Korri Piper

Korri Piper fights the propaganda in advertising

Beauty and the Advertising Beast

What’s more maddening than not remembering important information like the date of your anniversary, state capitals, or how to help your kids with third grade math? Yet somehow you can word-for-word sing the jingle of a tire store from your youth.

I always imagined a career in marketing would be very much like a “Mad Men” episode—a bunch of brilliant, beautiful folks sitting around a table banging out genius campaigns over the course of a meeting. I thought subject matter experts would advise on copy with facts and confirm appropriate representation in art direction. That childhood naiveté was reinforced by adults extolling the virtues of right and wrong, truths and lies, telling us “Be smart enough to discern between them.” It’s a hefty weight to carry, but I was armed with facts.

I came of age at the tail end of GenX just before the analog to digital switch occurred and a massive deluge of content became accessible to everyone. On the 3 channels we had in my youth, I was assured daily by the tone and timber of Peter Jennings, Dan Rather, and Diane Sawyer’s voices that I was safe and informed.

Then a whole bunch of things happened; The World Wide Web was born. Libraries transitioned to electronic catalogs and research methodologies. Access to the internet and a computer enabled you to ostensibly figure out anything. Now people carry around pocket computers. For a kid who grew up in heated debates over misheard lyrics, this was my chance to be Right. All. The. Time.

That didn’t happen. What eventually transpired was distinctly capitalistic. The potential for advertising dollars offered a much shinier pile of lucrative gold than sharing boring old information. What was that glimmering beacon of playing-field-leveling-messaging going to bring to the global citizens of the world? Penis pills and hair loss treatments. We shouldn’t be surprised that “alternative facts” followed shortly thereafter.

As with most lessons in acquiring wisdom, motherhood helped me wrap my head around the effects of a lifetime of advertising bombardment. The 24-hour news and commercial cycle are energy-depleting, nerve- frazzling, and pervasively toxic—add to that overprogramming is more of a sport of necessity than a lifestyle choice and you find yourself with folks who simply can’t keep up with mining facts for the health and betterment of future generations.

So much of that noise makes its way into our daily lives. Are you buying organic food? Is the distributor fair to farmers? Are you cleaning with nontoxic detergents? Are those containers recyclable? Are the recyclers recycling? Are you on the right meds? Are your parents on the right meds? Is your dog on the right meds? Why are commercials telling us which medications to ask doctors for? Why are our foods, transportation methods, and products full of poisons? Can somebody please introduce me to the “9 out of 10 dentists recommend” cohort? I have questions.

Amid the information hurricane that exists in my brain, I watched my tween daughter walk away from me at the grocery store. I selected the items I needed and headed to exactly where I knew I’d find her: the health and beauty aisle. She was jockeying for me to purchase another “volumizing” shampoo and “calming” conditioner (because real fun is shopping contradictions). She knew these products would deliver because it says so on the bottles.

Do you remember the marketing brilliance that was Salon Selectives? (There’s a jingle I can still sing to you). I remember thinking this is
the magical elixir. Surely if I’m clever enough to pick the correct combination it will revolutionize my life... [entrée product graveyard, stage right]. Spoiler alert: the revolution never came.

What did come was a whiplash flipbook of women throughout time using nightshade belladonna to achieve anime eyes, blanching their faces with lead-based ceruse for a perfect complexion, applying mercury to eliminate blemishes, and baby oil to soak up UV rays. Literally dying in the name of “beauty.” Now me. Next my daughter.

Didn’t women share knowledge with the community through song before we were allowed to read and write? We literally transferred information via quilting patterns and hairstyles. Why can’t we cut through the propaganda to disseminate what’s healthiest for us and our families now?

I told my daughter the words on the bottles were the livelihood of a copywriter and not a scientist or hair expert. I explained that genetics and diet are where you’re getting your hair from and although a bottle can mitigate some “issues,” it’ll never deliver the picture of perfection in your mind. (It’s a stupid picture: it’s also not you.) I put a moratorium on buying additional products until she educated herself on ingredients and their efficacies.

She outlearned me in a nanosecond. Suddenly she could pronounce 6-syllable chemical words and explain if they contained carcinogens or not. In fear of losing all credibility, and in a complete lack of time and resources, I sat down with her to watch a four-part documentary series on HBOMax called “Not so Pretty.” It covers the skincare, makeup, nail care, and haircare industries.

It’s not fun. It’s not a celebration of girl-power. It’s not a big hurrah moment that affirms we’ve taken advantage of all the knowledge at our literal fingertips and made women feel like the best version of ourselves with product offerings that are safe and good for the world. It is a guidebook however, serving a potent reminder that even in the age of easy access to information we can’t always believe what we’re told because the onus is on us to research everything we put into ourselves and our families. There are plenty of apps out there like Think Dirty, Healthy Living, and Detox Me to meet our need for information at-a- glance and somewhat mitigate the issue at hand.

Just exercise caution and patience when you find them plastered with advertising. Until then, make like the young gals and wear sneakers with your dresses—redefine beauty that’s healthy for you.