Beauty Recycled

You may have heard about my project Beauty Recycled where I am promoting green issues within the beauty industry.

My shocking research found 70% of salons and spas were not recycling and worse, most weren’t interested even if there was a service provided!

I have created a petition to enable you to have your voice heard against the industry, simply click below and sign up! It only takes a second.

We all recycle at home so why should businesses be any different?

Turning the Pink industry Green.

http://www.change.org/petitions/beauty-recycled-recycle-their-waste

JOIN THE CAMPAIGN – www.beautyrecycled.org 

Holiday Prices

I’m getting married this year in the beautiful Santorini and am lucky enough to be taking most of my friends and family with me. To ensure we could all be close to each other we all booked super early and got a reasonable deal.

A week self catering in a basic room with breakfast at a hotel with a pool and bar set us back £380, which we were happy with. We booked this last June and now a few more people would like to come along so we revisited the sites to see how much the prices had gone up.

Syrigos – Selini Hotel, Kamari

Price correct as of 21/2/2012

Price per adult from

£534.55

So in less than a year the price has increased by £154?! When I phoned the operator to quiz them on this I asked if they put the prices up at this time of year because this is when they know people are booking and the guy on the phone actually admitted this.

Now I am not stupid, I know prices are subject to peaks and troughs but to raise prices to such a high level is ludicrous?! Greece are in financial ruin and are desperate for holiday makers to help keep their economy afloat. The travel industry is in trouble with Thomas Cook airing on administration, so is this the time to put people off from booking on self-catering holidays?

I’ve looked at the cheaper holiday companies; travel republic, co-op travel (not to be confused with the co-operative travel) and onthebeach.com amongst others, but with such mixed reviews for service, it’s hard to know whether you can trust them? The cheaper companies, however, seem to be able to offer the holiday at the original price? So are the big companies just playing on their ‘trusted’ names and putting the prices up?

I would love to hear from anyone who has had a similar experience.

Beauty Recycled

I have worked in the beauty industry for 6 years and in that time I have worked for huge international beauty brands,  as well as in a small independent business. What links these companies together in the industry is the fact that they don’t recycle.

To put this into perspective, all products used in the industry come in glass or plastic; they are delivered in cardboard and thrown into the bin with all the other waste. When working at the U.K’s number one Spa brand, I witnessed hundreds of glass bottles being taken onto wheelie bins to be buried in our overfilled landfill sites across the country.

The aim of Beauty Recycled is to educate brands, spa/salons and the consumer of the importance of recycling, how to do it easily and even provide a link for the spas/salons to be able to have their recycled waste collected. We want the beauty industry to feel proud about being green and have created a label they can display to show they have helped towards sustainability within the world of beauty, helping to turn the Pink industry Green.

Please help support the campaign by ‘liking’ us on Facebook and following on Twitter. You can also challenge your therapist/hairdresser next time you go in for a treatment. Where is their waste going?

@beautyrecycled

www.beautyrecycled.org

Advertising works!

I often find myself wandering around the city centre on my lunch break and have quite a penchant for dresses. When I say penchant, I probably mean verging on crazy obsession with around 60 hanging in my walk-in wardrobe.

However, whilst living on a part-time wage I often find myself trying on dresses and then having to sadly leave them behind, as they yearn to be bought from the shop. Sometimes I do, accidentally of course, trip over something near the till and find my card flies straight into the card reader without anything I can do to stop it. But overall I have tried to be good, only buying something when I need it.

That’s where banner adverts come in. Clever banner adverts that note what websites you have been searching on and prey on your weaknesses. They keep showing you that beautiful teal green with the chevron pattern and capped sleeves, or the navy blue skater dress with bird detail. They show you the latest sale from ASOS and the French Connection one you can only dream of affording. 

The result? The constant subliminal message that filtered into my brain all week during my usual internet surfing and social media usage meant that when I saw the said shop, I headed straight in and ‘had’ to buy the dress. It wasn’t my fault. I needed it. 

Specific adverts that can target us as consumers work to provide a constant reminder of what we should be consuming, That might sound simple to some, but I thought i was too sophisticated for advertising. 

Commercial Christmas

Have yourself a commercial little Christmas…

Not that there has ever been any other within my lifetime. The country survives on our capitalist economy and the government needs us to spend spend spend!

I’m not a massive scruge, I enjoy spending time with friends and family. Christmas is a convenient pagan festival that breaks the year up nicely and gives us something to look forward to during the cold winter months.

I enjoy giving gifts, but wanted to do something that helped the economy, so this year I have decided to buy all of my gifts from within the uk. Nothing made in China or anywhere else outside of the British isles for that matter.

It’s not as easy as I first thought, as most of the goods on the high-street are shipped in cheaply from abroad. However I have chosen my local deli for beautiful hampers, a company in devon that makes shabby-chic home ware, I have purchased football tickets from teams with British owners, independently owned spas for a day out and even a local handbag designer for something unique and original.

