Airtel, one of the leading telecom providers from India aired an advertisement that was supposed to break gender barriers at work, but the ad also reinstated another long standing gender stereotype in the Indian society.There were discussions on social media and it became a news hour debate on TV (probably sponsored by Airtel). I questioned but also defended the ad with few people.
When I was reflecting on the reactions to the advertisement, it dawned upon me on how this brand was using feministic ideas to sell their brand. On the other hand, I realised the brand deliberately manipulated the emotions to create a buzz in the market (needs a separate post).
Feminist ideas were used in advertising to make a false promise of empowerment and sell products based on that. One of the earliest examples that I could think of was a cigarette ad from the 1920s; Craven A was the first brand to use women’s empowerment message as a way to market their brand. Of course, they had to expand the market and women were the best targets. Owing to these ads and the socio cultural norms it purported, women smokers in the US increased from 5 percent in 1923 to 18 percent in 1935 (Penny,2014). The most famous campaign was from Virginia Slims in the 1960s. The extremely disturbing aspect of these advertisements was the fact that they were selling a product that will potentially kill women in the name of women empowerment.
Image Credit: Dee Leitner, Pinterest
In the recent years, we especially see a surge in the ads targeting women in developing countries that show faux feministic ideologies to sell products that indeed reinstate the same stereotypes. A case in point is the Dove’s real beauty ads that camouflage women’s empowerment message to sell their skin care products.
The ad talks about the insecurities of women while they describe themselves to an artist. But, the irony is that there were no implications on these big companies that created these insecurities through selling beauty products. The real empowerment message that the parent company (Unilever) could have given was by stopping the sales of their fairness creams in South East Asian and South Asian countries. The market for fairness creams in India alone is estimated at $54 Bn (Bhatt, 2014) and Unilever wouldn’t want to lose that money, as they are the market leaders.
Recently, FCKH8, an online retailer of clothes, made children from 6-13 speak out supporting gender, race and feminism. But, there were two major issues, one they were eschewing many F-words and the brand was trying to sell anti-sexism t-shirts. This was the same company that tried to sell Ferguson t-shirts when the case was widely publicised in the US.
One of the reasons why there is a recent splurge of female empowerment based ads is that in the social media world, brands are expected to stand for more than what they actually sell. Every brand is running behind likes and shares in the social media world, and tagging a social message along with a multi-million dollar ad campaign gives them the leverage they want. The discussions that ensue gives them the expected publicity and Airtel did enjoy widespread publicity by just making a false woman empowerment ad.
Johnston and Taylor (2008) call this as ‘feminist consumerism’. The problem with campaigns like Dove’s “Real beauty” or Pantene’s “Sorry, but not sorry” or FCKH8’s campaign is that they expect women to buy a product to feel empowered. These products reestablish the same societal constructs that feminism is against. Grassroots feminist activists make more impact in bringing in change to the society, but the problem is they don’t have the same budgets as these multi-billion dollar companies.
Do you need to purchase a product to feel empowered? When we voice against objectification of women in advertising, don’t you think even faux idealisms that promote consumerism are also equally dangerous?
P.S: I was guilty of sharing some of these ads on my social media pages. Education in a way should make you question certain things and that’s what my Digital Marketing course at University of Southampton is making me to do. This blog post started because of one question – did Airtel use feminist ideas to create a ripple in social media?
List of references:
- Airtel India, (2014). Boss Film – The Smartphone Network. [image] Available at: http://youtu.be/T9BlI9nhqTE [Accessed 23 Oct. 2014].
- Bhatt, S. (2014). Journey of fairness creams’ advertising in India. [online] The Economic Times. Available at: http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-02-26/news/47705699_1_fairglow-fairever-skin [Accessed 24 Oct. 2014].
- Dove United States, (2014). Dove Real Beauty Sketches. Available at: http://youtu.be/litXW91UauE [Accessed 23 Oct. 2014].
- FCKH8.com, (2014). Potty-Mouthed Princesses Drop F-Bombs for Feminism. Available at: http://youtu.be/XqHYzYn3WZw [Accessed 25 Oct. 2014].
- Johnston, J. and Taylor, J. (2008). Feminist consumerism and fat activists: A comparative study of grassroots activism and the Dove real beauty campaign. Signs, 33(4), pp.941–966.
- Pantene, (2014). Not Sorry. ShineStrong Pantene. Available at: http://youtu.be/rzL-vdQ3ObA [Accessed 24 Oct. 2014].
- Penny, L. (2014). Laurie Penny on advertising: First, the admen stole feminism – then they used it to flog cheap chocolate and perfume to us. [online] Newstatesman.com. Available at: http://www.newstatesman.com/laurie-penny/2014/04/first-admen-stole-feminism-then-they-used-it-flog-cheap-chocolate-and-perfume [Accessed 23 Oct. 2014].
- Virginia Slims super woman print advertisement. (2014). [image] Available at: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/528680443729254738/ [Accessed 26 Oct. 2014].
The post The ugly face of Feminist Consumerism appeared first on Sylvianism.