A Question of Beauty

In his blog on January 13, Seth Godin discussed beauty as a signaling strategy. He makes some practical, common sense points about how, all things being equal, we’re attracted to beauty, and always have been. From mating choices in evolution, to how much is spent on hair styling, beauty matters to us.

What interests me, though, is how beauty evolves. For example, Marilyn Monroe (size 12) was the gold standard for beauty in the 1950′s. Today? Who knows…it could be an emaciated Kate Moss, or Queen Latifah. Cary Grant? According to my wife and daughter, he’s beautiful in any day, age or time.

That begs this question: are there different standards for men and women? May seem like a stupid question (with the obvious answer being a resounding “YES!”). As a middle-aged man, I think middle-aged people are more beautiful than youngsters. But, that’s just my taste. One caveat on that, though: lip plumping and hair-plugs? Please, forget it…

And, that begs yet another question: is manufactured beauty actually beautiful? One could certainly argue that we’ve had manufactured beauty for a long, long time. Technically speaking, every work of art is “manufactured”, whereas, a vibrant Hawaiian sunset is not. I would argue that created beauty is beautiful by degrees. Monet created unique, one of a kind masterpieces. On the other hand, Madison Avenue and Hollywood create beauty for mass consumption. A man may write his lover a poem…beauty for an audience of one. It may be line after line of sappy drivel, but for his audience of one it’s beautiful.

Beauty, obviously, is highly subjective. True beauty (like the works of Shakespeare, DaVinci, The Psalmist) stands the test of time and adds something significant to the culture as a whole. I’d argue that temporary beauty, as in most motion pictures and virtually all advertising, ends up just being a consumable. It lasts a while, we eat it up, then it’s gone and we’ve moved on to the next great thing.

As marketers, our job isn’t to be DaVinci. It’s to discover what our customers find attractive and beautiful, put it into a usable (and consumable form), and connect it to them. In the end, our created and manufactured beauty ends up in the same place it always has: in the eye of the beholder.