tailieunhanh - Blonde and Blue eyed? The Globalization of the Beauty Industry - Geoff Jones for Von Gremp

On the other hand, the beauty industry has a number of distinctive characteristics which make it of unusual the " Beauty premium". | Blonde and Blue-Eyed? The Globalization of the Beauty Industry 1945-1980 Geoffrey Jones, Harvard Business School (gjones@) Abstract This paper examines the globalization of the beauty industry between 1945 before 1980. It is preliminary as research is on-going, as is the framing of the major issues. It forms part of a book project on the globalization of the beauty industry from the nineteenth century to the present. The paper begins by providing some context on the industry before 1945. It then explores issues surrounding globalization after 1945. It shows how firms employed manufacturing and marketing strategies to diffuse products and brands internationally despite business, economic and cultural obstacles to globalization. The process proved unexpectedly difficult and complex. The globalization of toiletries proceeded faster than cosmetics, skin and hair care. By 1980 there remained strong differences between consumer markets. Although American influence was strong, globalization did not result in the creation of a stereotyped American blond and blue-eyed beauty female ideal as the world standard, although in a long-term historical perspective there has been a significant narrowing of the range of variation in beauty ideals. Blonde and Blue-Eyed? The Globalization of the Beauty Industry 1945-1980 1 There is an enormous literature on globalization, and quite a strong literature on its historical development. Yet, as Mauro Guillen noted some years back, the literature remains highly contested (or else simply inconclusive) for all the “big” issues: what globalization really is; what is new and what is not; what drives it and what stops it; whether it undermines nation states; and whether it homogenizes The history of the globalization of the beauty industry provides insights on several of those issues, which will be explored here. It has to be observed that the historical development of today’s $230 billion global beauty industry is poorly .