sight of Wek, people’s ideals shifted. She brought a different sight to magazines, one that was completely out of the box and risky for marketers to take. Not everyone considered her beautiful, because beauty is cultural and not every culture has the same visual appeals.

With that being said, there still came a point of universal understanding that change needed to take place within the marketing and the beauty industries. Protests demanding acceptance began to take place by the new passionate generation. A generation longing to be welcomed in society, not being afraid to show their skin tones, their sexuality, their not-so-clear skin, their shorter legs and larger body. A generation that became fearless to voice their opinion changed the way brands presented themselves. Social media aided this demanding generation to hold those who denied humanities beauty accountable. Photographers showcased what went on within fashion shows, Marketing campaigns travelled through social media and individuals started to critic what they saw. Products and campaigns that stuck to idealised versions of women were placed under a negative spotlight for their outdated and offensive visual of beauty. All this imposed a risk on designers, marketers and companies to challenge their boundaries with the aesthetics they brought to the eyes of the media.

The need for Mattel to evolve and diversify their dolls

The doll industry is definitely one of those industries that kept the stylisation technique evident throughout the years, not only for the visual aspect of the dolls but also for the world which the industry created. Over the years, we fostered a better understanding about the long term negative effects that such conventionalised products have on children.

Even though dolls like Barbie have always been extremely popular, Mattel faced challenges with the stylisation of figures.Their sense of what is beautiful and pleasing to the eye should in practice not have been this far from natural reality. After all, it imposes a question on their morals on the ever so subjective topic of beauty. This impacts the outsiders view on the brand, as many individuals started seeing Mattel as insensitive to the female body. It became a complicated maze on how to market the product without downgrading the average body. In recent years, companies like Mattel took the decision to diversify their brand, as a result of both ethics and the backlash they had been receiving. However, this challenged has not disappeared.

In order for companies to operate in this cosmopolitan society they have to be willing to take visual risks that were not present before. They have been given more freedom to create campaigns that appeal to a wider audience, allowing for more creative freedom and acceptance. It is now not only time for brands to use this freedom to create something, but it is time for the consumers to look out for this era of art, to continue to give importance to marketing through realism.