Watermelons, Syringes, and Regulation: Instagram Marketing by Cosmetic Clinics in the UK and the Netherlands.
Cosmetic procedures
Ethics
Marketing
Regulation
Social media
Journal
Aesthetic plastic surgery
ISSN: 1432-5241
Titre abrégé: Aesthetic Plast Surg
Pays: United States
ID NLM: 7701756
Informations de publication
Date de publication:
10 2023
10 2023
Historique:
received:
11
04
2023
accepted:
29
04
2023
medline:
23
10
2023
pubmed:
20
6
2023
entrez:
19
6
2023
Statut:
ppublish
Résumé
Cosmetic clinics use social media to inform and market to prospective patients. Evidence from social media posts by the UK and Dutch cosmetic clinics illustrates the precarious balance between professionalism and commercialism, and raises important questions for the regulation of these marketing communication efforts. A random selection of Instagram posts by Dutch and the UK clinics which offer (non-) invasive cosmetic procedures were selected for a qualitative content analysis. The corpus of data comprised 395 posts by six Dutch and four UK clinics, published between January 2018 and July 2019. The method of analysis was inspired by previous qualitative studies into the marketing of cosmetic procedures and can be described as a (discursive) thematic analysis. The tension between the medical-professional and commercial nature of cosmetic procedures was evident in the Instagram posts by Dutch and UK clinics. Despite calls for 'ethical' marketing on social media, this study illustrates that marketing materials are not always in line with current advertising guidelines. Whereas advertising standards authorities have warned against the trivialization of cosmetic procedures, posts by clinics backgrounded the medical nature of procedures in favor of more commercial advertising appeals. Furthermore, the posts demonstrated little diversity in terms of models' gender, ethnicity and body type, which reinforces narrow contemporary beauty ideals. This journal requires that authors assign a level of evidence to each article. For a full description of these Evidence-Based Medicine ratings, please refer to the Table of Contents or the online Instructions to Authors www.springer.com/00266 .
Sections du résumé
BACKGROUND
Cosmetic clinics use social media to inform and market to prospective patients. Evidence from social media posts by the UK and Dutch cosmetic clinics illustrates the precarious balance between professionalism and commercialism, and raises important questions for the regulation of these marketing communication efforts.
METHODS
A random selection of Instagram posts by Dutch and the UK clinics which offer (non-) invasive cosmetic procedures were selected for a qualitative content analysis. The corpus of data comprised 395 posts by six Dutch and four UK clinics, published between January 2018 and July 2019. The method of analysis was inspired by previous qualitative studies into the marketing of cosmetic procedures and can be described as a (discursive) thematic analysis.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS
The tension between the medical-professional and commercial nature of cosmetic procedures was evident in the Instagram posts by Dutch and UK clinics. Despite calls for 'ethical' marketing on social media, this study illustrates that marketing materials are not always in line with current advertising guidelines. Whereas advertising standards authorities have warned against the trivialization of cosmetic procedures, posts by clinics backgrounded the medical nature of procedures in favor of more commercial advertising appeals. Furthermore, the posts demonstrated little diversity in terms of models' gender, ethnicity and body type, which reinforces narrow contemporary beauty ideals.
LEVEL OF EVIDENCE V
This journal requires that authors assign a level of evidence to each article. For a full description of these Evidence-Based Medicine ratings, please refer to the Table of Contents or the online Instructions to Authors www.springer.com/00266 .
Identifiants
pubmed: 37337055
doi: 10.1007/s00266-023-03420-0
pii: 10.1007/s00266-023-03420-0
pmc: PMC10581915
doi:
Types de publication
Letter
Langues
eng
Sous-ensembles de citation
IM
Pagination
2179-2189Informations de copyright
© 2023. The Author(s).
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