As Anne Applebaum describes "Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s, it was not widely known for feminine pulchritude." they had not come to the realization that many people in many other countries around the world had come to long before...that you could make money of beautiful women. Applebaum says there was no market for beauty in the Soviet Union which is such an odd concept since many countries had thrived on making money by selling magazine covers, tv shows, movies and products all with an 'American', 'British', or European' beauty as the face of the product. Somebody who used the media/beauty phenomenon to their advantage was Coco Chanel who was and whos franchise is still using ads with glamorous women to sell her products since the 1920's, long before Russian caught on to the trend.
The Russian beauties have definitely made their mark in media today with faces such as Natalia Vodianova
and tennis superstar Maria Sharapova who has endorsements with Nike, Lady Speadstick, Pepsi and Canon just to name a few.Media is a very important part of communication in todays society, many designers, engineers, and visionaries use different types of media to display their message and since pictures are able to communicate some messages more clearly and effectively than words, it is a major selling advantage. Marshal McLuhan's theory of media states that media 'extends and amplifies' the senses and also extends the body.( Alder B. Ronald, Rodman George and Sevigny Alexander. Understanding Human Communication. Ontario:Oxford University Press,2008) We see this with the sultry ads that are used to sell products by arousing ones senses. This type media is an example of "cool " media because the ads give us little information usually just a small slogan or the designers name and a visual which calls on us to use our imagination to distinguish the different scenarios.
Media is an excellent way to communicate a message or a sales pitch to the general public and using the ad's and whos in them to your advantage definelty helps!
