The Perception of Young Women towards Beauty Value in Beauty Advertisements

: Fulfillment of beauty standards with a thin body, fair skin, and straight hair should have status as an old idea that does not need to be perpetuated. There is a change from women who no longer interpret beauty according to the standards that are instilled. This is in line with the many brands that are starting to break the stereotype of beauty when creating their campaigns and advertising media, with values that are increasingly changing, now many beauty brands have created positive and inclusive campaigns to touch more people who care about physical and non-physical beauty. The current study aims to know how female customers perceive the value of beauty toward the ideal women that are being promoted in media, especially in advertising, and how its impacts women. To explore the perceptions of women as a customer, this study uses a qualitative method to dig deeply into how the perception of the customer will work against the brands. This study suggests that brands, especially beauty brands, to put attention to female customers’ perception of how they want to appear in any media that exist. Instead of focusing on idealized women, brands should use a more natural model which might bring inclusion and diversity.


INTRODUCTION
Media is one of the causes related to prolonged eating disorders, especially among college students and university students (Bissell & Rask, 2010).Also, it can make women have low self-esteem and even a negative body image (Bissell & Rask, 2010).This can happen because the media often exposes the ideal thin body image which is considered to be a representation of the ideal body shape for women (Schooler et al., 2004).Showing this ideal thin body image also indirectly hurts women, especially because the body shape displayed is far from the word "real" so it seems to be manipulative (Halliwell, 2015).Some studies have found that the ideal body image lasts for about a decade (Schooler et al., 2004), while other studies also prove that the depiction of women's body shapes in media is less varied.
Advertisers, in general, prefer to use women with ideal thin bodies who are considered attractive as they believe that models with attractive appearances will support sales (Powell, 2014) (Kahle & Homer, 1985).Since then, advertisers have created an ideal image for women to fall into the category of attractive, even perfect women (Richins, 1991).Advertisers need to realize normalizing the thin ideal among women as there are negative effects felt by women concerning brand cognition, such as attitude towards the brand and purchase intention (de Lenne et al., 2021).
The representation of women in advertisements creates an unreal beauty standard (Bissell & Rask, 2010) where women are described as having to be thin, tall, slender, white, and smooth-faced.This might be acceptable to the public, but this beauty standard is still contrary to individual views (Watson et al., n.d.).Women, especially, often feel uncomfortable with their appearance (Harrison, 2013).For years, a woman's body shape has always been used as a target for assessment by society, causing excessive fear and insecurity (Borau & Bonnefon, 2017).When women see the appearance of other ideal women in the media or advertisements, there is an increase in appearance anxiety and body shame (Monro & Huon, 2005).It doesn't matter what product is advertised, whether it is related to the body or not, but women tend to pay more attention to the model in the advertisement than the value of the product (Bissell & Rask, 2010).This leads to misunderstandings among customers about how women should behave (Alomía & Arbaiza, 2021).
In Asia, having an ideal thin body is considered to be a dream for every woman (Traore et al., 2005).It is related to the social and cultural prevailing in a country that women with an ideal thin appearance are considered easier to get opportunities in various things, such as marriage and work (Dadzie & Petit, 2009).Similar to Indonesia, the concept of beauty that is upheld is women who are white and thin, a survey conducted by ZAP Beauty Clinic in 2020 stated that 82.5% of women in Indonesia describe beauty as having white and glowing skin.
A thin, white, and tall body is considered an ideal and attractive body shape.However, women are under pressure to conform to environmental expectations.Even worse, when there is nothing attractive in a woman's appearance, it will have a bad impact (Kim & Lee, 2018).A survey conducted by The Florida in 2017 also said that as many as 87.73% of women like to compare themselves with other women in the media, and 50.57% of women feel dissatisfied with their body shape or appearance.Women may experience greater social anxiety, bias, and inequity based on their looks when compared to men (Strahan et al., 2006).
Due to the negative impact of beauty advertisements that often show unreality, female customers eventually move through the body positivity movement (Emma Bazilian, 2016).This movement encourages women to love their body shape and no longer strive to follow the standards set by the media (Cohen et al., 2019).A survey conducted by ZAP Beauty Clinic in 2021 stated that 56% of participants described women look beautiful when are happy and thinking positively.In response to this, several local beauty and care brands have finally featured "real" women in their advertisements.This ad includes body positivity as the brand seeks to portray the diversity of women in our society, by emphasizing that there is no ideal model that can represent all women.
The beauty industry is one of the fastest growing industries, particularly in Asia and Africa, estimated to be worth $US 31.2 billion by 2024 (Research Brief, 2017).There are still some local brands that use the ideal model for their advertising and brands should pay attention to customer perceptions, especially if it is seen that the beauty industry market is huge.If a brand does not care about the perception of the customer, it may lose its customers.This study aims to find out about female customers' perceptions of how they perceive beauty and find advertisements that can represent them as customers.

