Andrea Benoit

Assistant Professor (Adjunct) Western University

Burlington ON

Dr. Benoit's research interests include advertising, branding, consumer culture, and the commodification of social causes

Contact

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Biography

Andrea Benoit has a PhD in Media Studies from the Faculty of Information and Media Studies at the University of Western Ontario. Her research interests include advertising, branding, consumer culture, and the commodification of social causes. Andrea’s PhD dissertation focused on HIV/AIDS awareness and activism within the Toronto fashion industry in the 1980s, and specifically the history of the M.A.C AIDS Fund. She did her BA and MA in English at the University of Toronto, and her MA in the Graduate Program in Communication and Culture at York University, where she investigated the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty. Andrea’s professional experience includes a stint in Relationship Marketing at telecommunications firm British Telecom in the UK, and as an on- campus recruiter for D.E. Shaw & Co. in New York City, a Wall Street investment bank. Andrea is Media Action Média’s Secretary and oversees research projects and promotional issues.

Industry Expertise

Education/Learning

Research

Advertising/Marketing

Areas of Expertise

Branding

Commodification of Social Causes

HIV/AIDS Awareness

Advertising Theory and History

Promotional Culture

Media Representations of Women

Education

University of Western Ontario

PhD

Media Studies

2014

University of Toronto

English

1995

York University

Communication and Culture

2009

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Affiliations

Assistant Professor (adjunct) Department of Sociology King's College University at Western University
Sessional Lecturer Department of Communication Studies and Multimedia McMaster University

Articles

"An advertising world gone completely haywire": MAC VIVA GLAM

Advertising & Social Policy Review

2014

The famed drag artist RuPaul opened the 1995 Canadian AIDS fundraiser, Fashion Cares, by descending a long, winding staircase flanked by two human-size red lipsticks. Strutting down the runway to the tune of his song, “House of Love,” wearing his signature red ...

Face Value: Beyond the Surface of Brand Philanthropy and the Cultural Production of the MAC AIDS Fund

University of Western Ontario

2014

This dissertation provides a cultural and business history of MAC Cosmetics and its philanthropic arm, the MAC AIDS Fund. MAC Cosmetics originated in Toronto, Canada in 1981 and its growth coincided with the AIDS epidemic. Since 1994, the MAC AIDS Fund ...

'From Our Lips:' Lipstick as Consumer Technology and the MAC VIVA GLAM Advertising Campaigns

Scientia Canadensis: Canadian Journal of the History of Science

2013

Lipstick has remained a stable technology for over five thousand years, while influenced by social and cultural mores, and ideas about sexuality, gender and class. This is particularly evident in the twentieth century since lipstick has become a consumer technology, as ...