Empowering Girls & Women through Adverts?

Today I came across another empowering advert for women and girls. It seems that the trend is growing year by year with more and more brands jumping on the bandwagon.

Some people criticise the trend by labelling companies as hypocrite (“they are trying to sell beauty products/wax and raisors to shave our bodies after all!”). But isn’t wonderful to see this type of empowering messages promoted by adverts instead of the usual “fix yourself -be this or that” stuff?

At the very least these adverts diversify the range of images and role models available to girls and from my point of view this could be the start of a gradual change taking place…if we start to reward the companies sending this type of messages instead of criticising them under the “hypocrisy label”, more and more of them will follow and the entire advertising landscape could gradually transform into something more real and inspiring than the fake beauty images currently surrounding us: it makes perfect sense.

Check out the full playlist of empowering adverts here and don’t forget to comment!

 

The Big Tween Market Machine: Why Pre-adolescents are Marketers’ Dream

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“What do you call a consumer who wants to buy everything you have, doesn’t care what it costs and is less than five feet tall? A marketer’s dream? Nope. You call them kids.” 

AdRelevance Intelligence Report, 2000

While marketing to children is nothing new – having first been introduced in the 1960s – the aggressive marketing to those on the cusp of adolescence (ages 9-14) is a phenomenon that has arisen much more recently, in direct synchronicity with the “internet age” and the rise of new media (1990s-present). This demographic, the so-called “tween” group (for “in between”), was in fact entirely developed by and for marketers, and took on economic significance before it took on cultural significance (1).  It would not be a hyperbolism to suggest that tween culture was, in fact, entirely manufactured by the marketing machine. To understand the aggressive and pervasive nature of tween marketing, it’s important to first understand why this arbitrary distinction was created. Why “tweens”? What tweens have to offer to marketers that is so important vs. what children and teenagers already provide as consumers? Why has this market exploded the way it has in the last decade? The answer boils down to the fact that tweens, being in a transitory period, face a great degree of sudden vulnerability. And, at the same time, they retain full access to parental funds. This juxtaposition of susceptibility to influence and spending power is more prevalent among tweens than it is among teens or children.

Tweens’ Influence on Household Spending

Tweens are too young to legally earn their own money in order to attain what they want, so retain a child’s relatively unquestioned reliance on (and thus access to) their parent’s funds. According to BusinessWeek magazine, “Of the reported US$ 51 billion spent by tweens themselves, an additional $170 billion was spent by parents and family members directly for them” in the United States annually (2).  In the UK, we have 11 million people aged 15 and under, with a remarkable total expenditure of £12 billion from children up to 18, money often coming from own pocket money (alas parent’s pockets!) and part-time jobs (2b). This does not merely represent an access to more money on the part of tweens, but also a far greater lack of discretion about what they will spend it on. Teens, by contrast, who have begun to earn and control their own funds, have more awareness of the fact that money is finite and needs to be prioritized around what they really want, introducing a level of agency and choosiness about what they buy which is the precursor to adult spending habits. At the same time, tweens have just enough independence to exert power over household spending decisions owing to a shift in family dynamics which took place during the 1990s, and is known to play a key role in modern marketing strategy.(3) This shift saw a large number of tweens living in households where both parents work and in single-parent households (in 1994, one in four households in the United States with children was headed by a single parent, up from one in eight in 1970 [Miller, 1994]), and led to far more responsibility being placed upon tweens and teens (e.g. grocery shopping duties, which fully one-third of tweens have), giving them greater purchasing power and more independence. (Cuneo, 1989; McLaughlin, 1991; Miller, 1994; Rickard, 1994)(3) Tweens have been shown to have more “discretionary purchasing power than younger children or older adolescents, to shop at least three times a week, and to save 30% of their spending money for higher ticket items.” (McLaughlin, 1991) This access and right to adult funds and influence over what is done with them combined with tweens’ unique psychological vulnerabilities make them extremely appealing to marketers, and has been a strong factor in the developing pervasiveness of marketing directed at them.

