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Topic: Student Questions

Are Advertisers Failing The Ethnic Community With Regard To The Cosmetics Industry?

Posted by Anonymous on 6/22/2004 at 8:38 AM ET 250 Points
Are advertisers ignoring ethnic minorities where the cosmetic industry is concerned.

There is a large percentage of the 'other' who have a lot of spending potential, however there are only a few cosmetic companies who are willing to market products targeted towards them. What are advertisers afraid of?

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  • Posted by Blaine Wilkerson on 6/22/2004 at 8:51 AM Member
    Hmmmm..... I have yet to recall a cosmetics company that is racially segregated. Can you give some specific examples?

    Some of the reasons you might see more products for "white chicks" are:

    1. They represent a larger part of the market. Sorry, there are more of them for the time being.

    2. They are...well.."white" and therefore do not possess all the different beautiful skin tones which come naturally to other races.


    I think those are pretty good reasons. My wife, son, entire family and I are dark complected by nature. The women in the family don't wear much make-up because they don't need it. Of course, I am not a woman, I do not wear make-up, and there is sure to be some very interesting lessons in the history, creation, and consumer studies to be learned by some of the other members.

    I understand your frustration, but not everything is a conspiracy.

    Hope this helps!
  • Posted by Deremiah *CPE on 6/26/2004 at 7:00 PM Accepted
    Lucy, I hear you.

    It appears that one of the challenges that you're experienceing is that this very well maybe an unexplored market that needs to be developed. The only challenge is that the older existing cosemetic companies may like the market there already in and do not want to explore or venture outside their current market.

    I did want you to know because my wife and I were former Mary Kay consultants that Mary Kay (God rest her soul) has marketed her products and advertised to the Black community for a long time. With that said I can confidently say I'm sure it's not a conspiracy because Mary Kay was a beautiful white woman with a great heart for people. Not only did she market products to the Black community she also empowered Blacks by developing a slightly darker scale of cosemetics with Blacks in mind.

    As an artist who has painted many ethnic people I think the other challenge that cosemetic companies may have is that the color ranges for women of a darker hue are wider in variation. Meaning that the scope of the product line would have to be broader in the lower darker tonal hue ranges. From an investment stand point more money would have to go into R&D and this would take more time to develop the tones and all of the many names.

    Like in the black hair care product industry I once had a friend who designed the boxes for these. The list of color names had to be greatly extended and developed to include a broader list because of all the shades of color black women come in. He said this was a much smaller range of boxes he was responsible for developing for women in the white hair care product industry.

    Since you're doing a dissertation I would challenge you to ask the cosemetic companies to find out more about this. It will make your paper richer and it will have a lot more flavor.

    Remember hard work does pay off and you deserve the best. Is there anything else I can do for you?

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