Femvertising
Femvertising was first popular in 2014, proposed by the SheKnows website, which organized an advertising week panel on the subject in October 2014 (Ciambrello, 2014).Femvertising was created to oppose traditional advertising which always refers to beauty standards (Åkestam et al., 2017).Femvertising tries to break the stereotypes that exist in the 21st century (Åkestam et al., 2017).In the ad itself, there is a message in the form of selfaffirmation that seeks to support women to get the rights they have, such as gender equality, beauty stereotypes, and others (Halliwell, 2015).The portrait of women in the media is very important in shaping their perception of the real ideal woman.Body positivity advertisement is one type of advertisement that carries the theme of femvertising which displays various variations of the female body shape (Åkestam et al., 2017, Kraus & Myrick, 2018).

Body Image in Advertising
There is a negative relationship between the thin ideal image exposed by the media and the negative body image of young women (Harrison, 2013).Women can feel the difference between their body shape and thin ideal women which leads to a decrease in satisfaction with their appearance (Thornton & Maurice, 1999).The concept of body image in the media, especially in advertising has been described as a complex phenomenon including aspects of perception, attitude, and behavior (Cash et al., 2005).On the other hand, several studies that expose negative body image among women (Tiggemann, 2004) suggest that every advertiser can promote a positive body image, by not only exposing thin ideal models but also involving various body shapes (Fredrickson & Losada, 2005).

Self-Concept, Self-Congruity, Purchase Intention
According to the self-congruity literature (Sirgy, 1985), each individual has four dimensions of self-concept; actual self, ideal self, social self, and ideal social self.Customers often try to strengthen their self-concept when choosing a brand that can provide a self-image concept that matches their self-concept (Sung & Choi, 2012).In addition, this self-concept adjustment helps customers to be more consistent in choosing a brand that matches their current image and also helps them maintain their identity (Sirgy et al., 2000).According to the research, advertisements that use the self-fit effect can increase customer perceptions of the brand, brand preference, and purchase intention.When women see advertisements showing a "real" model versus an "unreal" model, the real self-congruity impact is likely to be stronger than the ideal self-congruity effect (Hong & Zinkhan, 1995).Female customers perceive models that are more tangible in advertising and more consistent with their real selves.Today, due to the shifting beauty conventions, they place more importance on how the model may fit with their ideal body type.Indeed, some research has revealed that actual self-congruity trumps ideal self-congruity, particularly among consumers from individualistic cultures (Quester, 2000).As a result, watching an average-sized model would result in stronger buy intentions due to the natural self-congruity effect (Hong & Zinkhan, 1995).

Customer Perception
Perception is the process by which a person selects, organizes, and interprets information that comes into its meaning to create an overall picture (George Mather, 2016).Anything that can activate a sensory receptor is called a stimulus (Ratey, 2001).Each individual usually interprets each stimulus based on personal experience, needs, and prejudices.For example, if we see or hear an advertisement along with its beautiful voice and model, we are more likely to accept that information as input.This process is mainly related to the perceptual process (S.Rodgers & Thorson, 2000).Consumer perceptions of advertising are influenced by the perceived suitability of the advertiser's method (Campbell & Kirmani, 2000) (Friestad & Wright, 1994).
Briefly, the perceptual process includes three main points: exposure, attention, and interpretation (Rossi & Berglund, 2011).Exposure occurs when a stimulus appears in a person's sensory receptors-sight, touch, or smell, which they may concentrate on or even ignore such messages (Griffero, 2014).Attention refers to how individuals are perceived as having thoughts or activities that are aimed at certain stimuli (Talsma et al., 2010).Meanwhile, inferred interpretations of our own 11 meanings associated with a stimulus may differ among individuals, even if they are exposed to the same stimulus (Nijstad et al., 2002).

