Marketing of curves and its ethical implications

For years, fashion marketing has been under fire because of the prototype it imposes: unnaturally skinny girls, whose thin bodies are perfect to exalt the dresses they wear and not to divert the attention from them. Anyway, fashion has been accused to induce women to pursue this ideal of thinness and to make them insecure and even unhealthy, causing an increasing number of food disorders - such as anorexia and bulimia. Confronted with these heavenly models - whose bodies are far from "real women", with their extra pounds, cellulite and love handles - women get convinced that those are the perfect bodies, the ones that should be pursued and imitated.

One controversial example in this sense is Victoria's Secret's campaign launched in 2014, known as The Perfect Body, in which some models of this worldwide famous brand pose in their underwear. The controversial slogan was heavily criticised and a petition was signed aimed at making the campaign end. 

Marketing of curves: Victoria's Secret unethical campaing (2014)

This campaign is ethically debatable, since it conveys the sexist idea that only a skinny body could be considered perfect and that this is the ideal that men and women must adopt. Moreover, the exaltation of thinness has been considered unethical because it may lead women - especially teens, that are more sensible to advertising and fashion - to get less and less healthy in the name of a questionable image of beauty.

In the last years, anyway, the tendency is trading places: even if the icon of thinness in fashion dies hard, in the last decade the curvy trend is getting more and more powerful, invading the field of fashion and catwalks. 

Social networks and magazines have been invaded by these curvy icons, promoted as a new icon of beauty, closer to the reality and to common women.

In the field of fashion, even the 42 (Italian size) is considered curvy, but step by step even objectively fat women started becoming fashion icons.

The most famous example in this sense is Ashley Graham, 27 years old, that - with her 175 cm and her 77 kg - is becoming the queen of curvy pride.

Marketing of curves: Ashley Graham

If curvy movement started mainly to fight the anorexic trend dominating catwalks with its antithetical marketing message - that female body is always beautiful, that does not have to follow a prototype and that does not have to sacrifice its most femenine shade in the name of thinness and perfection - then it started promoting another prototype: the buttery - or even fat - woman, whose sensuality is unbridled. Curvy marketing is inundating every field, from fashion to press, from cinema to music - I bet everyone knows the song All About That Bass by Meghan Trainor, which can be considered the hymn of the curvy pride.

Marketing of curves: All About That Bass

It is the exact opposite of the old - but still alive - skinny icon of fashion, but doesn't it have ethical implications as well? Is promoting fatty women more ethical than showing skinny ones? Is fat really healthier, especially in this era of consumerism where obesity is a dramatic health concern?

The marketing of the curves: obesity incidence in the US

I want you to think about these possibile ethical issues and I would be glad if you left your opinion about this debated topic in the comments. 

Coop and ethical marketing to kids: an Italian example of responsibility

I was in a supermarket, walking down a corridor dedicated to croissants, biscuits and snacks. I was greedily glancing at some snacks  full of chocolate and coconut, intended to leave them on the shelf – it’s swimsuit season, dammit! – while I noticed the following symbol printed on the box:

Coop and ethical marketing to kids: labels

“Moderate consumption for kids”

This thing impressed me positively, since it is a good example of honest and ethical marketing towards kids. It is not profit-oriented at all: some parents, reading it, could avoid buying the product or, at least, drastically reduce their consumption of it. It is an act of responsibility. 

I searched on the Internet some information about this symbol and the philosophy of the company producing these products, Coop. Coop (abbreviation of Consumers’ Cooperative) is a system of Italian consumers’ cooperatives which runs the largest supermarket chain in Italy. Coop was created to buy and resell high-quality goods at fair prices to its members and to consumers in general, striving for biological goods and for food safety. 

More precisely, Coop is committed to offer healthy products to kids, dedicating to them tailored goods and launching informative campaigns in order to support parents’ in their buying decisions and to fight children obesity. Researches show that, in Italy, 22.9% of children between 8-9 years old are overweight and 11.1% are obese. One of the main causes is having wrong eating habits: too many animal proteins, too many sugars and fats, and food with a very limited fiber content, for a total caloric intake that is too high for children. Vegetables are not generally appreciated by kids and parents, instead of educating their children to eat them, they simply get over it. 

Coop and ethical marketing to kids: fighting obesity

For these reasons, Coop launched a project supervised by ECOG (European Childhood Obesity Group) and SIO (Società Italiana dell’Obesità), in order to sensitize families about this problem and to offer their children some healthy product created expressly for them. The campaign is called Club 4-10 (the children ages to which the campaign is mainly dedicated) and it has some goals. First, the increase of information, in order to guide parents in their buying decisions: the symbol presented above is one of the main measures adopted, an immediate and clever way to dissuade parents offering these products to their kids on a daily basis. Then, the creation of a line of products called Club 4-10 Coop addressed to kids between 4 and 10 years old and nutritionally balanced, and of another one called Crescendo Coop (Growing Up Coop), dedicated to children up to three years old, which uses organic ingredients and which avoids salt and sugar, unnecessary in the early stages of children’s life. Finally, Coop has a website entirely dedicated to this topic and campaign: if you are interested in it, just have a look!

Coop and ethical marketing to kids: Club 4-10

I praise this responsible approach to kids and I strongly suggest consumers to reward this kind of behaviour: doing so, in the end this will become the only conduct admitted and “unethical companies” will gradually disappear.