Selling Beauty: Ethical Implications of Skincare and Cosmetic Advertising

Though there are several legal regulations related to advertising, unethical behavior by advertisers remains a common occurrence. This is especially relevant within the beauty industry, where advertisements exaggerate product benefits and mislead consumers. Further, the beauty industry plays a pivotal role in defining beauty standards for women and provides women with a significant amount of information that they use to evaluate their own beauty. This thesis focuses on three key topics to determine the impact of unethical advertising. First, it examines common ethical issues that arise in the advertising industry as a whole. Next, it looks at beauty advertising specifically, evaluating ethical issues specific to this industry. Finally, based on original survey data and other relevant literature, it makes suggestions for companies to create more ethical advertising and for viewers to consume ads in a healthier way.

Grantor dc:publisher

University of Oregon

Year dc:date.issued

2024

Author dc:creator

• Friedman, Naomi

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Stolle, Jeff

• Beauty
• Advertising
• Marketing
• Business
• Ethics

Statement dc:rights

• CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Language dc:language.iso

en_US

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1794/29924

OAI record oai:identifier

https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/server/oai/request?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=dim&identifier=oai%3Ascholarsbank.uoregon.edu%3A1794%2F29924