The cards were harder, but I found a local charity that makes beautiful hand-made ones that are much more special than the usual generic rubbish!

So if you’d like to join me, give experiences for Xmas so you get to spend extra time with that person too. Or if it’s a gift, support the British brands!

‘PR Girls’ – the British image

I always find it interesting to see the response from people when I say i’m starting a career in PR. I can almost see their face instantly label me as some kind of fluffy, celebrity obsessed, PR Girl, who wouldn’t have a clue about anything that didn’t feature in this weeks Heat. Just because I have a background in the beauty industry, it doesn’t mean I don’t have an opinion on the Leveson Inquiry or the state of Greece.

I read Adrianna Giuliani’s (Devries PR) article  regarding media stereotypes in American media texts and wondered if we have the same issues here in the UK? Who are the PR women in pop culture today?

Clare Powell (CAN Associates)  helped Katie Price and Peter Andre through their marriage and divorce, Kerry Katona through her weight loss/gain/loss/gain/loss and now The Only Way is Essex ex-star Amy Childs into becoming… the next Jordon by the looks of things, but does Clare promote a positive image for PR girls of today? She is highly successful and obviously has fantastic contacts with woman’s magazines, ITV and the national press, plus her clients are household names, which Powell should rightly take credit for. On the other hand, is Clare Powell creating an aspiration for young girls to only view a successful career through celebrity PR? When the average person thinks of PR, if Clare Powell is second after Max Clifford, will they assume it’s all about camera crews following Peter Andre and his poor children around? And now her personal life is being brought into the public domain as she becomes a celebrity herself, will any revelations further damage PR and the women who work within it?

Around 64% of those who work in PR in the UK are women, however men tend to still be dominating the higher paid, greater responsibility jobs, meaning that women are not on a level footing in terms of pay and status and further conforming to a stereotype.

Marian Keyes who is, might I add, one of my favorite authors, often gives her leading characters jobs in PR and events management. Reading the books in my youth actually motivated me to think I could have a career in the field. The women in the books are strong and powerful, working in PR in the music industry as well as fashion and as journalists. However one of the main characters felt that her PR career was pretty much finished at the age of 40, feeling too old for the industry?! To fulfill the ‘PR Girl’ quota it seems you have to be young as well as obsessed in shoes?

The classic PR TV portrayal in the UK has got to be ‘Eddie’ in Ab Fab. The character, based on PR Guru Lynne Franks is champagne swigging, Buddhist nutter who squeezes into clothes half her size and hangs out with her cocaine snorting best friend – not exactly the fabulous image most PR women would aspire to. However with the Christmas specials looming, even Lynne Franks herself has learned to see the funny side of the character.

I think these example are obviously very different; the fact that Clare Powell is a powerful woman in PR is something that we should all aspire to, regardless of her clients. Women should laugh off the stereotypes and continue to strive for more equality. There are stereotypes in every profession and we shouldn’t take it too seriously. I think we have got a long way to go before women are viewed in the same respect and caliber as men in most professions, so we need to keep on pushing for it to happen!

Are you a #socialstudent?

Whilst at the CIPR student representative national meeting last week I learnt about a Behind the Spin initiative called #socialstudent. It is a top-ten list of media/communication/public relations students who use social media well, according to Klout and Peer Index scoring.

At the top of the list is Michael White, a third-year University of Gloucestershire student, who has thousands of Twitter followers, a well respected blog and his own branding. I was impressed to say the least. The rest of the list was dominated with Leeds Metropolitan University students, without a single person from my university (Birmingham City University) featuring at all.

This worried me as I nor anybody I knew was on the list, and in fact on further research I wouldn’t have been anywhere near the list. I definitely use Facebook enough, but this isn’t helping to further my career. So the challenge is on! I’ve registered with both Klout and Peer Index and I’m starting to learn exactly how the two analyst websites work.

Klout measures your impact in terms of three areas, your ‘True Reach’, ‘Amplification’ and ‘Network’, these areas implicate how many people you are influencing with your contribution to social media. Peer Index looks at your Authority, Audience and Activity of a particular topic. Talk too little and no-body hears you, talk to much and people get bored. It’s a social minefield!

My current score sees my Klout at 40 and my Peer Index at only 11. I am trying to find ways to improve on this and thought this was the best way to start – talking about it online! If you have a particularly high score for either, I would love to hear your thoughts. Take a look to see if you would make the #socialstudent list, as I’m sure it would definitely be of interest to a future employee.

