Creating an advertisement: Initial Research

 Initial research

Marketing and advertising play a huge role in shaping our society — it influences the way we see, think, understand and act. Initially, the advertises were simple and straightforward, it told us about products and features. However as the world evolved, advertisers had to adjust their focus from the "what" to the "why" in order to stand out from the competition. It was and still is about building our connection with the brand, how the brand makes us feel and what it says about us. Thus, Fem-vertising’ continues to gain steam. 

There has been a significant adavance in gender issues since 1970's, when women, for example in the United Kingdom, couldn't open a bank account without their husband's permissions. Currently, the number of women around the world who can now make their own choices about education, career, healthcare, investments and marriage has increased. However, many issues still remain in these days.

Women’s full and equal participation in all facets of society is a fundamental human right. Yet, around the world, from politics to entertainment to the workplace, women and girls are largely underrepresented. The brand "Always" did some advertisements about this struggle in order to bring awareness to people with the campaing #Likeagirl.

#likeagirl

The video has been viewed more than 90m times and shared by over 1m viewers. Men and women all over the world joined the brand to help reclaim ‘like a girl’ as a positive statement.

However, the way women have been portrayed in advertising has changed over the decades, and changed the way society views women because of it. This is one example of the first advertises that praised women.

We can do it

This advertisement, created in 1943 by J. Howard Miller for Westinghouse Electric, was designed to boost morale during wartime as women took over jobs vacated by men who joined the military. As one of the first depictions of an empowered woman, the poster was revived by the feminist movement in the 1980s.

At the end of the day, the main conclusion that we can drawn is that advertisements influenced the way society sees women and their role.

But what changed women's role? The answer is in my next post.

References:

Campaign (12 october 2015), Case study: Always #LikeAGirl [online] Available from: https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/case-study-always-likeagirl/1366870

Unwomen (25 February 2020), Visualizing the data: Women’s representation in society [online] Available from:https://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/multimedia/2020/2/infographic-visualizing-the-data-womens-representation

Omid Scheibany (11 February 2015), How advertising has become an agent of social change [online] Available from: https://medium.com/@moonstorming/how-advertising-has-become-an-agent-of-social-change-148aa0ef303a