Slice me nice : A study exploring Swedish young women`s views and responses to marketing of Aesthetic Surgery in social media

Abstract: With an increased number aesthetic surgeries performed in Sweden combined with social media used as a marketing tool, potential clients are exposed for persuasive marketing messages. The harder competition has led to a pressure on prices and the requirements of marketers’ creativity have increased. We predicted that this industry faces ethical challenges which makes it worth investigating.  The purpose of the study was to explore how young women view and respond to marketing by aesthetic surgery clinics in social media. In order to fulfill the purpose a qualitative approach was conducted through the use of two different focus group interviews. Twenty screenshots were discussed by eight young Swedish women where two of them have undertaken aesthetic procedures.   The conclusions of the study shows how different marketing messages can be viewed and how clients respond to them. The respondents perceived a normalization of aesthetic procedures due to social media marketing. Furthermore, the findings also suggest that there is a difference in how young women who undertook aesthetic procedures view and respond to the marketing compared to the unexperienced women. Marketing that communicates professionalism is likely to be more positively viewed by clients. This study further confirms our predictions regarding an ethical tension between the marketing messages and the recipients.  The implications of the study are an increased awareness of how this type of marketing is viewed from young women’s perspective. Furthermore, future research could focus on if surgeons are persuasive during consolations and how this is revealed.