The Demand for Authentic Diversity in Makeup Advertising

In September of 2017, the makeup industry experienced major shift in its status quo when iconic singer-songwriter, Rihanna, launched her debut makeup line, Fenty Beauty, with the "Beauty for All" campaign. The line's first launch consisted of only a few products: a primer, a lip gloss, face highlighters, but most notably, a foundation line -- featuring 40 different shades. This campaign addressed a demand people of color had for years that had been ignored by countless other companies. Fenty's inclusive campaign was a huge hit, earning $72 million in sales its first month of business. In Rihanna's own words, "I created Fenty after realizing the lack of skin tones represented in makeup, from the darkest shades to the lightest. I wanted a makeup line so that women everywhere would be included." The promotional images for her makeup line aptly feature a diverse range of models of all colors, providing more representation in an industry that currently lacks it.

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Fenty Beauty revolutionized expectations for brand launches and campaigns and set a standard that is leaving other cosmetic companies up for criticism for failing to be inclusive. For example, Tarte Cosmetics, recently launched their highly anticipated Shape Tape foundation with a mere 15 shades, only 3 of which were tan to deep shades, not nearly enough to cover their entire customer base. Since the collection reveal, Tarte has been flooded with backlash, from both average consumers and social media influencers alike all over Twitter, Instagram, and other online makeup forums. A huge boycott has been organized, drastically downing their anticipated sales numbers. The product has been blacklisted by the community, online beauty gurus denouncing Tarte, not wanting to give the product any attention that is not criticism, out of both fear of facing backlash themselves and disappointment.
To try to quell this PR nightmare, Tarte quickly announced that they had more shades planned for a later release, but after releasing a statement excusing the line with, "Additional shades are usually added seasonally, which makes sense because your complexion tends to be paler in the Winter and darker in the Summer months," completely ignoring those with darker skin year round. Though they have since issued another apology, admitting their faults, promising that they "can and will do better", Tarte remains in hot water and has greatly damaged their reputation.

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In an effort to appear more inclusive, most cosmetics companies are now featuring swatches of their products on more than one skin tone in their advertisements and product shots. However, this can backfire on companies when this strategy only showcases how limited their shade ranges are, which was has been a recent case for several different brands, such as It Cosmetics, Almay, and specifically YSL with their All Hours concealer. They released a promotional image on their Instagram, which was also featured as a product preview on Sephora's website. The image in question featured all shades of their foundation swatched on women of three different complexions, light, medium, and deep, despite there only being light to medium shades, with one dark shade that was not nearly dark enough to match the deep model's skin tone. The brand also faced criticism on social media and has yet to comment on the controversy.

Source: http://seph.me/2E6PHpW

With these expectations set, makeup companies are challenged to do better, to adopt inclusivity into their business plans, not just faking it to keep up with what some believe is a trend, rather than a necessary change in the industry. This sore lack shows that these companies have not been paying attention to who their audiences are and are missing out on vast opportunities in the marketplace. With this push from social media, the beauty industry can expect to change how they conduct campaigns from here on out, or else they will face backlash from consumers, due to these long-awaited expectations finally set in place. If companies fail to listen to consumers and answer this demand, they will likely continue to see decreases in sales and increased PR troubles.