Purpose This study aims to examine how sociocultural changes in early 20th-century Sweden, particularly regarding the roles and expectations of women, gave rise to class anxieties and specific performances of femininity. Specifically, it examines how these tensions were constructed and mobilised through the marketing of Maniol hand cream. Design/methodology/approach Using multimodal critical discourse analysis, this study examines Maniol’s print advertisements from 1920 to 1940, focusing on how linguistic, visual and other semiotic resources were used to navigate and respond to evolving social norms and gender expectations. Findings Three key themes emerge: the burden of respectable domesticity; the performance of professional femininity; and hands as a marker of feminine attractiveness. It shows how advertisements constructed both domestic labour and professional life as threats to femininity – threats that could be concealed or corrected through consumption. They also underscored the social risks of neglecting one’s hands in terms of female civic responsibilities as workers, mothers and wives, arguing that true femininity required hands untouched by visible labour. In doing so, the brand articulated broader anxieties around gender performance, class mobility and the visibility of domestic work in a society undergoing profound transformations in labour, gender roles and social expectations. At the same time, these discourses reinforced whiteness as the normative standard of beauty, positioning racialised bodies as outside the normative boundaries of modern femininity. Originality/value This study uniquely foregrounds the cultural and symbolic significance of women’s hands in early 20th-century Swedish marketing, revealing how Maniol hand cream advertisements became a focal point for negotiating class anxieties, femininity and social respectability. Focusing on class – a vital but often overlooked aspect of Swedish marketing history – this paper provides a fresh and critical examination of how marketing strategies in early 20th-century Sweden shaped and reflected class relations and gender dynamics. It, thus, emphasises the importance of situating advertising discourse within its broader sociohistorical context, showing how marketing both mirrors and actively shapes cultural anxieties, ideals and social hierarchies, while also reinforcing whiteness as the embodied norm of beauty and respectability.

Purpose This paper aims to explore the history of marketing the concept of glow, or, glowing skin, within the American cosmetics sphere from the early 20th century and into the 21st to understand why glow has increased so dramatically in the beauty industry within the past 10 years. The paper investigates the origins of glow’s contemporary significance as a status symbol and luxury commodity by analyzing the various categories of glow that were advertised, as well as their underlying meanings. How did the marketing of glow products from the 1900s through the 2010s shift over time, shape consumer associations with glow and lead to what can only be described as a cultural obsession with the concept? Design/methodology/approach The paper focused on the marketing of complexion products, i.e. facial skincare and color cosmetics such as powder, foundation, bronzers, blush and highlighter. An analysis of 102 ads from newspaper archives and women’s magazine archives in the USA and the UK, along with online descriptions of 38 products from two of the largest US beauty retailers, Sephora and Ulta, was conducted. Beauty columns and trend pieces are included alongside ads and product descriptions for additional context. Findings Historically, glow has been segmented into nine categories, some of which overlap in their advertising. While beauty culture has changed significantly since the birth of the industry in the early 1900s and the meaning of glow carries more emotional and psychological weight than ever before, companies are using the same tactics and advice to sell glow in the 21st century. The ambiguity of the term and the fact that skin glow cannot yet be scientifically measured means that it can be applied to an infinite number of products intended for any demographic or occasion. Additionally, as skin glow has traditionally been recognized as the external expression of positive internal feelings or states (health, love, happiness, etc.), glow products may be perceived by consumers as substitutes for the absence of such states. Practical implications By harnessing glow’s unclear, internal/external nature in product names and descriptions, the beauty industry can expand its reach into the wellness sector and seize on consumers’ desires to not only look better, but feel better. Originality/value Tracing the evolution of glow’s marketing provides a better understanding of its significance for consumers today and why it has essentially become its own industry in the 21st century. Additionally, presenting an example of how marketing a particular category of cosmetics can reach beyond the beauty industry and become a broader cultural phenomenon. Future research can build on this analysis of glow for other cosmetic buzzwords and any deeper, more emotional meanings that may be associated with them.

