It’s a wholly personal choice – and one that I’m trying not to see as too limiting as someone that measures their worth by their output (a whole other feminist rant) - but towards the end of my twenties something crystallized for me: I’m not comfortable working full-time for brands that benefit from making women feel like shit.
I’ll let that settle for a minute before we unpick the ‘limiting’ part. Yes, that basically rules out most, if not all, FMCG. It could rule out a lot of medi-care brands, even some FinTech ones to be honest. Hell, I’m not convinced it doesn’t totally exclude the insurance category, and there’s a good deal of entertainment and media that I’d have to think twice about.
I’d like to say I had always known this, but it was only really once I cemented this core value in my own mind, I started to become aware of just how deep it reaches. Like branding itself, the tentacles of this idea stretched across more than just the surface. I started to notice just how insidious advertising and marketing messages aimed at making us panic really were.
The gut-punch of personalization
If you’re a conscious woman in 2024 with an internet connection, TV, or even a circle of female friends that consume grooming advice, the pervasiveness of this culture is nothing new to you. You’ve felt the sinking feeling of not being on top of your clothing, beauty, or fitness regime, of comparing your thighs to someone who eats tailor-made, nutritionist-approved meals and has a live-in personal trainer to sculpt their outward image to perfection. And since joining the workforce alongside rearing a family has become an accessible possibility, you’ve found new ways to hate yourself. Are you girl-bossing to your fullest with a career coach? Are you a gentle parent with a sleep trainer? Have you bought enough ‘self care’ items to ensure your fragile mental health and well-being is nurtured? Have you drunk enough water today from your unnecessarily expensive adult sippy cup?
It’s not news that existing as a woman or any other sentient being outside of a physically fit, white, cis-male in a patriarchy means you’re probably going to have to consume a lot of information that tells you how to get closer to becoming the ideal – or indeed, more pleasing and attractive to the ideal. But in the age of the hyper-curated, imposingly personal feed, these messages are becoming ever more targeted – ever cleverer at speaking to your deepest insecurities. Now, ads can reaffirm all of our worst thoughts about ourselves, because they have the data to tell them about every detail of our self loathing.
In searching for the boundaries I wouldn’t cross when it came to where I put my time and energy, I found that they were blurring – faster than I could keep on top of. Take for instance some of these real-life examples of ads being run right up to 2024: The life insurance company that infers an irresponsible mother who could leave her kids scared and penniless if the worst happens. The energy provider that showed a busy working woman flooding her house because she forgot to get her boiler serviced – and the sturdy gentleman serviceman that comes to her rescue – thank goodness! Or, a personal favourite that felt completely out of pocket – the mobile phone company that showed a young woman travelling having to rely on her wise, hard-working, and eye-rolling father topping up her sim card when she ran out of money abroad.
After much frustration, much disillusionment, and a long hard look in the mirror (while brushing my teeth and inevitably picking out another 14 new flaws to judge), I started thinking about if there was ever any ethical way to sell. What would that look like? If the whole premise of selling to people was making them aware of what they lacked, was it a self-fulfilling prophecy that marketing and advertising were only ever going to make you feel degrees of less than perfect?
Was there another way to think about this problem expansively? If the first impulse wasn’t to start with ‘lack’, what might that look like? What if we started from empowerment, or curiosity? What if… we started thinking like a matriarchy?
Generative branding
I got to thinking about what we do in brand. The best of what we do. Storytelling, world building, culturally relevant and compelling branding – the kind that doesn’t exist only to sell, but rather to connect us, to start conversations. I’ve been lucky enough to be part of that kind of work and from experience? It feels incredible. Watching a positive, or joyful idea turn into something passed around the communal firepit of the Internet and be tossed around, morphed into something new, owned by others and passed back to you – being the spectator and facilitator, rather than trying to own, or trying to control? That work is rewarding on a deeper level. And, funnily enough, it’s also my most rewarded work in material terms.