The Role of Peer Pressure in Marketing to Tweens

As mentioned earlier, tweens are in a unique phase of psychosocial vulnerability. Most children in this age group are going through a fundamental change in their place in the social hierarchy around them, moving from schools where they were the oldest, most respected, “coolest” kids, to environments that are new, alien, and place them as the youngest and most vulnerable members. They have to “start over” socially at exactly the same time as their own bodies are developing in sudden, often troubling ways. The tween years are a period of intense change: mental, physical, emotional, and social. This breeds an incredibly intense pressure to “fit in”. Most surveys conducted on the priorities of tweens note fitting in on the top of, or very near the top of, the list. Naturally, this creates a deep need to have what their peers have and look how their peers look — a marketer’s haven for creating trends around brands. Teens, by contrast, are increasingly rebellious and eager to carve out individual identities, meaning that mainstream pop culture (and therefore the marketing therein) is something many teens grow to define themselves against, rather than by, an obvious challenge to marketers (for whom mainstream appeal is the goal, as it brings with it maximum profit potential). The pop idols and Disney shows that were the height of cool when they were twelve are the epitome of “lame” by 15 or 16 — hence why many pop stars (e.g. Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus) are aggressively marketed to smitten tweens while often being almost universally loathed by older teens. Research confirms the fact that tweens place even more emphasis on brand names than do older adolescents (Cuneo, 1989; Fitzgerald, 1992; Koester May, 1985; McLaughlin, 1991; Simpson, 1994). They are particularly concerned with having the “cool” brands when it comes to clothing and other matters of appearance. They much more strongly associate conformity with the need for acceptance, approval, and harmonious relationships with others (Batra, Kahle, Rose, Shoham, 1994).(3) Today’s tweens are also the most “wired” generation in history (heavily using the internet and mobile devices), meaning this peer pressure travels with them everywhere they go, and thus so does the potential to market to it. Tweens are also far more likely to click on things like banner ads than other age groups and are more susceptible to viral marketing tactics that promote the spread of a message from one user to another. Marketing to tweens via interactive social venues like chat rooms, forums, and e-mail have been noted to be especially effective.(4) Due to this, the prevalence of online marketing (both obvious and subtly worked into interactive media) has risen sharply over the last decade.

The Impact of Puberty: Body Image and Gender Roles

No discussion of tweens could be complete without examining the role of puberty; the rapid changes taking place in tweens’ bodies throws how these young people relate to one another into chaos, thrusting gender roles into sudden and stark relief and raising big questions about sex, dating, marriage, and the possibility of having children. Little girls and boys who were simply playmates a year or two prior suddenly find they have to redefine their peer roles around their emerging sexuality. This creates a deep need in tweens to understand themselves as gendered persons, and tween marketing capitalizes on this by offering strongly gendered media that plays into tweens’ heightened body awareness and subsequent concerns about their appearance. While this newfound awareness is hard on the self-esteem of both genders, it has been found to be significantly harder on girls (owing in large part to an intense perceived pressure to be thin), with research conducted throughout the United States, Korea, and Australia showing that the body dissatisfaction which arises in girls during puberty “is associated with lower levels of self-esteem and increased likelihood of depression among early adolescent girls.” (Newman & Newman, 2006, p. 303.) The earlier a girl physically matures, the worse this impact tends to be, and the more likely serious consequences (such as eating disorders) become.(5) As self esteem is a “central component of personality and identity” and is centrally tied to one’s “confidence in one’s ability to think and to cope with the challenges of life and confidence in one’s right to be happy” (Clancy and Dollinger, 1993)(6), young girls’ desire to identify with themselves in a positive way (and thereby achieve greater agency and success) makes the consumption of images of beautiful, thin young women incredibly appealing—something tween television programming and advertising media taps into (and profits from) frequently. To assess this phenomenon, Ashton Lee Gerding, a humanities student, and Nancy Signorielli, professor of communication at the University of Delaware, analysed 49 episodes of 40 distinct American tween television programs that aired in 2011 on Disney Channel, Disney XD, Nickelodeon and the Turner Cartoon Network. They catalogued and examined more than 200 characters in terms of their attractiveness, gender-related behaviour and personality characteristics such as bravery or ability to handle technology (7): “Tween viewers are undergoing an important developmental stage and actively seek cues about gender,” said Gerding. “Television programming can play an important role in that development, so we examined tween television programming. Overall, girls were portrayed as more attractive, more concerned about their appearance, and received more comments about their appearance than male characters. However, female and male characters were equally likely to be handy with technology and exhibit bravery. This sends the message that girls and boys can participate in and do the same things, but that girls should be attractive and work to maintain this attractiveness”. “Tween television programs may help to shape the way kids think about the roles that are available for them. Therefore, we advise parents to watch these programs with their kids and talk with their tweens about their roles in society. We also advocate for media literacy programs that could mitigate some of the potential negative effects of these programs.”