Purpose This paper aims to study how a local beauty brand, Mustika Ratu, was able to compete with foreign companies by discursively constructing an ideal of Indonesian beauty that drew on cultural heritage and history, indigenous knowledge, nature and pre-colonial royalty, all of which represented alternative sources of authority to Western science but also reinforced the political and cultural priorities of the long New Order regime in Indonesia (1965–1998). Design/methodology/approach This research uses a historical case study drawing on archival, textual, visual and autobiographical data spanning 1940s to the 1990s. This contextualises beauty marketing in Indonesia leading up to the birth of Mustika Ratu in the 1970s and the trajectory of its growth up until the New Order era from 1965–1998. Findings This paper shows that while domestic brands can mobilise alternative sources of authority in their construction of beauty, including selective use of pre-colonial heritage and history, in doing so they can also reproduce existing cultural, ethnic and social hierarchies and political hegemony that exist within the “local”. Originality/value While the global beauty industry has been marked by “scientification”, we show how history and indigenous systems of knowledge can function as alternative forms of authority in the construction of beauty ideals. However, we also draw attention to the ways in which versions of history and culture are constructed for political purposes, and how this can find expression in products and marketing rarely associated with the State but which still reproduce existing power relations. Countries in Southeast Asia have been little studied by scholars of beauty history, and this paper shows how the evolution of beauty ideals expresses and reflects both versions of national identity as well as broader political and economic changes in the macro environment.

Purpose The purpose of this study is to recount how toys based on fictional outer space heroes and their adventures were marketed in the United States from the early 1930s through the later 1950s. Design/methodology/approach The primary data for this research include surviving artifacts (the toys themselves and their consumer packaging), associated promotional ephemera (print ads and catalogs), and visual records of space adventure comics, movies and television shows. Photographs and videos of these sources come from books in print and via online museum catalogs, eBay and other auction sites, Wikimedia Commons, collector websites, and YouTube. Findings Space adventure toys of this period included ray guns and rocket ships, figurines and robots, playsets and puzzles and many more related goods. They typically were made from pressed and printed metals, paperboard, and plastics. Toy companies licensed the names and images of popular space heroes, starting with Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, who appeared in comic strips, children’s books, movie serials and on radio and early television shows. Competing firms sold similar, but nonspecific space toys that were not character driven. These playthings referenced science fiction texts and images while undoubtedly amplifying interest in space exploration, science, the atomic age and the future. Originality/value This research presents an account of space adventure toys and heroes from a marketing history perspective that investigates products and branding in terms of their formative cultural contexts and societal implications.

Purpose In 1959, the Kul-e-Tuk brand parka made its debut on the Canadian mass-market and was a near-instant commercial success. Promoted as a quintessentially Canadian winter style, the Kul-e-Tuk was in fact appropriated from traditional parkas of Western Arctic Inuit. This study, a general review, aims to delve into the Kul-e-Tuk’s complicated history, the matrix of mid-20th century socio-political and economic factors and settler Canadian identity projects that contributed to it becoming, as the Hudson’s Bay Company (The Star Phoenix, 1959) called: “the coat of the age.” Design/methodology/approach The methodology for this paper includes: archival research focusing on manufacturer and department store advertisements and promotional articles published in newspapers and magazines; object-based study of garments held by Montreal’s McCord Stewart Museum’s Indigenous Cultures and Dress, Fashion and Textiles collections, including extant Kul-e-Tuk brand parkas, sourced and collected by the author from 2020 to 2024 and traditional Inuit parkas; a survey of appropriated Inuit-style outerwear found on vintage resale websites; contemporary research sources to support contextualization and critical analysis. Findings Tracing the complicated history of the Kul-e-Tuk brand and its marketing to consumers reveals that in settler colonial states like Canada, the appropriation of land and cultural belongings function in tandem to eradicate Indigenous people while simultaneously transferring their identity onto, and their resource rich territories into, the hands of settler Canadians. Originality/value This decolonial research broadens understandings of both Canada’s colonial processes at work and the creation of appropriated settler Canadian identity through nationalistic branding practices and the marketing of winter fashion with Indigenous origins during the mid-20th century.

