Conclusion
As a booming beauty brand very popular among millennials and Gen-Z, Glossier has a successful marketing campaign that aligns with the social justice oriented values of the day- at least to an extent.
The use of influencers to help promote products has allowed Glossier a broad and diverse audience that is, overall, reflected well in their advertisements.
However, as pervasive as the brand is across a number of media platforms, they’re still perpetuating hegemonic norms in some of their imagery, such as the gaze and the sexualization of bodies/body parts. As Kim (2008) suggests, although Glossier has taken up a feminist discourse, the brand still has some roots in hegemony.
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When examining their advertisements through a feminist lens, we find that stereotypical tropes abound. Although the brand seemingly endorses sexual empowerment, Rosalind Gill found in her research that perhaps continued sexualization (be it by the woman herself or another person) is not the missing piece in the empowerment discourse, and in fact, only continues to harm (2008).
Limitations of this study include amount of images analyzed, content available within those specific images and platform (i.e. only posts were analyzed- not Instagram stories and not language). I encourage others to conduct broader critical analysis as the brand continues to grow.
References
Chandler, D. (2014). Semiotics for beginners. Retrieved June 10, 2019. N.p.
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Gill, R. (2008). Empowerment/Sexism: figuring female sexual agency in contemporary advertising. Feminism & Psychology, 35–60.
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Kim, S. (2008). Feminist discourse and the hegemonic role of mass media. Feminist Media Studies, 391–406.
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Rogers, C., Fleming, M., Hammett, E., Roderick, L., Woollen, P., Parsons, R., & Joy, S. (2018, June 29). Marketing Week. Why beauty brand Glossier is ripping up the marketing playbook. Retrieved April 14, 2019, from https://www.marketingweek.com/2018/06/25/glossier-ripping-up-marketing-playbook/
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Schwemmer, C., & Ziewiecki, S. (2018). Social media sellout: The increasing role of product promotion on YouTube. Social Media + Society, 4.
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Shen, B., & Bissell, K. (2013). Social Media, Social Me: A content analysis of beauty companies’ use of Facebook in marketing and branding. Journal of Promotion Management, 629–651.
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