The 'Coffee Shop Phenomenon' in Advertising: When Tokenism Becomes Fetishisation
I will never forget the profound disquiet I felt in 2019 when, upon entering a London shopping centre, I noticed that almost every fashion advertisement featured, as their centrepiece, a model I could relate to. Unlike on the countless prior occasions when I could walk past a clothing shop window and experience a comforting, but also simultaneously alienating, self-detachment from the familiar representations of the female beauty myth[1]—with her typically lighter skin tone and non-Afro-textured hair—now, wherever I glanced, I found a face that resembled mine.
Here, dressed in the season’s newest trends with their natural hair unstraightened and accentuated, black mixed-race models with features that reminded me of my own were the ‘main attraction’ in mainstream advertising and were no longer side-lined as mere tokens. Whereas a decade ago this same industry viewed our physical features as an ‘exotic’[2] after-thought, or as a mere ‘other,’ to the dominant beauty myth—selling ‘frizz ease’ shampoo to ‘tame’[3] hair characteristics that people of black heritage seem disproportionately to possess—it now professed these features to be ‘in fashion’ and paraded them as such.
While, for many, this emerging dominance of the black mixed-race model in popular advertising represented another achievement by certain cultural movements towards inclusion and diversity,[4] this new-found representation struck me as just as oppressive as those unrepresentative and alienating beauty standards that had once resembled the status quo. The black mixed-race individual had transitioned, it appears, from being a barely-visible background addition in a TV commercial or the token film character who is killed off, often sparing her white co-stars, to occupying the coveted front page of a fashion campaign. With her physical characteristics accentuated in ways that, a decade ago, would have appeared shockingly nonconforming to the beauty myth, she had now become a desirable commodity like a popular handbag, her appearance in one campaign triggering similar appearances in other campaigns, with each brand desperate to present their own version of her.
The 'coffee shop' phenomenon
This shift in emphasis in advertising, from tokenising to then fetishising identities which are perceived to be ‘different,’ I refer to as the ‘coffee shop phenomenon.’ Using this phrase, I capture how, just as the establishment of a single coffee shop on a street often triggers the neighbouring emergence of others, until the street becomes saturated with coffee shops,[5] just so a corporation’s featuring of a once-tokenised identity at the forefront of its advertisements may prompt a seismic advertising trend across the industry more broadly. Consequently, when a once-tokenised identity acquires more prominent representation in advertising—often because that identity is initially perceived to be ‘different,’ and difference is sellable—like the opening of a single coffee shop, this identity may become co-opted by more and more competitors in advertisements designed to profit off of this difference. This ‘difference’ in our identities then becomes fetishised, en masse; it becomes difference for the sake of profit, being incorporated into advertising provided only that it sells.
As always, there comes a point when a street can handle only so many coffee shops. The allure of difference that a coffee shop once presented in a street of clothing vendors and restaurants begins to wear off after neighbouring coffee shops are established, all adopting the same business model. As a consequence, such increased competition reduces profit margins. Likewise, in an advertising industry which structures competition upon the distinctiveness of difference, the co-opting and subsequent fetishisation of the black mixed-race model because she is different loses its value as soon as she is perceived to no longer be so very different. Thus, in an industry that is constantly seeking to collect ‘difference,’ the mass-produced fetishisation of the advertising subject eventually leads to her replacement with a more different, and thus more profitable, subject.
The continual pressure to seek different, and more ‘distinctive,’ advertising subjects, from which to profit, can be noted in the fetishisation of ‘the exotic.’ Here we often see advertisers present models with increasingly biologically rare, physical characteristics, such as the black mixed-race model with blue eyes or auburn hair, for instance, or the black model with heterochromia. Thus, as the coffee shop phenomenon leads to the fetishisation, and thus stagnation, of perceived ‘difference,’ we see a shift in advertising trends towards capturing, and eventually fetishising again, more different representations of difference. So, in a profit-minded industry that structures competition upon identifiability, there emerges an unending cycle of the co-opting, fetishisation, and subsequent replacement of difference.
Co-opting and fetishising ‘difference’ with zero accountability
Through this mass fetishisation of the visual ‘difference’ that the black mixed-race model once symbolised to the existing beauty template, with the template shifting to recognise the ‘frizzy’ texture of her hair and her ‘exotic’ facial features as now belonging to it, these industries reveal (and seek to cover up) their complete absence of accountability. In fact, by adopting the black mixed-race model as the all-inclusive face of their corporate agenda, the brand co-opts her powerful narrative of past exclusion, presenting itself as the ever-present ally to her identity-based journey, without admitting its prior role in actively reinforcing the harmful tropes and beauty ideals that had once excluded her precisely because she is a black mixed-race woman. With its history of propping up such oppressive standards thus obscured, the corporation now props her up as its current consumer-friendly face, without reflecting upon or expressing any remorse for its past role in so viciously tearing her down.
Even more perniciously, by fetishising the black mixed-race person in an effort to sell something, these corporations co-opt her journey of ‘difference,’ contributing and reinforcing their own associations that her image, and consequently those of black mixed-race women more generally, will conjure up in the minds of consumers as an associative lifestyle aura. Thus, it came as no surprise to me when I entered that shopping centre in 2019 that certain brands, and not others, had caught on to the apparent trend of presenting, as their focal point, a black mixed-race model. These tended to be more affordable, high-street brands that offered mass-marketed and accessible clothing, such as Tu and Gap, and certain brands that sought to cultivate a deliberately ‘ethnic look,’[6] such as Nike.
