The marketing behind the lipstick

What is it that makes us feel secure about ourselves?

Is it the attitude? The personality ? Or the clothes ? in my experience I believe it’s a mixture of all three. However, the perception that we have varies according to the circumstances we are in. For example, if we have a job interview or a date, o just a party with friends we want to look our best, and sometimes we need a back up help of a designer to keep us secure of our image. Here is where the psychological value of the business brands comes in. Why is it that celebrities and consumers rely so much on designers to let them advise what to wear to a party or a premier? Because they feel that designers anticipate to the hip trends of the moment, and so be the first to impose them. Sometimes these risks are recognized and seen as an In trend or a fashion crime.

In addition, the consumers dress to portray a style, an image, an attitude.  Why is it that a brand has (in many cases) more meaning than a X design? The answer has various possibilities. On the one hand, we have the personality created by the marketing team in which they assign a meaning that makes it worth much more worth than its cost, they want to portray an ideal for which people feel complete and differentiate themselves, maintaining a personal style. For example, Carolina Herrera would be the epitome of elegance. The purpose of having a brand, is to assign value so that people can easily differentiate it from other brands and have it position as a top of mind. It’s as simple as thinking of a “coke” and the first think that comes up to our mind is “Coca-Cola”. Coca-Cola became a number one transforming itself into a generic in the market, people don’t see brands; they see A brand, which makes a lot of difference in a competitive market. So, the value a brand tries to convey is as a reference in order to make people feel that they can actually acquire their personality, sophistication and image of the brand. They inspire. This is why in many cases advertising campaigns use public images of the media to become a referential and use their image to sell, and communicate the idea: if you use Armani underwear you can actually feel like you look a bit more similar to Beckham just because you are wearing the same under pants. It’s a way to sell, and a way to complete the ideal that every person has in their minds by using the same clothes. This is due to the fact that we feel more unique and confident knowing that Beckham has it too.

So to conclude, we use Kottlers marketing view for which we are never selling just a product, but the idea that the product transmits. So if we want to sell a lipstick we are not selling, just the material and sensorial product itself. Instead we sell beauty, and the ideal image that the lipstick transmits.     

Fashion Genes

Its funny how culture can vary our perception of suiting up. If we go inside a determined society, of a determined town or country we could see what style, habits and trends people have. But it goes far behind our favorite celeb style, or that weekly magazine that advises us what’s hip or not, it goes far behind, it goes till our mothers. Yes, they are the first fashion role models we have, and our faithful parameters of what’s good and wrong, even before our girlfriends. That’s why, when we go back on our childhood photos, we cannot believe what we were wearing. I mean come on mama! Seriously? Was that ever fashionable? And amazing as it seems, when we are young and before we develop our own style, if our mom told us, that’s gorgeous on you, it is very likely that we should wear it, no matter what outsiders said if mom liked it we should like it too. So we become dolls. Conclusion, our mothers and even our grandmothers were our first fashion role models, which means that many of our habits, we copy unconsciously from her, the woman that gave us life and the one that will guide us on our discovery for fashion.


So before society and fashion magazines educate us on our personal developed style, we are dolls that have no opinion and that will wear anything given. That’s until we are aware that there are other role models that might inspire us on our own sense of fashion and personal style. We become conscious of our own individuality since we live in society with parameters of style acceptance.

A funny anecdote that made me reflect about my clothes, happened on my first visit with my friends, to Las Vegas. We were lost as any tourist that was exited for being in one of the most talked about cities in the world. Wearing our best sexy clothes we decided to go partying, on our way out on that overwhelming city we ran into a ticket seller who recommended us to go to the Playboy Party at the Palms. Imagine out excitement when we decided that we were actually going when the ticket seller said “But you have to first get changed” we could not believe his words, we had been preparing and pampering ourselves for that whole afternoon, and to receive such a complement, our faces were ecstatic with a bully tone, “are you saying that we don’t look good for the occasion?” expecting for the ticket seller to change his mind. It was strange to realize that we were not dressed to the expected standard. We could say… well it WAS Las Vegas, and still it could have been just a matter of taste, of what the ticket seller would consider appropriate for the occasion.

Me and my big sis enjoying the waves...  Funny how when we are young we can wear anything with the excuse that we look "cute".