Tips for Parents: How to Moderate the Impact of Tween Marketing

Marketing is an inevitable part of the world most of us live in, so parents cannot hope to entirely shield their tweens from the impact of marketing on their developing adolescence. Parents can, however, give their tweens tools to help them cope with the barrage, and parents should never undervalue their role in this area. No matter how pervasive the media and marketing have become, tweens still cite their parents as their biggest influence when it comes to important decisions, even in “private” areas like sexuality. Parents can, absolutely, make a strong difference in how teens interpret and deal with the media and the marketing that is so aggressively aimed toward them. Prof. Agnes Nairn and Ed Mayo with the help of UK charity Care for the Family completed a “pester power” online survey and published a pamphlet Pester-power: Families surviving the Consumer Society (2007) which include a comprehensive summary of “survival tips” adopted by parents against the current marketing pressure. The booklet can be downloaded from this link: http://goo.gl/Q34ME9 (10). In this blogpost I want to include some suggestions provided by the Media Awareness Network, the Canadian Paediatric Society, and Susan Linn (psychologist and author of Consuming Kids: The Hostile Takeover of Childhood)(8), which should help parents navigate the murky waters of children commercialisation:

  • Start young. Children are influenced by marketing from a very young age.
  • Limit children’s exposure to advertising on television and on the Internet. Don’t allow them to have televisions or Internet-enabled computers in their rooms, and limit TV time to one or two hours per day.
  • Talk to your kids about how advertising works and what advertisers are trying to accomplish. Explain that advertising is a multi-billion dollar business whose goal is to get people to buy things, and that they are very good at it.
  • Encourage kids to think critically about marketing messages. You can start as small as you like: last year a Grade 6 math class in Thunder Bay, Ontario debunked a “fun fact” on a package of Smarties, which claimed that Canadians eat enough Smarties each year to circle the earth 350 times. They found that in order for the claim to be true, either the earth would have to be a lot smaller, or each Smartie would have to be 3.5 metres in diameter.
  • Help kids to understand the strategies used by advertisers. Talk with kids about specific ads: “How do you feel about the people in the ad? Do you want to be like them? Why or why not? Does the ad make you feel uncool for not owning the product, or that you’ll feel good about yourself if you buy the product? What are some other ways you could get those feelings, without buying the product? Has the ad used any ambiguous words or impressive-sounding facts and figures to make the product sound better than it is? At the end, did the announcer say anything like ‘some assembly required’ or ‘batteries not included’?”
  • Explain about product placement: if characters in a movie or TV show are using a particular brand, the advertiser probably paid a lot of money for it to be there.
  • Discuss how your kids can be smart, responsible consumers by knowing what is good for them and what is not, what is good for the environment and what is not, and what is good value for money.
  • Educate children about nutrition using your country’s Food Guide. Discuss whether eating only things you see on TV makes for a healthy, balanced diet. Make a distinction between “everyday” foods and “sometimes” foods.
  • Before going grocery shopping, decide exactly what you plan to buy, including snacks and treats. Having a list that you and your kids have discussed ahead of time makes it easier to avoid impulse purchases and set limits in the store.
