This project began with my interest in how advertising shapes consumers beyond the act of selling products. At first, I focused on the question “How do brands define consumers through advertising?” and used Lululemon as a case study. By analysing the brand through ideas such as brand positioning, consumer identity, symbolic representation, social identity, and desire guidance, I found that Lululemon does not simply sell sportswear. Instead, it promotes an ideal lifestyle and an ideal self: someone self-disciplined, healthy, active, aesthetically aware, and committed to self-improvement. This helped me realise that advertising does not only influence what people buy, but also suggests what kind of person they should become.
This early stage of my project led me to think more critically about the social function of advertising. I began to notice that many advertisements create pressure by defining what is “better”, “more attractive” or “more successful”. At the same time, I became interested in the possibility that advertising could work differently. Rather than creating anxiety around body shape, age, class, or success, it could acknowledge difference and present more inclusive identities. This shift in my thinking became an important turning point in the project.
From there, my research developed into a new question: if advertising can strongly define female consumers, can it also define male consumers? This question led me to focus on the image of Chinese men. In Chinese society, masculinity has long been associated with rationality, strength, simplicity, and not paying too much attention to appearance. I found that this idea is reinforced not only through tradition, but also through advertising, media, school rules, and family education. For example, school appearance regulations often stress simplicity and plainness for boys, which can shape male identity from a young age. At the same time, the rapid growth of the male beauty and grooming market in China shows that younger men are increasingly interested in skincare, fashion, and self-presentation. This contradiction became central to my research: social attitudes toward masculinity are changing, but traditional expectations still remain strong.
Bassot’s The Reflective Practice Guide was useful in helping me understand reflection as an active process of reviewing experience, questioning assumptions, and moving toward clearer meaning. This describes my own process well, because my project did not begin with a fixed answer. Instead, it grew from a brand case study into a broader cultural investigation. Cross’s Design Thinking also helped me frame my project as an exploratory process. Rather than following a strict linear plan from the start, I moved through observation, questioning, collecting examples, and redefining the problem as my understanding developed. Freeman’s Stakeholder Theory was important when I began identifying who is involved in this issue. I realised that the shaping of Chinese male image is not only related to men themselves, but also to media platforms, brands, advertising agencies, families, schools, and wider cultural values.
At this stage, I have arrived at a clearer research direction. My project now asks whether advertising can become a cultural medium that helps challenge narrow ideas of masculinity in China. I am especially interested in whether new advertising narratives can move from reinforcing stereotypes to recognising difference, and from creating anxiety to offering more diverse and inclusive male identities.
Bibliography
assot, B. (2015) The Reflective Practice Guide. London and New York: Routledge.
Cross, N. (2011) Design Thinking. London and New York: Berg.
Freeman, R. E. (2010) Stakeholder Theory: The State of the Art. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lululemon official advertisements and brand visual materials.
Baidu Wenku materials on Chinese male image, school appearance regulations, and masculinity in Chinese social culture.