Category Archives: Advertisements

Barbie Tells Girls ‘You Can Be Anything’ In New (Refreshing) Ad

I’ve hated on Barbie on this blog and applauded others who are working to break down the boundaries that we surround our little girls with when it comes to toys and playtime. But finally, FINALLY Mattel has done something right in Barbie’s newest commercial that tells girls when you play with Barbie “you can be anything” all it takes is some imagination.

Now, this isn’t far-fetched from what Barbie has been about the whole time — after all she’s been every career we could ever think of, but after a decade or so of slightly condescending ads that often focus on “beauty” and model-like” behaviors, this ad was downright heartfelt, positive and not to mention inspiring. I think I might have cracked a smile or two. Because it’s true, girls can be anything they want, all it takes is some imagination and believing in your dreams!

Watch for yourself:

I want to know your thought? Love it hate it? Indifference? Let me know!

#TheDress Tackles Domestic Violence

When I saw this ad my initial reaction was, “can’t we just let this damn dress debate go? Seriously?” Until I saw the ad the Salvation Army in South Africa just released and it might just be the most gut wrenching, but powerful take on the viral phenomenon — in the form of a domestic violence PSA.

agency: Ireland Davenport

“Why is it so hard to see black and blue?” reads the headline as the model in the photograph is clad in the white and gold shaded dress covered in bruises. The copy then reads: “The only illusion is if you think it was her choice. One in 6 women are victims of abuse. Stop abuse against women.”

(the original version of this posting appeared on tagroom.com)

Squashing Stigma, Like a Girl

A great follow up from my “Losing Your Voice” post about how girls’ voices plummet along with their confidence as they age and discover the cultural and societal (and cruel) norms.

I’m loving that Always is combatting this idea by airing their #LikeaGirl commercial during Sunday’s Super Bowl. I’m also sad this is still a thing and curious about what happens to us females who overtime start to fall into the fold and believe in these ever-grained stigmas of girlhood as being silly and frivolous. I mean, do you remember running like you had two broken knee caps as portrayed in the commercial? No? Me neither. I just ran and ran as fast as I could for as long as I could.
It’s time to end the stigma of being a girl. It’s time to flip it on its head and show the world we are all strong. As for those societal “norms”—get gone, you have no room in this new generation of strong girls!

Karate Chopping Super Bowl Sexism

#NotBuyingIt app screenshot.

Social media has proven time and time again that it is a ninja raising awareness, causing chaos or in this instance, karate chopping (hiiiyahh) sexism in advertising.

For the past two years and before the existence of this blog, I would sit every Super Bowl Sunday in my yoga pants and Redskins jersey (yes, I’m aware they haven’t been to the big game since ’91) cross-legged on the couch nomming on mini potato skins (with bacon!), nachos con queso, watching teams of men go at it on the field to be the best in the nation. (Cue testosterone grunt.) And then there are the commercials drawing in the non-football fans to the TV. I think these commercials are always overhyped and in my opinion, pretty terrible and lack of creativity (except for this one) because they too often degrade women, over sexualize women, and objectify women. For the record: If men were portrayed in these big game ads in similar ways, I would have the same problem. Why? Because “sex sells.” But me and many others are not buying it!
My thought: if the products and services were any good they wouldn’t need sex to sell them, amiright?

How many times did we see that Go Daddy commercial starring the first professional female race car driver, Danica Patrick and had NO CLUE WHAT GO DADDY WAS TRYING TO SELL?!?! This ad created that shock and awe factor I’ve talked about before, a buzz around the commercial that led people to figure out (thanks, Google) what or who Go Daddy is and what he was hiding under all that unnecessary sexism. This ad and many others are prime examples of advertising abuse, or not using advertising for the sake of selling, but for the sake of shocking (and awing).

These ads left a bad taste (and no, it wasn’t the queso) in the mouths of viewers everywhere who took to Twitter to share their disgust and concern by using the hashtag #NotBuyingIt. The #NotBuyingIt campaign, created by The Representation Project, is a movement that uses film and media content to expose injustices created by gender stereotypes and to shift people’s consciousness towards change. Due to the success of the campaign in the 2012 and 2013 Super Bowls an app was launched, which you can download for free from iTunes and upload your own examples in the media and everyday life of how sexism won’t sell.

I’ll be tweeting live during Super Bowl XLVIII using #NotBuyingIt and #MediaWeLike to call out the very worst and best in Super Bowl advertising. Super Bowl isn’t just a spectator sport, join me!

A Breath of Fresh Aerie

There’s a new real beauty advertising campaign on the rise by American Eagle apparel’s lingerie line, Aerie. Its spring 2014 advertisements will not be featuring Photoshop retouched images. (Cue happy dance.)

