Vanity of Indians and the Success of the Cosmetic Advertisements

Abstract

The quest for adornment is a global passion and Indians are no exception to it. Indian Cosmetic market is a multi Billion Market (Lifestyle, 2012) and reportedly growing at 15-20% annually. Though it was observed that demand for skin whitening products by both the genders is the main drive of the bullish trend in the cosmetic market, the same can’t undermine the substantial contribution of the other beauty products. This growing vanity of Indians widens the scope for global cosmetic marketers and not much scholarly light has been thrown upon this area. Hence, this present study concentrates on the influence of Gender and Social status on Physical and Achievement variables and how a latent variable Vanity explains Physical and Achievement, finally the effect of Vanity on Cosmetic Product Advertisement Effectiveness. A sample of 350 was collected from Tamil Nadu Pondicherry, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar by adopting non-probability convenience sampling method. A Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was employed to examine the complex relationship between variables and test the Hypotheses. Results indicate irrespective of Gender and Social status people are concerned about their appearance and success in life and vanity has a significant role to play towards the likelihood of remembering cosmetic advertisements. The findings of this research may have implications for marketers, Advertising professionals and researchers.

Keywords: Vanity, Cosmetic Advertisements, Gender, Social Status, SEM.