The Business of Perfection

Buying your way to beauty

round the world, elective medical procedures to enhance one’s beauty are a booming business.  At first look, one may be tempted to believe this is an artifact of a capitalistic culture, such as the United States.  This is not the case though.  Even in countries with socialized medicine, such as Great Britain, the business is booming.

It may seem strange to talk about medicine and business in the same sentence but throughout the world they are one in the same.  Michael Sullivan, Professor of Health Care Administration and Director of the Health Care Administration Program at Methodist University in Fayetteville NC, say’s, “ to understand it, you have to think of health care as a business, just like any other business.  If you want to grow your business, you have to expand your product offering”.  Elective medical procedures do just that.

In Great Britain, Transform is the leading cosmetic enhancement business.  They claim that they “carry out more cosmetic surgery procedures annually than any other UK company”. Notice that they say “company”.  Transform has 22 clinics and 2 hospitals and claims a 96% customer satisfaction rate.  Their procedures include the typical breast and buttocks implants and extend to more obscure procedures like arm lifts.  Financing is a significant part of their business model.  By offering zero percent financing for twelve months, they have an attractive marketing ploy,  and by offering higher interest rates for longer term financing they have an income source from interest payments that also happens to expand the market by making the procedures available to virtually everyone. 

According to a report recently released by the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ASAPS), cosmetic procedures were up 8 percent in the US in 2007, driven primarily by men.  For men, the rate was up 17 percent.   In Britain, Transform reports a similar increase for men, with Botox wrinkle reduction leading the way, up fifty percent.  Male Botox procedures in the US numbered 329,519, almost double the next leading procedure, laser hair removal (185,684 procedures) and obscuring the least frequent but more heavily advertised hair transplant, which only had 16,491 procedures. 

The ASAPS report indicates that women still are the primary market for cosmetic procedures in the US.  Women accounted for 91 percent or 10.6 million cosmetic procedures. This number was an increase of only one percent from the previous year though. None the less, since 1997, women’s surgical procedures have increased 142 percent, while nonsurgical procedures were up 743 percent.

Although women still account for the lion’s share of procedures, men are clearly the growth market for this industry.  Men’s desire to look younger, stronger and fitter is expanding as society accepts cosmetic procedures and demands a higher level of perfection from men.  Given the flattening market for women’s cosmetic procedures, one can expect heavy marketing toward men in the next decade and a corresponding increase in the number of male procedures.  Business needs growth, and men hold the key to that now.  The business of perfection will march on.

Michael Wayland