METHODS
In this study, qualitative methods are used to understand how women currently perceive unrealistic advertisements in depth (Lazuka et al., 2020) as the proliferation of advertisements that still use attractive models in promoting their products makes women feel dissatisfied with their appearance.The exaggeration of how the ideal beauty is depicted in the ad.Qualitative methods emphasize an insider's perspective to investigate phenomena and comprehend their significance from individual perspectives (Monique Hennink, I Hutter, 2011) enabling researchers to better understand the phenomenon (Gill et al., 2008).
The current study focuses on the difference between body-ideal advertising and bodypositive advertising using the example of beauty products, such as makeup and skin care.The object of this research is women who use beauty products and have concerns about unrealistic advertising.They also have a positive attitude toward their bodies; they can accept how they look.This issue is related to the analysis of online comments on advertisements featuring plus-size models revealing that consumers value body inclusivity, which results in a positive brand image.
To select individuals, the researcher used a purposive sampling approach.Purposive sampling is a way of deliberately selecting a sample of participants based on the research objectives (Pérez et al., 2017).In this study, researchers interviewed a group of women aged 20 to 40 with various statuses, from students and employees to housewives.Informants who participate in this research are customers who pay more attention to advertisements or beauty campaigns held by a brand, especially on social media platforms and marketplaces.These participants also have a positive view of their appearance and go against the beauty standards campaigned by the media.
Data analysis of this study used qualitative data analysis for open-ended questions.In this study, critical questions investigate how women today perceive unrealistic advertising.All open-ended answers, including additional questions, were reviewed multiple times, line by line, by using the content analysis approach of Taylor- Powell and Renner (2003).The researcher then arranges comparable answers into themes that will be studied further using data coding procedures.

Profile of Participants
The participants of this study were women with an age range of 20 years to 38 years, where on average all respondents had activities that required the use of beauty products to support their appearance in their respective environments.

Analysis of the Beauty Value
Women and beauty are intimately connected.This is what drives most women to create or establish a size in which they may define the definition of beauty in a woman.Women are under pressure to adhere to cultural beauty standards (Chrisler, 2011).The most appealing body type, known as the body ideal, is one that is skinny, hairless, and cleansed (Lamont et al., 2019).Some participants feel that physical beauty is intrinsic and a divine gift.They believe that women are made in the greatest possible condition; that all women are born to be attractive.One participant, for instance, said, "I accept my body as it was given, so what should I change?I like the way I am." and, "I think every woman should know how beautiful they are, they were made as beautiful as they are."This is also related to the inner beauty that every human being has, not only exactly to women.Some participants believe that beauty can not only be seen by appearance as they stated, "I think that beauty comes from heart, from its characteristics.Not depending on how they look in real life.Even though judging a person's characteristics in the first place is also complicated.But, judging beauty from their appearance only is wrong."

Self-Acceptance
Regarding participants' perception of beauty, women nowadays do not feel undisturbed about how ideal beauty is being promoted in the media, especially in advertisements.They can deal with their body in terms of size and shape.They feel satisfied enough with their appearance, even if there is a small part of their body that makes them feel dissatisfied.Some participants stated, "I feel pretty, and I don't care how people think of me, their opinion doesn't matter, as long as they intend to make me feel bad about my appearance."Besides, this is a new era of neutrality, where women focus on how their body function works rather than only focusing on how their bodies look.There is no perfect body shape, even for women who are fitted with ideal beauty as they can be judged too by society.However, freeing someone from the social demands of society can help a person's process of accepting themself more quickly.One participant stated that "knowing yourself first, if you don't, you will just keep being followed by unreasonable social demands, and it will hurt you the most."

Perception of Unrealistic Advertisements
Some of the images or videos seen by customers in the media often depict enhanced advertising models, such as altered skin tone, modified body shape, and various attempts to eliminate other imperfections to provide ideal beauty results that women could not achieve in the past generally.Advertising plays a big role in creating customer perception as one participant said, "Previously, people were confident in their appearance, but because there were advertisements that were not realistic, people believed that beauty must follow existing standards."The participants believed that becoming beautiful could not be determined by any standard that was promoted by the media.However, sometimes it is undeniable that attractive women in advertisements could attract their attention quickly.Also, participants realized that using attractive women in advertisements is one of the brand's strategies, so they don't feel threatened by that kind of advertisement anymore.They believe that every brand has its purpose in advertising."There is no company that wants to lose; therefore, they are running a campaign with attractive looks, design, or even the model itself."

