Always #LikeAGirl

      While waiting for a youtube video to load, I  watched a interesting ad, for Always, a feminine care line. The ad has nothing to do with feminine care, it focuses on the common derogatory term, "fight like a girl". Instead of skipping the ad like i usually do, i watched the whole thing. The commercial interviews some teenage girls, who are told to run, throw, fight like a girl. The girls do so mockingly, while young 10 year old girls when asked the same question, run punch and throw with their best efforts. the ad tries to show how a girls self confidence lowers after puberty. The commercial urges girls to fight like a girl and believe in themselves.

     I don't know what this has to do with the product they are trying to sell, beside it being for girls. They never even mention what they are trying to sell, I had to google the brand. They are using the technique of not really endorsing the product, but associating it with something positive like girls empowerment. And it did work on me, because I was interested enough not to skip the ad.

   

Axe on Social Media

http://axe.tumblr.com

     As you may have noticed, many companies have been using social media to advertise online. Having a twitter or a tumblr account for a brand is a quick and cheap way to get people to notice your product. Advertisers even pay to have "sponsored" posts, which show up on your feed whether you follow them or not. Encountering a sponsored post that caught my attention, I followed the links to the Axe blog. The blog makes posts to advertise products, like the eye-catching/eye-straining gif you see above. This blog and many like it are just another attempt to "break out of the clutter". Many target demographics and psychographics, like teens, can be reached on social media. Social media is also a medium we have yet to associate with advertising, unlike TV.
     Despite attempts to assimilate into social media culture, I still think of accounts like this as advertisements. I would probably never follow an account like this. If I wanted to see an ad, I'd be watching TV or staring at a billboard.

Gendered Marketing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JDmb_f3E2c

     This Youtube video from channel, The Checkout, is titled Gendered Marketing. The two women in the video, one dressed in blue, and one decked in pink, set out to explain how advertisers use gender to their advantage.
     The two start by explaining children's toys. An accurate example provided is legos, which used to be advertised to all demographics. Although recently, lego released a product called lego friends, which consists of stylized lego dolls, complete with constructible teashops and dollhouses. This is an example of what is known as market segmentation. Advertisers appeal to specific groups in order to increase sales, where the only thing changing about the product between genders is the label. Products advertised to women include light colors, soft edges, and pretty flowers, while male packaging consists of dark colors hard, angular edges, and smart looking diagrams.The strange part is, often times one is more expensive than the other. For example, gillette shaving creme is 7% more expensive for women than men.

     This strategy seems to be working. The popular soap brand Dove, took to this plan by creating Dove men+care, which racked up $150 million in sales. the ad campaign did a good job at reminding the potential customer how much of a man he is, and this isn't the first product to do this.
      This kind of marketing is depressing to me, I hate seeing TV ads that reduce, at such a young age, the ambitions of a girl to just things that fit her gender. And for boys too! This advertising is not only enforcing gender roles, but creating them.

The Problem With Time Magazine's Worst Words of 2014 Poll

Article Here


     Just last week, Time Magazine put up a poll for which popular word from 2014 should be banned in 2015. The words included on the list were words such as yaaaaaaass, bae, turnt, and one of the most controversial, feminist. 

     The description of the word feminist by Time was that it was a useless label used by celebrities like, "ticker tape at a Susan B. Anthony parade," whatever that means. 

     When i first heard about this, i have to say I was pretty upset. I started to have one of those "lost all faith in humanity" moments. I was shocked and angry, and i wasn't the only one. Time Magazine recently pasted an apology on the top of the article that reads:

Editor’s Note:

TIME apologizes for the execution of this poll; the word ‘feminist’ should not have been included in a list of words to ban. While we meant to invite debate about some ways the word was used this year, that nuance was lost, and we regret that its inclusion has become a distraction from the important debate over equality and justice.

–Nancy Gibbs

     The real issue here is not the word feminist itself, but how the word is used, and what different people associate with the word. So how is the word feminist used? the dictionary definition of feminist, or denotation is, "a person who supports feminism," which doesn't really get us anywhere. We then have to take a look at the denotative definition of feminism, which is "the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men."

    There are many connotations, or associations we apply to words, that people have with feminism. Many believe that women are already equal to men, and that feminists are complaining for no reason, or trying to be above men in society. (the correct term for that definition is not feminist, but misandrist). This idea was popularized by the popular term created by Rush Limbaugh, 'feminazi'. (Its easy to be against feminists when we compare them to nazi's, right?) In this Time article feminism is portrayed as a label that takes away from the issues, implying that people who call themselves a feminist "like some politician declaring a party," do not plan to take action.

 The whole poll seemed pretty stupid to me, so what if people literally cant even! Thats not what is wrong with society. As George Orwell would say, what is wrong is that people don't care enough to see how connotation can drastically change our view on things.