Aerie seems to be taking their lead from Dove’s Real Beauty campaign who took a risk and cannonballed into the deep end of the body image pool 10 years ago, and fortunately surfaced with numerous viral advertisements that are changing the way women view themselves.

What makes Aerie different? It’s young. Founded in 2006, Aerie is aimed at the high school and college female demographic. Females between the ages of 15-21 are the most impressionable when it comes to their sense of body image and these self-opinions are often dictated by what is seen in the media.

Aerie hopes to make women feel confident about the body they’re rockin’ and is asking them to participate by tagging photos of themselves using the hashtag #AerieREAL. Because “the real you is sexy.” (oh, snap!)

Though the ads still feature beautiful girls with model-like features: hourglass figures, legs-for-days, blemish-free faces, it still beats the alternative where images are digitally sculpted and shaped by the strokes of an (air) brush.

What do you think about Aerie’s real campaign? Good idea? Bad idea? Marketing ploy?

Let me know in the comments!

Got Insurance? Ads and the Miley Effect

Over a week ago I stumbled upon these insurance ads targeting “millennials.” And it took me about that long to tame my frustration, disgust and anger to put my thoughts into digestible sentence for consumption. (yum)
The most aggressive ad features a photo of a titillated young woman standing beside a pleased-looking man and holding a packet of birth-control pills. The text reads, “Let’s get physical. OMG, he’s hot! Let’s hope he’s as easy to get as this birth control. My health insurance covers the pill, which means all I have to worry about is getting him between the covers. I got insurance. Now you can too. Thanks Obamacare!” Beneath their photo is the caption, “Susie & Nate Hot to Trot.” Grrrreattt.

This is the follow up to the original brosurance ads in the Got Insurance? campaign spearheaded by two Colorado non-profits, ProgressNow Colorado and Colorado Consumer Health Initiative. Both aim to encourage young people to enroll in the state’s new heath care exchange, part of the Affordable Care Act.
Though I would have loved to be at that meeting table when someone was like “hey, I’ve got an idea that is so ridiculous it might just work.”

I just find it appalling that no one had the moral compass or integrity to sit there and come up with educational pieces targeting millennials.

You know we have brains and opinions. And well in my opinion the millennial generation is one of the most progressive generations our culture has seen in a long time.
For example, if they were addimat in using the Hey Girl/Ryan Gosling imagery they could have had the copy on the ad read: Hey Girl! …GO GET INSURANCE SO YOU WON’T DIE UNDER A MOUNTAIN OF DEBT WHEN YOU GET SICK! (literally).

What’s even crazier is this ridiculous and sexist (yea I said it) ads are working because they’re drawing attention based on the shock and awe factor, or the Miley Effect. Miley is a talented singer, but her shock and awe tactics (twerkin, wrecking ballin whilst only sporting boots while riding said wrecking ball) tend to overshadow that talent, but somehow keeps her relevant and in the news. This is similar to these ads; (go with me here) there’s a buzz circulating around in news and interwebz about how ridiculous and “oh I can’t believe they…” keeping them newsworthy, in all the wrong ways because news outlets tend to make a hard left from the real (I hope) reason the ads were created: yo, young people get insurance to protect yourself!

What are your thoughts on these insurance ads? What would your ads say targeting young people to enroll in insurance?! Let me know in the comments!

Moral Panic Mode: Marketers

In television commercials, marketers put their best skills to use: making sure the kids rule. The characters, whether animated or not, are often young, thus making them really relatable to the target consumer, kids. Duh. Because no kid wants a parent telling them what to do, amiright?

Though I hate to admit it, marketers are smart because they realize that children are the primary consumers because of their direct buying power or the “I want it now forever always” and indirect buying power through their parents or “Please can I have it now forever always.” Kids are drowning in brands; the most popular are toys, cereal, fast food, candies or sugary snacks. The marketers’ task is to create a commercial that establishes an audience, sells a product and embeds values to children in hopes of creating a “cradle to grave” brand loyalty (Jennings, 2007). And somewhere in between the cradle and the grave we become zombies who succumb to this very formulaic (and successful) approach to marketing.

~~Marketing 101:~~ Baby Whispering 101: Marketers use different production techniques when selling products, knowing full well children cannot decipher between reality and fantasy until about the age of six (Chandler and Griffiths, 2000). However, different tactics are used to appeal to boys and girls and usually marketers bring in back up in the form of psychologists to determine how young boys and girls brains function. The most obvious tactic: voiceover. Eighty percent are male because they appeal to both genders when used in a mixed target audience (Chandler and Griffiths, 2000). Therefore female voiceovers are only used for girl-based commercials. Because sciences of psychology and brains.

