After seeing a beauty ad, are you more likely to go shopping, or dig into a fresh pint of Ben & Jerrys? While advertisers bank on the former, new research shows we’re more likely to do the latter. The New York Times reports that in a new study published in The Journal of Consumer Research, undergraduate females who looked at advertisements featuring beauty-enhancing products reported feeling less attractive afterwards.

So if beauty ads lower a woman’s self-esteem, what happens next? Does she lounge about in self-loathing or head to the mall for a facial and those hot new heels she saw in Vogue? Ads equal sales, right? Not so fast.

In the study’s abstract, the authors write that “after viewing advertised beauty-enhancing products, but not advertised problem-solving products, thoughts about the self are more salient and self-evaluations are lower, compared with viewing the same products outside of an advertisement context.”

Perhaps more research is needed, but regardless of whether or not advertisements make consumers feel better or worse about themselves, the take-away here is that simply showing people an advertisement isn’t enough. While the study clearly demonstrates that after flipping through a bunch of glossy ads in a fashion magazine, a woman is likely to feel some sense of inadequacy, it doesn’t prove that she’s actually going to do anything about it. Marketers drop big bucks on those ads with the assumption that it will intice young women to purchase their products, but the research doesn’t necessarily support it.

A brand has to earn its way into the hearts of consumers, not leave them feeling cold and worthless. Perhaps the ad creates some initial sense of need, but consumers need more than that: they need engagement, something to convince them put down that Chunky Monkey and pick up their credit card.

PHOTO CREDIT: Candinski / flickr.com