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ABSTRACT
In 2012, The L'Oreal Group launched a somewhat unorthodox marketing campaign for their "True Match" foundation, which included both print advertisements and tv commercials, and originally featured three specific celebrities: Beyoncé Knowles, Jennifer López, and Aimee Mullins. Going beyond the "different hues" approach usually promoted by these types of commercials and advertisement, L'Oreal presented consumers with the ethnic background of each celebrity: Beyoncé Knowles was described as African American, Native American, and French; Mullins was characterized as Irish, Austrian, and Italian; and Jennifer López was pronounced 100% Puerto Rican. This essay focuses on Jennifer López's advertisements, as the claim to 100% Puerto Ricanness carries implications for conceptions of both Puerto Rican and Latina identity in the 21st Century U.S. This is especially key when considering the effects of marketed and marketable appeals to racial and ethnic authenticity in the construction of racial and ethnic identity and racial and ethnic labels. [Key words: Jennifer Lopez, ethnicity, representation, advertisement, commercialization, authenticity]
I am incredibly proud of my culture and I think I am a woman who is totally defined by my culture. My temperament, my body shape, the way I am is all ver y much Puerto Rican. -Jennifer Lopez, April 2007.
Used to have a little, now I have a lot. No matter where I go, I know where I came from. -Lyrics from "Jenny from the Block" by Jennifer Lopez
There are people who know who I am, and that's good enough for me. -Biography section of Jennifer Lopez Official Website
The Marketing of Ethnicities, L'Oréal Edition
In 2012, the L'Oréal Group (also referred to here as L'Oréal cosmetics or L'Oréal) launched an unorthodox marketing campaign for their "True Match" foundation. The campaign included both print advertisements and television commercials, featuring three specific celebrities: Beyoncé Knowles, Jennifer Lopez, and Aimee Mullins.1 Going beyond the "different hues" approach that these types of advertisements have historically utilized, and in an unprecedented move, L'Oréal presented to consumers the ethnic background of each celebrity. This was accomplished by placing their corresponding ethnicity or ethnicities of each celebrity on the bottom left corner of the television screen and the bottom right corner of the print advertisement. The commercials and advertisements described Beyoncé Knowles as African American, Native American,...