Positive Body Image Advertisement
Brands are now developing marketing campaigns around body acceptance and using the average woman.Even though the attractiveness of women could not be undeniable by viewers, women just want brands to create more variety.Leaving out diversity in advertising may feel like a minor oversight, but it can leave real feelings of hurt for those who are continually underrepresented.In this study, women felt that the advertisement featured women with ideal physical criteria that only did not represent women.Even for women (nonmodels) who fit ideal standards, advertisements should be more varied in showing various female body shapes.The participants have reasons why the advertisement should be more varied as it is said, "Every woman has their right to choose how they want to look, but they also want their body to be recognized by people, so people know that women have every different kind of body."The participants also hope that advertising can help them appreciate their bodies by campaigning for the body positivity movement in advertisements, where brands can be aware of female customers of various shapes and sizes so that every advertisement launched can be closely related to customers.

DISCUSSION
There are four major categories generated in this study, namely the value of beauty, selfacceptance, customer perception toward unrealistic ads, and positive body image advertisements.These four broad categories ultimately form two main themes to answer the questions of this research: beauty and wellness and best advertisement to fulfill customers nowadays.

Figure 1. Theme categories
The physical look of attractive women, such as white skin and tall slim bodies, is frequently associated with the concept of beauty.According to the researchers, a sense of beauty exists as an ideological meaning from the subjectivity of each form, which then becomes everyday consumption and is unconsciously imprinted through the diffusion of mass media.On television, for example, many brands have hidden meanings that are a type of alignment with the governing classes or the dominant classes-for example, siding with the masculine character depicted in the marketing images rather than the female figure, or siding with the white beauty over other skin colors.
In this study, beauty is no longer defined just by its outward look.They think that because beauty can be derived from any place and all women may possess the ideal of beauty.The body positivity movement was founded a decade earlier by Connie Sobczak, who brought the issue of body image to the public (thebodypositive.org).The Body Positivity movement encourages all individuals to reconsider the concept of the body formed by the surrounding society, particularly the culture in the United States (Kumalaningtyas & Sadasri, 2018).This movement is growing in parallel with the rise of digital, which is rapidly creating forums in cyberspace.Previous research by R. F. Rodgers et al (R. F. Rodgers et al., 2019) backs up the present study.
Although the body positivity movement has grown in popularity, and there are now some businesses that use models with darker skin tones even huge-size women in their advertisements, white women continue to dominate and are featured in different forms of mass media.Participants expressed a wish for more brands to incorporate a greater diversity of body types in their advertising and to cease pushing the thin ideal.Participants want to see the image in advertisements as more realistic, natural, and presenting a larger diversity of body types, sizes, and ethnic/racial groups than stock photographs seen in the media and those used in normal advertising campaigns.

CONCLUSION
This conclusion is consistent with the findings of (Anixiadis et al., 2019) who discovered that women responded favorably to realistic advertisements.However, despite the increased diversity of models shown in commercial images across various dimensions, most of the models remained smaller-bodied and conventionally attractive, according to a few women.As a result, a part of the general population was excluded, and increasing deviations from socially enforced beauty criteria would still be tolerated.
Participants in this study explained how positive advertisements for real women affected their body image, emotions, and self-concept.They felt more secure, more accepted, and less pressured to fit into the skinny ideal after seeing that image.These findings are consistent with a previous study by Convertino et al., (2019) that the image of real women in advertising may be advantageous for women who are prone to thin-ideal images.Furthermore, present additional evidence that limiting the prominence of unrealistic images showing unattainable beauty ideals is an essential and promising path for lowering body image and eating disorders (Bell et al., 2017).
Overall, this research points to a distinct social marketing trend or campaign.Body positivity has been described as gaining popularity in western countries over the last decade as social media platforms allow users to post photos of bodies that do not conform to beauty standards (Lazuka et al., 2020).This is reinforced by the findings that the women in this study believed that the appearance of different types of female models in advertising may represent them as female customers of a brand.