Marketers can format commercials to create underlying messages while simultaneously selling a product to children. Sneaky, Sneaky. Social standing is a main message that is portrayed through kids’ commercials.
Are in you in? or Are you out?
The commercials define not only who they are as a person through their own eyes, but also the eyes of their peers. Kid culture, though accelerated, has been focused around what is “cool,” or socially acceptable. Ok, yes, “cool” is a dated word, but necessary in this context. “Cool” is anything that the marketers deem as a must-have for social survival. But that One Direction album, “MOMMM I NEEEDDD ITTTT, IT COMES OUT TODAY AND I NEED ITTTT!!!”
And purchasing the must-haves leads to happy and fulfilled lives. Some messages are more direct than others. So essentially that One Direction album will make me the happiest ever, well until the next boy pop band comes along. Although, maybe there’s a point that I’m just now realizing. It could be a boy band thing, or a music thing in general, but at the age of 25 I’m going to be going to a Backstreet Boys concert this weekend, which will make me the happiest and satisfy my craving for nostalgia. Could a musical group be a brand? Absolutely, and apparently one that has been a must-have in my musical library since the Discman was invented. Now for claiming BSB has made my life fulfilled, would be a little ambitious, but then again Sunday I’ll probably have that frame of mind of life being fulfilled at that very moment. Maybe, I want it that way, and I don’t have to tell you why? (see what I did there?)
Ok, Ok but for commercial examples there’s Sketcher’s Pretty Tall Shoes which labeled the message of beauty. The product was branded with the words “pretty” and “tall,” telling the consumer what is beautiful. Pretty could’ve had a double meaning, as in they’re pretty tall in height in addition to the beauty standard. Hidden messaging, is all around.
Sketcher’s just keeps winning in the ridiculous shoe department with their recent Daddy’$ Money shoes, which essentially is the same thing as Pretty Tall shoes with the hidden wedge, just geared toward teenagers, and with the $ sign you would think they’d be sponsored by Ke$ha (Now who’s the genius marketer, ha).

It doesn’t matter if the product is food, clothing, or toys, children are trained by this “hypercommercialized” marketing wave to be vulnerable and give in to the messages. It’s time to snap out of zombie mode, people! We need to educate our kids and ourselves to the reality that kid culture has morphed into one of the largest consumer cultures allowing advertisers and marketers to run rampant!

What ridiculous ads have you seen for kids lately? Share them in the comments. (extra brownie points (yum), gold stars and confetti for YouTube videos links!)

It’s So Cliche [a guest post]

Today’s guest post [very first one ya’ll!!!!] is from Janna Hall of My Beautiful Catharsis and serves as reminder to all girls and women: stop being someone you’re not despite what the media is handing you daily and start being you! Because there’s no one else in this world that is better at being well…You! I couldn’t agree more! Around here at SGS we are constantly dissecting and beating those too present stereotypes to a pulp! Thanks to Janna for sharing her thoughts, inspiration and honesty!

It’s So Cliché…but “Be yourself; everyone else is taken” is a mantra that we need to carry on throughout our life. As kids, we grow up wanting to be like the girls on TV. My best friend and I couldn’t sit through a show or a movie without shouting, “I’M HER!” every time the prettiest girl came on the screen. For us, it was Clueless. From the moment Stacey Dash hops into Cher’s Jeep, we thought of every reason to ditch who we were and immediately wanted to look like, sound like, and be Dionne. Or the pink Power Ranger. Or Beyonce. Or in my best friend’s case, Britney. From a young age, we’re almost programmed to want to be everyone else, whether it’s a Disney princess, a pop icon, or the popular girl in school. It’s so wonderful to pretend, but what happens when we’re adults and realize that we’re actually not those women, nor will we ever be them? In the midst of our fantasies, we’ve grown to hate ourselves, not because of who we are, but because of who we aren’t. We aren’t those princesses. We aren’t those girls who, with one quick, flirty glance fall in love and live happily ever after with our Prince Charming. We aren’t those celebrities who have picture perfect bodies. We aren’t them. We are who we are. I am Janna. You are you. Somewhere down the path of pretending, we’ve placed more focus on the body we don’t have than our own reality. Somewhere down that path, we’ve snapped from fantasy land and traveled down the path of self-loathing. We’re obsessed with someone else’s beauty so much so that everything we see when we look in the mirror is repulsive. We’re so obsessed with someone else’s life that our own reality, no matter how fabulous it may be, seems worthless. We wander through life wanting to be someone else, while letting the person we were created to be wither away.

It saddens me to see people hate who they are. What’s the point? You will never be anyone but who you are, and to want anything but that is setting yourself up for disappointment. Society, nor a man, nor a celebrity, can or should make you feel like the person you are isn’t effing amazing. Because you are. And there’s no one quite like you.“Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than you.”

