We develop a concept of the face in the consumer behavior discipline and contribute to the theory of lookism defined as bias toward people because of their perceived physical appearance (Tietje & Cresap,, 2005). “What is the face?” –is our fundamental research question. What makes the face become the site of voluntary alteration? How do marketing forces drive the mainstream embrace of surgical correction of facial features as a commercial commodity, similar to shoes? While the latest medical advances have handed some control over appearance to consumers and provided them with a product (plastic surgery) designed to correct one’s genetic make-up, the designer face as a new consumer commodity hasn’t been addressed academically yet. Presumably, the face is the most distinctive human body element that sets a person apart from others, but academic studies that incorporate the phenomenon of treating people in a way biased by their perceived physical attractiveness have largely focused on the entire physique. To fill the academic gap, we specifically study the normative function of advertising as it presents itself in the format of street billboards. Examining this advertising language in the context of an emerging pattern of consumer behavior—designing one’s face through surgery—we theorize how the marketing channel normalizes this novel pattern, fitting it into historical, philosophical, social, and cultural contexts; how it legitimizes plastic surgery as a mainstream consumer commodity; and how it makes the face an object of alteration. Moreover, we perform the study in the specific cultural domain of Asia that places a strong metaphorical value on the face and has historically developed the honor-centered concept of “saving face” as a guiding principle of life (Lee, 1999). Driven by the fundamental question “What is the face?” and its examination in the context of the face-saving culture of South Korea, we developed a working research question to guide our inquiry: what makes a culture rooted in conservative beliefs and respect for the elderly so openly question and surgically correct the “quality” of the body received from one’s parents?

While borrowing from the theory of lookism, defined as “prejudice toward people because of their appearance” (Tietje and Cresap 2005, p, 31), this paper ventures into an emerging pattern of consumer behavior—designing one’s own body with the help of a surgical blade. The “designer body” idea has gradually moved from futuristic fiction to the exclusive domain of celebrity personalities and has lately arrived in the more mainstream marketplace (Kim, 2015). Available statistics indicate a growing number of plastic surgeries and clinic locations, the booming popularity of the aesthetics surgery specialty in medical schools, and burgeoning medical tourism with the goal of aesthetically reinventing one’s body (Akam 2014). Consumer vocabulary has embraced “rhinoplasty” and “liposuction” and lovingly transformed the dry medical jargon into the softer slang terms “rhino” and ‘lipo.” While breast augmentation is the most popular surgical procedure, in this work we purposely focus on the face. Unless veiled, the face is the body part that is always on display. In addition, we intentionally perform this study in the specific cultural domain that places strong metaphorical value on the face and has historically developed the dignity-centered concept of “saving face” as a major guiding principle of life. The choice of South Korea within this vast cultural realm seems the most logical given the fact that twenty percent of women in the country have something surgically done on their faces, which is arguably the highest known proportion in the world (Willett 2013). Finally, South Korea’s emphasis on Confucian values is part of our approach. Our research objective is to understand the interplay of major cultural forces that define the embrace of a novel mass marketed product (plastic surgery) designed to correct one’s genetic make-up. Considering marketing to be one such cultural force (Fedorenko 2014), we specifically aim to conceptualize its role in an ongoing interaction with Confucian values. What makes a culture rooted in conservative beliefs and respect for the elderly so openly question and surgically correct the “quality” of the body received from one’s parents? Does it happen because of or in opposition to Confucianism? Does fashion simply extend its province by converting desirable pointy noses and v-shaped chins into “in” items similar to pointy shoes? These research questions have shaped our qualitative methodological approach (Strauss and Corbin 1998) that relies on the juxtaposition of norms and values dictated by Confucian beliefs and those manifested through marketing channels. To uncover the normative messages and consumer directions coming from marketers, we turn to the so-called language of the street and perform close analysis of fifty advertising billboards and street signs promoting plastic procedures and located in Seoul, the capital of South Korea. We read both visual and textual data against the traditional Confucian literature. This methodological direction for our study was developed with the purpose to fill in the gap in the existing research, as detailed in the literature review, followed by the analysis of data, discussion of our findings, and the final section outlining a potential course for future research.