  • Monitor your own media habits and buying habits, and change them if necessary. Children pick up early on what is important to their parents.
  • Most importantly, make sure TV, Internet, and video games “screen time” is well balanced with family time, active/creative play, playing outdoors, reading, and other activities without marketing attached!
Main references:
1. https://etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file?accession=bgsu1119390228&disposition=inline
2. http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2005-10-11/marketing-and-tweens2b. www.tgisurveys.com/tgi/Youth2006.PDF  and Youthscape Report: Attitudes, Behaviour and Spending Habits of UK Kids & Teens, Q4: 2013 https://www.marketresearch.com/Swapit-v3893/Youthscape-Attitudes-Behaviour-Spending-Habits-8261648/
3.  http://42051.faithweb.com/Tween%20consumes%20catalog%20clothing%20purchase%20behavior.html
4.  http://www.cdc.gov/youthcampaign/research/PDF/LitReview.pdf
5. http://www.brighthubeducation.com/teaching-methods-tips/3320-development-in-early-adolescence-puberty-and-low-self-esteem/
6.  http://www.drwrite.com/research/sample2.shtml
7.http://www.science20.com/news_articles/tween_programming_is_disney_promoting_stereotypes_or_creating_what_kids_want_to_watch-134661
8. http://www.aboutkidshealth.ca/en/news/newsandfeatures/pages/target-market-children-as-consumers.aspx
9. http://www.slideshare.net/gerdavandamme/whitepaper-digital-marketing-to-generation-spongebob
10. http://www.careforthefamily.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/301-08-ppinf02-pester-power-booklet-10-september-2008.pdf

					

Barbies & Bratz: an ideal toy for toddlers…really?

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Today I had an interesting discussion with a parent regarding how to stop her two young girls (age 2 and 4) obsessing over their Barbies dolls:

“At the beginning I didn’t give so much weight as it started gradually, but now I am at the point of almost wanting to bin their whole Barbie’s collection at once! They rarely play with anything else, I think they are getting pretty obsessive over them, constanlty changing clothes and then bringing the dolls with them everywhere…sometimes I feel like I am a bad mother allowing this…I think we are playing a dangerous game with the toys we hand over to them”.

This is nothing new: socialisation into stereotypical gender roles through playing practices, “let the girls be girls and the boys be boys”, many conservative parents would have no problem with it. However, I know even very conservative parents who will argue that the extent to which girls are trained into the role of “beautiful dolls” is getting far out of hand these days.

Young girls must be looking around, finding very little alternative to this role. Starting from the innocent comments received during family reunion (“Oh…she’s so beautiful” “she’s such a pretty girl”), the message is then reinforced through several hours of Barbie or Bratz play, possibly accompanied by some indoctrination into the glittering world of Disney’s princesses cartoons, merchandise and bedroom paraphernalia.

Interestingly – and more worryingly so- Barbie/ Bratz and the like have now become in many countries a must-have early years’ toy for girls age 2-6. Most of the girls I’ve talked to throughout my project (girls living in UK, age 8-11) were ready to dismiss the toy as “babyish”.

While there’s a lack of research on the direct effects of this playing practice from such tender age, it would respond to logic to think that handing out a skinny doll with unrealistic body proportions to 2-6 years old doesn’t represent the wisest educational choice. Let’s also consider the fact that playing with this type of dolls involves mainly changing them into different clothes, outfits, make-up and hair styles to make them more beautiful and sexy (possibly to attract the only man character in Barbie’s world, Ken!).

