Gender is so 1990
Much has been said about how new mediums have changed advertising — though social media is the suspect everybody usually points to, Google Ads and YouTube are also to blame. But transformations in society at large are even more responsible for how businesses choose to sell themselves to consumers, and award committees are in tune with the public’s expectations.
One of the tropes of FMCG companies’ ads was the smiling mom, dad, and children around the breakfast table. That, however, doesn’t cut it anymore. Not only does the public demand more diversity and fewer stereotypes in publicity campaigns but regulators are trying to curb unrealistic clichés in ads. Last year, for example, the UK banned “harmful gender stereotypes” on the grounds that they can restrict the choices, aspirations, and opportunities of children, young people, and adults. A number of adverts have already been withdrawn because of the ban, including pieces for giants like Volkswagen and Mondelez (of Philadelphia cheese).
So we’d like to praise five campaigns from the last year that have not only joined this trend but also were awarded by juries of creativity festivals.
THE LAST ISSUE
Our first shout-out goes to VMLY&R Poland — based in a country with a history of gender issues and sexism. What they did went way beyond the limits of a standard magazine print ad. When their team learned that Twój Weekend (“Your Weekend” in Polish), the nation’s most-read adult magazine (depicting naked women as sex objects for almost three decades), was facing financial problems and came up for sale, they decided to take the opportunity to make a bold statement.
VMLY&R convinced leading Polish news portal Gazeta.pl to team up with Mastercard and BNP Paribas — two brands with a long-term commitment to empowering women — to buy the magazine only to shut it down forever. But not without a proper farewell.
They published a final issue, released on International Women’s Day, with the exact same format, structure, and sections as before but with its content absolutely subverted: instead of pornography and reinforcement of a view of women as sex toys, the publication was all about sex education, gender portrayal, equal rights, sexism, and more.
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The last issue of Twój Weekend was its best-selling issue in over a decade, and the campaign won Poland’s first-ever Cannes Lions Grand Prix.
VIVA LA VULVA
The classic tampon and pad ad cliché include smiling models and blue liquids that avoid at all costs any clear reference to their actual functionality: to absorb menstrual flow. Every brand has made basically the same ad for decades.
Swedish brand Libresse decided to change that. Their campaigns over the last few years have made the company’s marketing communications the epitome of new femininity. They started in 2016 with No Blood Should Hold Us Back:
Then in 2017, they launched Blood Normal:
And then came Viva La Vulva.
The UK agency AMV BBDO created a video that celebrates the vulva or, more accurately, all kinds of different vulvas in a visually lush piece of film that combines animation with inspired art direction, creating a range of vaginal metaphors that are bound to stick with you.
It was rewarded with the 2019 Glass Grand Prix at Cannes Lions, and it is officially the world’s second most awarded campaign of that year (according to WARC Creative 100).
BODY PROUD MOMS
UK baby goods retailer Mothercare is another brand that grew tired of unrealistic ads and made a point of showing early motherhood as it is with post-birth bodies: with c-section scars, stretch marks, and baggy skin.
The campaign, created by Mcgarrybowen London, is based on pictures of 10 real-life mothers taken by photographer by Sophie Mayanne, who in 2017 pledged not to digitally manipulate skin in her work. All of them feature the sentence “Beautiful, isn’t she.”
According to Mcgarrybowen, the ad increased brand love by 18% and generated over one billion earned media impressions, with a budget of £150,000 (less than $200,000 dollars).
BILLIE JEAN KING YOUR SHOES
Adidas’ “Billie Jean King Your Shoes” campaign has less to do with breaking stereotypes and more to do with honoring a woman who, some 50 years ago, fiercely challenged the status quo to get better payment for female tennis players — and notoriously won the Battle of the Sexes match against Bobby Riggs (if you’ve never heard about it, watch the wonderful movie that tells the story, with Steve Carell and Emma Stone).
To pay homage to Billie Jean King, Adidas put up a stand at the US Open where anybody could transform their shoes into the iconic Blue Adidas in which King played Riggs.
What was revolutionary about it was that it was not just another “customization experience” from a brand: the activation was not limited to Adidas owners, and that’s what made it so unique. It was an homage to the woman who changed the rules of the game forever and a gamechanger for advertising as well.
GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS MAGAZINE
The most powerful message on gender equality this year (so far) is definitely this video from Girls Girls Girls Magazine, in which Sex and the City star Cynthia Nixon reads Camille Rainville’s poem/essay “Be a Lady They Said” while images of women flash on the screen.
She lists the most common and contradictory hints that women are pressured to follow, like “don’t be too fat” but “don’t be too thin,” “Botox your wrinkles” but “look natural,” and “don’t be a w***e” but “don’t be a prude.”
Its power cannot be described in writing, so please just watch and be inspired by it:
The Spotlight Team