Consequently, when we see the disproportionate representation of the black mixed-race model by brands that selectively market themselves as particularly affordable or ‘hip,’ her ‘different look’ is soon accompanied by various deliberate and inescapable associations, such as those of cheapness, loungewear, and tracksuits.
What is most dangerous about such fetishisation in advertising is how these associative brand auras, which represent the calculated marketing strategies of profit-minded corporations, invariably seep into our cultural perceptions of different identity characteristics. Thus, through mass-produced exposure to the black mixed-race model as being associated with brands, such as Tu, Gap, and Nike, the consumer-turned-ordinary citizen is likely to presumptively link, at least subconsciously, certain definitive brand aesthetics with these fetishised identities. A broader social climate is thereby fostered in which corporations wield significant power in defining, not merely artificial conceptions of what is and what is not ‘beautiful,’ but also popular preconceptions of what it means to be a black mixed-race person.
Conclusion
Upon confiding my concerns about the apparent fetishisation of black mixed-race identities to a friend, I recall being told that this advertising trend would eventually disappear, only to be replaced by the co-opting and ultimate fetishisation of another identity. At the time, this remark both reassured and concerned me, and it rapidly proved true. Soon after the horrific murder of George Floyd in May 2020, and following the global influence of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, the object of this fetishisation shifted. Black models, once heavily tokenised by this industry and excluded from white-dominated conceptions of the beauty myth, rapidly became dominant features in most advertisements, their narratives and identities co-opted by brands that a few years ago they were largely invisible to. This can be seen, for instance, in corporations, such as M&S, openly vocalising that George Floyd’s legacy provided inspiration for their (completely unrelated) clothing ranges.[7]
While it may be cynical to characterise these notable advertising shifts in this way, as a ‘coffee shop phenomenon,’ I know that I speak on behalf of many who are distrustful of industries which, having previously overlooked (and oppressed) us, now celebrate our identities as though we have only just been discovered to exist.
Article tags: | identity | diversity | heritage | consumerism | tokenism | feminism |
While, for many, this emerging dominance of the black mixed-race model in popular advertising represented another achievement by certain cultural movements towards inclusion and diversity, this new-found representation struck me as just as oppressive as those unrepresentative and alienating beauty standards that had once resembled the status quo. Image source: A 2018 Milly advertisement campaign. Photographer: Sagmeister & Walsh
Black models, once heavily tokenised by this industry and excluded from white-dominated conceptions of the beauty myth, rapidly became dominant features in most advertisements, their narratives and identities co-opted by brands that a few years ago they were largely invisible to. Illustration by Chuva Featherstone
Just as the establishment of a single coffee shop on a street often triggers the neighbouring emergence of others, until the street becomes saturated with coffee shops, just so a corporation’s featuring of a once-tokenised identity at the forefront of its advertisements may prompt a seismic advertising trend across the industry more broadly. Image source: The Guardian
By fetishising the black mixed-race person in an effort to sell something, these corporations co-opt her journey of ‘difference,’ contributing and reinforcing their own associations that her image, and consequently those of black mixed-race women more generally, will conjure up in the minds of consumers as an associative lifestyle aura. Image source: a Missguided advertisement campaign
Soon after the horrific murder of George Floyd in May 2020, and following the global influence of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, the object of this fetishisation shifted. This can be seen, for instance, in corporations, such as M&S, openly vocalising that George Floyd’s legacy provided inspiration for their (completely unrelated) clothing ranges. Image source: GRIT DAILY
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Sources Cited
[1] Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women (Vintage 1991).
[2] Anika Kaul, ‘It’s Not a Compliment: Deconstructing ‘Exotic’ Beauty’ (Varsity, 1 September 2021) <https://www.varsity.co.uk/features/21924> accessed 10 November 2021.
[3] ‘Frizz Fighters Unite! Our Top Tips on How to Stop Frizzy Hair’ (John Frieda) <https://www.johnfrieda.com/en-uk/blog/hair-care/how-to-tame-frizzy-hair/> accessed 15 November 2021.
[4] 'Ellie Abraham, ‘Inclusive Television Advertisements aren’t “PC Propaganda”—They Show Britain as it Truly is’ (Prospect, 30 September 2020) <https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/arts-and-books/inclusive-diversity-tv-advertising-uk-argos-tesco-racism-ofcom> accessed 15 November 2021.
[5] Lucy Hooker, ‘Is the UK Reaching Coffee Shop Saturation Point?’ (BBC News, 14 September 2017) <https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41251451> accessed 12 November 2021.
[6] Tana Cristina Licsandru and Charles Chi Cui, ‘Ethnic Marketing to the Global Millennial Consumers: Challenges and Opportunities’ (2019) 103 Journal of Business Research 261, 266.
[7] Lizzie Deane, ‘This is not Just Any Lingerie…this is M&S Underwear Inspired by George Floyd: High Street Giant Launches ‘Inclusive’ Range in Five Shades Designed for Different Skin Tones’ (Daily Mail, 21 June 2021) <https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9710527/This-not-just-lingerie-M-S-underwear-inspired-George-Floyd.html> accessed 15 November 2021.