Now, developmental psychology tells us that toddler years are a time of great cognitive, emotional and social development, with children playing practices shaping their believes and attitudes for their later life: so let’s stop a minute and think “what are the attitudes and believes we promote in our girls by a regular daily dose of Barbie/Bratz play at this particular stage of their development?” And what if this practice is accompanied by Disney princesses’ cartoons and strict gender stereotyping in marketing and media?

This is a far cry from the traditionally feminine practice of playing with baby dolls, although I am aware that many feminist would equally class that practice as limiting, stereotypical and damaging, at least when not mixed with other types of play.

But surely you would think that pushing baby dolls on a pram, or pretending to feed them or change their nappy is a “parenting role play” which can develop a caring and nurturing attitude in children, so potentially nothing too wrong with that, right? (For the same reason I would be extremely happy to see as many boys as girls engaged in this type of play…but of course this would make uncomfortable too many parents who still firmly believe in the benefits of stereotypically gendered socialisation for their boys and girls…we have a long way to go I think!)

To conclude, shouldn’t we be a little more considerate in deciding which toy would be best for a 2-6 years old child? This is such a delicate and important phase of a child development… I contend that the effects of such universal play practice – especially in cases where it tends to monopolise girls’ attention and when not compensated by a diverse range of activities – should be really considered much more seriously.

Slutty Clothes for Young Girls: Irresponsible Parenting?

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I am receiving positive comments regarding the “Don’t you tell us it’s just a shirt!” slides.

But what many parents are more worried about is the “slutty” trend of clothes targeted to girls at younger and younger age: mini skirts so mini that knickers are permanently on show and mini tops so mini that nothing is left to the imagination. High heels are on the rise too and we talk about 6-8 years old sizes!

I have read also many articles regarding parents complaining to chain stores for selling inappropriate clothes to young girls (a padded bra and tongue for 4 years old was a case in point) and in many instances the complaint seemed to work, at least when there was enough collective upraising regarding a particular “unsuitable” item.

Sadly, as we know, most of these clothes are still around.

The thing is: shops are selling this kind of attire as long as there is demand for them and at this stage we would expect the parents to be the buyer of course, so… this means that there are parents around who are buying into this trend, right? Instead of labelling these parents for being uncaring or irresponsible it would be better to consider that perhaps – due to their culture/background and upbringing – they simply haven’t thought about the issue in our terms.

Some parents may think that bringing up a daughter to be a gold digger or footballer wife is indeed a good thing. Messages and slogans that some parents perceive as disempowering, may well be perceived by another class of parents as empowering: indeed, the power of female sex appeal! It all depends on perspectives and if you live your life surrounded by a raunchy culture it becomes second nature to think and act in those terms. For this reason, I don’t agree with many comments accusing parents who buy this sort of clothes being irresponsible and not caring about their daughters: the way forward should be to avoid accusations and judgements, engaging in dialogue and reflection instead.

In my view, creating resources and thought-provoking material to awaken people’s consciousness of certain issues is one way to move forward. And another way is to be open-minded and ready to start a dialogue: next time you see someone buying into the slutty trend, try to put yourself in their shoes, thinking within their own frame of reference (not an easy thing I admit), instead of dismissing them as they were not capable of thinking. I have tried this myself with a mother and the conversation we started has made me realise that my preconceptions were far from accurate 😉

Another slide for reflection today, please pass it around!

Can we stop this stupid T-shirts’ trend against our girls?

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I am reading so many negative and angered comments from parents and girls alike regarding what I would call “the stupid T-shirt trend”!

The ones below are just an example of parent’s comments left on the Facebook page of one of the shop in question:

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customers feedback on t-shirt_1

customers feedback on t-shirt_2

So despite many parents’ dismay, it looks like some marketers are working really hard to make sure that girls wear the right labelling attire, brilliant! So that anywhere they go the message will be loud and clear about their dumbness? No thank you! 🙁

I was talking with a girl the other day who seems to proudly display her “drama queen” shirt: I asked her “what is it to be proud about being a drama queen?”, she quickly dismissed me by saying “oh, it’s just a T-shirt!”, but I suspect that there are many young girls out there who would not be offended in the slightest to be referred to a “drama queen” or “gold digger” these days: the pervasive media culture surrounding them makes them think that somehow these are normal girls’ attributes (along with being shopping/fashion/make-up fanatic).