That isn’t to say it’s always appropriate to go out and try and change the world with every message you put out there. But starting from connection, from sharing stories and ideas we’re excited to share, rather than obligated to? That feels instinctively more interesting, and more fruitful, than the problem or stereotype-based marketing of the past.
A great example of this is E.l.f.’s ‘So Many Dicks’ campaign. The beauty of this work isn’t just in its artful conversation starter and arresting creative, but also in the tangible action E.l.f. follow through with. ‘So Many Dicks’ is part of a wider “Change the Board Game” initiative that E.l.f. launched earlier this year with Billie Jean King. The “Serving Facts” campaign highlighted the brand's partnership with the National Association of Corporate Boards to create a board accelerator program intended to train and create visibility for 20 women and/or diverse board-ready candidates.
Hive-mind marketing
I’m a big fan of Zoe Scaman, whose work at the moment and for the past few years has focused on harnessing community in branding. She posits (rightly) that through democratizing IP and brand assets you ‘open up’ your brand to new fans, faithful followers, innovators, and influencers – and in doing so, possibility. Her work goes into much more depth and detail than I’ll be able to sum here (wholeheartedly recommend a read), but some of the more exciting examples she cites that we can see playing out in real time are dot swoosh, and LEGO Ideas. Democratized creation made available to the masses, and the brand existing in the role of facilitator and curator – rather than trying to have all the answers, or focusing on ‘winning’, a brand celebrates the joy of play and collaboration and, in doing so, creates a virtuous circle of demand generation and fulfilment.
On a different scale, this community-first mentality can account for a lot of the cult-like success of the machine that we know as Taylor Swift. If 2023/24 are the pinnacle and encapsulation of her journey so far, with a billionaire-making arena tour, a sold out concert film, economy-boosting draw, a chart-topping album, and a fanbase capable of literally affecting seismic shifts, it’s important to remember that a mere 18 years ago, Taylor was one of many interchangeable country music ingenues.
Her point of difference, that in that short time she has turned to one of the most material commercial advantages the music industry has ever seen? The nurturing of a loyal, curious and, importantly, culturally-attuned following. Taylor’s connection to and collaboration with her fans stretches back as far as 2014 with Secret Sessions for 1989. Her listening parties are now the stuff of urban legend, giving her fans the chance to shape and dissect Taylor’s music alongside the artist herself. From this gesture of recognition and intimacy, Taylor carefully and lovingly built the platform that she now uses to communicate directly with her biggest brand advocates. In her song lyrics and through secret releases she speaks in fanilect, allowing for her work and her persona to exist outside of itself, democratically owned and propped up by every Swiftie on the planet. Through storytelling and tapping into the powerful hive mind of her community, Taylor has developed one of the most sophisticated R&D panels an artist could hope for.
How to brand like a MOTHER
So how can we build a better future for branding for those that follow in our footsteps? Well, I don’t have all the answers, and I’m hoping it’s something Women in Brand will continue to deliver and spearhead through its existence and mission – but here’s my starter for 10:
Listen first: By embracing your biggest advocates and longest-serving followers, you gain access to a wealth of insight, knowledge, and importantly, stories to build from. Your brand DNA is woven into every word they say about you, so you’d better start listening – carefully.
Brand as facilitator: Branding is a subtle art – it’s about more than ‘here’s X to do Y’. That’s why we love it, right? Experiment with brand storytelling through your community – platform them. Their lives, their struggles, their victories, their truths. Don’t try to own it, or stick a logo over them. Allow them to become the experience of your brand, the face of it, the true advocates of who you are and what you’re all about. You aren’t selling benefits – you’re offering connection to something. By actively creating more fluidity in the ownership of your brand, you allow it to grow, reach farther, and deepen in meaning and relevance.
Creativity over conflict: A generative approach to brand wins every time. Rather than riding on culture wars, perpetuating ‘this not that’, or fostering division, explore opportunities for collaboration. Embrace the opportunity to create – within your brand’s immediate community, or more widely. As long as your brand values are aligned to what you’re doing, you shouldn’t go far wrong.
תגובות