Promotional Culture

I have been debating what to research for my popular culture module, so this is what I’ve been thinking about… Today, I believe, brands are stronger than ever. All you have to do it see that tiny tick or those golden arches to be instantly familiar with a companies ethos, identity, product and service. A brand can make you feel warm and fuzzy or angry and defiant. A split second flash of a logo on television can be all a company needs to do to awaken something inside us, something that wants to know what exactly is happening with that brand, do I need to buy something? Have I missed the latest consumption installment? Then combine that with a QR code and who needs a written message anymore? The message is in the logo.

Companies are now playing on our nostalgic heartstrings by bringing back Dulux dogs and old Fairy liquid adverts – and it’s working. In these economic times we want to be spending our money with brands we can trust, brands that have been around a long time.

What I also find interesting is how American companies have subtly different branding and messages to sell to a British audience. Who knew our Gary Linekar’s Walkers Crisps were really a part of Pepsico? Or the fact that cute old man who cooks the Kelloggs cornflakes in his shed actually started that in the States? I’m sure you’ve also noticed the bad dubbing over European and American adverts for the British audience, but would you prefer it to be dubbed or to sound American cheesey? (If you’ve seen a lot of US ads, you’ll understand)

In Britain we like to think we enjoy and respond to more sophisticated devices in Advertising, but then you find that the recent Go Compare advert’s with the irritating, irritating song, has actually increased traffic to the site (I actively avoid the price comparison site on the back of that particular campaign).

Re-branding is another interesting concept, with Aviva (formerly Norwich Union) and Veet (Immac) finding increased business since the change. But what was it about the re-brand that meant people wanted to buy more of the product?

I’m going to attempt to find out more about brands by conducting focus groups and seeing how audiences respond to images of logos.

 

 

 

 

 

Notes on deconstructing ‘the popular’ – Stuart Hall

I enjoy reading long readings where theorists try to unpack difficult terms and normally either fail, or come up with five or six new and more complicated versions just to extend the confusion. Stuart Hall doesn’t usually fall into this category, but when he tries to deconstruct ‘the popular’ he comes into difficulty. He tries to break the terms down and re-define them, starting with where the most drastic changes in popular culture – the industrial revolution.

In this reading, Hall seems to be almost thinking out loud onto the page, he uses the word I a lot, which is unusual for such an academic text.

The three definitions of popular that I understood from the text were:

Defined by consumer – something is defined as popular through how much it is consumed and commercially popular. In this view, the audience is seen as passive and will simply consume anything that is given.

Defined by what people do – something is defined as popular through how much people have done or still do things.

Defined as a cultural struggle - this is Hall’s own definition, he believes that the popular is imbedded into everything people do within a culture and society. It is ever changing and can change instantly.

The consumer society and advertising – Andrew McStay

Industrial revolution brought about change so that cheap production meant ordinary people could afford technologically advanced goods like never before. This was intrinsincally linked to the growth of advertising as better education meant that more of the public were able to understand and read advertisements. The rise of competition for status within social groups meant that the need for consumerism grew and with that advertising. Commercial media was able to emerge as a result as the media relied and still does rely on advertising revenue to be able to run.

Consumption in a media sense means to be used up, purchased, taken in and absorbed. We have all been born into a society where it is everyday occurrence to consume from the moment we wake up. Our bought alarm clock goes off, we wash our hair with branded shampoo, we clean our teeth with branded toothpaste, we eat our favourite cereal, we watch morning T.V with adverts to buy the latest product or features on which gadget to buy next etc. etc.

“Consuming is something we do, but it also have to do as part of our role and status in the world.” – it has benefit to the economy, what we buy enables us to show who we are, where we shop puts us in particular categories and social groups. We are defined by what we consume.

When we buy something, we are not buying it’s use-value, but more it’s status value.

“Oh this dress is from French Connection”
“My T.V. is a the latest with 3-D technology”
“Oh I just get my clothes from charity shops.”

Even people who actively avoid brands are saying something about who they are and though they would like to think otherwise; are still consuming.
Manufacturers created products that became solutions to social problems, certain lifestyles and aspirations are attached to products. We can see products and brands as ‘signs’ that convey particular messages to the consumer.

Take two boxes of cereal for instance, which one would you think tasted better?

Is it true? Would you know on a taste test? Would you feel embarrassed buying own brand shopping? Or even value brands? Or are you proud to shop in cheaper establishments as it makes you feel empowered against consumerism even though you are still partaking in it?

The idea of ‘simulation’ is where the reality of goods is distorted in order to persuade us to buy them. Certain trainers are designed for long-distance runners, but we have been made to think we need them in everyday life. Simulated intimacy creates a feeling between a product and a consumer using special communication techniques and a relationship develops. This is where brands make you feel like they care, like they have a special relationship reserved for you. An example of this could be when a clothing range brings out a ‘fair-trade’ range or works with a charity.

As consumers we get the feeling that we are ‘free’ – free to choose whichever designer we prefer, free to buy or not to buy, whilst we are actually obeying the rules of consumerism, whichever way it is consumed.