When it comes to advertising world, skinny models are everywhere. You pick up a magazine and look at the ads of various products ranging from kitchen appliances to men’s personal care products to contraceptives, unbelievably skinny models seem to rule the roost. You watch your favorite news channel and chances are you will be disturbed (or charmed!) several times during the news bulletin which are interspersed with various ads featuring reed thin models showing skin generously. The question that naturally arises is that why do advertisers use skinny models for all kind of products under the sun?
I think this has more to do with our beauty obsessed society. Everything that fits in the mold of stereotypical mold of “beauty” is being liked, loved, worshiped and endorsed by the masses. Researchers have gathered that those products which feature skinny models attract more attention (and paradoxically enough, more contempt from normal and plus sized women!) and register more sales as compared to the products which do not have skinny faces for endorsement.
The researchers have also suggested that advertisers target young professionals through these skinny models as their potential consumers. It is evident that young people want to look at their best and being in respectable jobs gives them one more reason to look beautiful and groomed. These products kind of create aspirations among young people that they can look as suave as these models by using the designated products.
The skinny models also give lots of cues to fashionistas of the society how to dress up, use make up and look at their best and this way the products become quite popular. Besides, skinny has always been associated with sexy and for creating a brand image of something sophisticated and sexy, skinny models come handy.
A huge chunk of people is coming with terms that skinny is not real and hence there is a need to take normal and plus sized women in their ad campaigns for identifying with masses and the strategy seems to have been successful in a couple of ad campaigns.