Janna Hall

Graduating in 2010 from James Madison University with a degree in English, Janna left her hometown of Richmond, Virginia and headed to New York City in search of something greater than herself. That “something,” she discovered, was the position of Editor for EvolutionaryPress Publishing, helping young writers fulfill their dreams of becoming a published author. A now 7-time published editor, Janna enjoys the thrill of making dreams come true, and continually seeks ways to reach others and make a lasting impact on lives—both young and old. After spending a summer volunteering with New York Cares helping young girls prepare for the upcoming school year, Janna realized how passionate she was about seeing young girls gain confidence in their ability to succeed in the classroom and decided to use her passion to help girls succeed in all aspects of their lives. Now, she works for Girl Scouts of the USA, running the social media channels and pushing the message of building girls of courage, confidence, and character.

It’s Chime for Change!

Source chimeforchange.org

Education.
Health.
Justice.
For every girl.
For every woman.
Everywhere.

If you know me, you know that I love me some televised musical entertainment in the form of awards shows, music videos, reality TV and benefit concerts from time to time.

And on Sunday night live from the Twickenham Stadium in London the sold out benefit concert Chime for Change aired on NBC featuring the musical stylings of J.Lo, Ellie Goulding, Beyonce, Florence and the Machine, Mary J. Blige, John Legend and many more. Wish I was there! There were also celeb spokespeople: Selma Hayek, Frida Giannini, Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds, Madonna, Jada Pinkett Smith and others who spoke about specific causes close to their hearts. The concert was televised in 150 countries in 6 continents. Talk about a movement! Heyyo!

Why were they coming together? To raise their (high profile) voices to make a change for every girl and woman all over the world. It’s Chime for Change (I love a good play on words!)

Chime for Change founded by Gucci (yup, you read that right…more on that later), co-founded by Beyonce Knowles, Selma Hayak and Frida Giannini (Gucci designer), is a new global campaign to raise funds and awareness for girls’ and women’s empowerment. The campaign focuses on three key areas: Education, Health and Justice.

Through the crowd-funding organization Catapult, nonprofit organizations post their campaigns, people can then search, find and fund the project that means the most to them. Simple, easy, to the point—I like it.

What I don’t like is the fact is Gucci is the founder of this campaign. They’re using their international brand recognition for the benefit of making change. I get that and I think it’s great. BUT they should probably practice what they preach, amiright? A great first step in this Chime for Change is to change how they objectify women in their print advertisements, to which they have received controversy over in the past. (Exhibit A & Exhibit B) I have to be honest when I say I was super pumped about this televised concert aimed to empower females around the world, but discovering that it was a project of Gucci I pulled back, I was disappointed, which is an understatement. Until…

Jada Pinkett Smith presented the project “Jessica’s Story.” Three years ago Jessica escaped sexual abuse and trafficking, a nightmare that she had lived since she was six years old. She is just one of the hundreds of thousands of children who are sex trafficked in the United States. For Jessica there were not a lot of resourced to turn to as she sought to escape, that’s why today, Jessica is helping other girls break the stigma, empower them and provide them with resources.
Click to watch her story below!

Drowning in Brands, Quick Toss The Kids LifeSavers!

In today’s society we are infiltrated with brands through advertisements that play Houdini mind tricks on us, which at some point (probably right away) form our opinions of what clothing we wear, food we eat, toys we buy, etc. But if you’re a kid/teenager, you are drowning in it and don’t have a chance to come up for air! Someone toss the kids Life Savers (see what I did there?)

On average an American teenager spends 31 hours a week watching TV, 17 hours listening to music, and 10 hours online. (LoveSocial with MissRepresentation.org) And well marketers are no dummies, they hit those groups full-force straight in the ‘noggin.

In college I watched a documentary called Consuming Kids. You should watch it, highly fascinating and scary all at the same time! AH.  My knowledge of this documentary resurfaced when Anna Lappe a concerned mother and food mythbuster honed in on the food industry in particular and the obsession that kids develop.

“The food industry says themselves that they spend $2 billion every year in marketing directly to children and teenagers,” said Lappe in her TEDxTalk. “When you think about it in the context that diet related illnesses among young people are on the rise, and we think about this omnipresent marketing I think it isn’t an exaggeration that is has become down right dangerous.”

Yep, Lappe knows what’s up. When I (hopefully) become a parent I can only shield my children so much because, like the Lappe and Consuming Kids noted, commercialization is burying children under a pile of consumer messages. It’s inevitable they will receive that commercial stimulus in schools, day care, or at slumber parties, EV.ERY.WHERE. It’s not ideal to guard children from social situations because that doesn’t help children develop either. It’s clear that parenting in the 21st Century is more difficult than ever!

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The Shattered Glass Slipper

smashing girl stereotypes into tiny smithereens