The trouble with this type of marketing is that it is a lazy, unimaginative way to push girls into a corner.

Fortunately, they are plenty of ethical businesses fighting back this trend and new companies producing clever and witty T-shirts are popping up all the time: so let’s make sure to give these girls an alternative and I am confident it will be soon out of trend to wear  “I am a princess” shirts!

I made a few visual slides regarding this point, I would love to see them circulating far & wide on the web. I’ll post them today, your job is to pass them around! 🙂

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Killing Us Softly – Jean Kilbourne documentary

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I just thought I should add a link to this state-of-the-art documentary by Jean Kilbourne.

This is one of the first documentary I watched with regards to women’s sexualisation and objectification in advertising (and it remains to these days one of the best I ever watched on the topic): it has now been released in 4 different editions
Jean Kilbourne on her documentary “Killing Us Softly”.

Browsing around the web I found the comment of an American college student who had the chance to watch it as a part of the school curriculum:

“For the first time in my college career I did not fall asleep watching an in-class video. Killing Us Softly 4 by Jean Kilbourne was engaging, relatable, and just interesting all around. The film depicted the way women and men mostly women, are portrayed in the media. Kilbourne gave many examples of ads and commercials where ideals of femininity are distorted and destructive.

This generation understands that everything in the media is not necessarily realistic but this film definitely opened my eyes up to how blatant and incorrect the media is when it comes to its negative portrayal of women. Advertising depicts images and messages that are unhealthy and unrealistic perceptions of body image and sexuality. I do believe that these ads are the main reason that there is such a high rate of females with low self-esteem and suicides in females today. With the constant portrayal of women being tanned, skinny, having large assets, and long hair, females have begun to think that this is what they need to strive to become otherwise they are far from perfect. Well in reality no one is perfect and there is no one perfect body type for a woman. Women come in all shapes and sizes, which is what makes us such unique and beautiful creatures. In reality the type of women that are depicted in the media are unattainable. This is the reason why plastic surgeons are rich because women are constantly going to them to enhance something on their body. Unfortunately by making all these physical changes, women are not becoming the “perfect woman”, they are just covering up their insecurities. So in the long run plastic surgery can only do but so much; it is a short-term cure for a long-term psychological problem.

I am grateful that I was always taught to love myself for everything that I am. Truthfully when I was a teenager I did try to look like the women I saw on television or in magazines but as time went on I realized that those women are not me, and can never be me; that is why I am special and unique!” (JPalm88 – blog post, April 18th 2011)

The comment shows how, for many young women, resource like this represent a real eye-opener. I would be interested to hear comments from my readers on whether they would consider such a resource useful or appropriate in primary schools (perhaps at age 10-11): how early is too early to introduce young girls (and boys) to this analysis?

“But girls want to be superheroes too!”

Watch this video of a 4 years old girl in a toy store in New York talking about the unfair separation of “pink princesses and blue superheroes” in the children world created by marketers.

No doubt she’s referring to her parent’s discussion on the topic, but this shows in itself the power of parental mediation: girls may be surrounded but a whole system pushing them towards beauty and appearance, but the words, discussion, even casual comments they get from their family will always form their frame of reference to evaluate whatever they see around: this aspect -the power of parental mediation – has also emerged very clearly from my empirical research on young girls’ response to adverts (www.TheGirlsProject.co.uk), and it’s indeed a positive thing which should make parents feel optimistic about their role, especially at this earlier stage of the development (before the adolescence phase, where rebellion towards parents becomes normative, representing for children a way to assert their independence)

This second video is uncut while the first is her video announced by ABCNews

So what do you think? Isn’t this video showing the remarkable power of parental mediation? 😉