Body Shop, The

The Body Shop (TBS) is a values-driven, high-quality skin and body care producer and retailer launched in 1976 in Brighton, on the south coast of England. Anita Roddick, the founder of the company and a self-proclaimed feminist, initially sold twenty-four naturally based skin and hair care products with minimal packaging. Just three decades later, the company has become a globally recognized brand: it now sells over 600 products and 400 accessories, has more than 2,000 outlets in more than 50 countries, and has a multimillion dollar turnover.

Despite its phenomenal growth and emergence as a new global organizational asset (following its acquisition by L'Oréal), TBS is still trading on its original association with “natural products,” with advertising mainly organized by its franchised outlets as opposed to mass-marketing campaigns. Such franchise-based outlet advertising includes storefront posters and leaflets and brochures, all containing messages that directly question some contested aspect of contemporary consumerism—from commodity fetishism to environmental damage to globalization. TBS was among the first cosmetic companies to adopt an “against animal testing” policy and a fair trade strategy for its ingredients, its outlets offer the possibility to join an environmental or human rights campaign, and it is ranked high by ethical consumption guides.

The TBS company profile articulates responsibility in the direction of nature (packaging is minimal, and each product is presented as being based on one natural substance, generally plant based, such as cocoa butter), of disadvantaged communities (the reliance on a community trade program is stressed), and of employees (TBS prides itself on its ethical business complying with human rights, social welfare, and animal protection, transparency of information, and active campaigning in favor of social issues).

TBS has also clearly counted on three factors dissonant with the meanings that normally characterize cosmetics ads. This includes new modes of advertising that incorporate criticism for commercial culture, and TBS's own promotional strategy builds onto consumers' diffidence for conventional cosmetic ads that sell “hope in a jar.” It has relied on irony (a tongue-in-cheek attitude that reframes consumers' desires to be beautiful as unserious); on [Page 104]the moralization of consumption (via a direct attack against more traditional forms of frivolous and misleading advertising and a concern for animal rights, the environment, and its suppliers); and on defetishization (through reference to fair trade, natural ingredients, and critique of the productive process). In a well-known campaign, a voluptuous anti-Barbie doll named Ruby invites all women to consider that only a few of them might ever resemble the standard supermodel of contemporary advertising. However, each woman may allow herself the pleasure of a cream, especially if the latter is ethically sound. In insisting on a relaxed authenticity, on the ability to reason with one's own head, on the possibility of having a more transparent and fair relationship in the productive process, TBS captured the feelings of those women who, while being socially aware, critical, and perhaps feminist, did not want to renounce taking care of themselves. Thus, it put consumers' critical feelings and increased awareness to work to sell its products.

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