Purpose This article aims to explore the marketing and retailing of clothing by The Salvation Army since its establishment as a church and charity in the mid-nineteenth century. Its particular focus is on the ways in which Salvation Army garments worked to advertise the organisation and contribute to its branding. Design/methodology/approach The article examines the historical context in which The Salvation Army’s production, marketing and retailing of clothing developed. It reviews existing literature before using periodical sources to examine two case studies: The Salvation Army uniform and the organisation’s extensive commercial production and retailing of secular garments. Findings The Salvation Army’s marketing and retailing of clothing lines exemplifies the organisation’s key strategy of recasting secular items, ideas and processes in a religious context. Clothing has long been central to The Salvation Army’s expression of faith and its trading activities, functioning both to build organisational identity and reputation and to generate revenue. These purposes have remained largely constant but adaptable over time. Social implications The article demonstrates various ways Salvation Army clothing has had wider social impact: through its manufacturing, which created jobs; its marketing, which encouraged consideration of working conditions and spending power; and its wear, which influenced social status. Originality/value The Salvation Army’s extensive production and sale of secular clothing has received little prior academic attention, while the uniform’s long-standing secondary purpose of bringing in revenue for the organisation is less well known than its other functions.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate how late 19th- and early 20th-century cosmetic advertisements used natural ingredients to enhance product appeal. This study examines the visual rhetoric and semiotic strategies that symbolised naturalness and sustainability during this period, as well as the ethical implications of these marketing practices, particularly regarding consumer deception and their connection to modern greenwashing. Design/methodology/approach Using a qualitative approach, this study applies multimodal critical discourse analysis, integrating visual rhetoric, semiotic analysis and historical contextualisation. A data set of 118 vintage cosmetic advertisements from archives is analysed to identify key themes. Findings The findings of this study reveal that advertisers romanticised natural ingredients by depicting idyllic nature scenes and associating products with purity, health and beauty. Visual and linguistic strategies were used to create a dual appeal of nature and science, enhancing consumer trust. However, these practices often mask the realities of production processes and ingredient authenticity, leading to potential consumer deception. Research limitations/implications This study focuses on a specific data set of historical advertisements, limiting generalisability across industries. Future research could expand to other sectors or regions. Originality/value This research contributes to understanding the historical roots of greenwashing, offering a transhistorical perspective on the use of nature in advertising. This study highlights the ongoing ethical challenges related to consumer manipulation through deceptive environmental claims.

Purpose Drawing from multiple historical sources, this study aims to analyze the social, political and ideological values of Beijing Opera Costumes (henceforth Jingju costumes), a special stage costume, in pre-1949 China. Design/methodology/approach The Critical Historical Research Method (CHRM) and visual social semiotic analysis yielded a critical analysis of Jingju costumes’ profound historicity (that is, their sociohistorically embedded styles, multiple marketing functions, connotations and consumptions). Findings Relying on CHRM and visual social semiotic analysis, this study examines the multifaceted sociopolitical connotations and multilateral marketing functions of Jingju costumes in pre-1949 China. Research limitations/implications This study extends the discussion around stage costumes, informs cultural or entertainment marketing research and deepens a theoretical understanding of the relationship between consuming objects and consumers, and the embedding context that hosts such a relationship. Practical implications This study helps to broaden the understanding of fashion and stage costume industries. Social implications It helps to understand how stage costumes can be used to express political, social and culture values. Originality/value To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first comprehensive analysis of the sociopolitical multiplicity of Jingju costumes, an innovative cultural product marketed and consumed in pre-1949 China. In addition to elaborating on the theatrical and artistic functions of Jingju costumes, this study examines how specific designs and styles of Jingju costumes helped to market the Jingju (Beijing Opera), multiple political values and Chineseness in pre-1949 China.

Purpose This paper aims to examine the marketing strategies designed by a Czechoslovak company Waldes and Co. from 1902 to 1939. The company with its headquarter in Prague and the production facilities in New York, Paris, Barcelona, Dresden and Warsaw was among the world leading producers of fastening devices before World War II. Its success was given by its constant emphasis on improving technologies of production and decreasing cost but most significantly using pioneering concepts of marketing. Genius concept of the main company founder Jindrich Waldes was to promote the fastening products as piece of art and modern fashion trends from clothing industry to shoemakers. Design/methodology/approach Research for this paper benefited from the author’s access to the internal company documents, advertisements and marketing materials in the State Regional Archives in Prague, which were preserved during the Nazi and Communist eras in Prague, and to an heir of one of the company’s original owners. These documents were analyzed chronologically and thematically. They chronicled the company’s ongoing efforts to develop its products as part of the world of fashion in a very competitive market of fastening devices. Findings Waldes and Co. began marketing its products using fashion designers’ testimonials as early as 1904. This unknown company from Prague, with its innovative production of snap buttons, was able to grow internationally within its first decade of existence. By 1913, the company had established marketing management across all major markets, including a unique campaign in the United States. After World War I, Waldes and Co. introduced new products and continued to market its fastening devices as integral to the world of fashion. In 1937, the company was awarded the Grand Prix for advertising at the World Fair in Paris. Originality/value By studying archival documents of Waldes and Co., which are not open to general public, this pioneering research uncovers early 20th-century global marketing strategies used by this today unknown company from Central Europe, which significantly contributed to its global economic success.