Women do not want perfect models in adverts

A research carried out by Ben Barry, researcher at Cambridge University, shows that women do not feel identified with very slim, young and white models.

The research includes a sample of 2000 women from the UK, US, China, India, Canada, Brazil, Kenya and Jordan, shows a change in women’s attitude towards beauty.

Ben Barry proved that women consumers respond more favourably to brands whose models are of their age, size and background. People do want to see someone who represents them in all these three factors.


Apart from women under 25 years old and Chinese female consumers, most of surveyed persons feel positive towards models that bear a resemblance.

"The women want models who look like they were part of the fashion industry but who at the same time look like themselves. It makes them feel that they are being included in the industry and that they are considered beautiful”, says Barry.

Latest campaigns of some brands, as Dove or Nivea, used these concepts.

However, luxury brands use the image of a perfect woman in their advertisements.
Despite Barry’s conclusions, there are some experts who prefer to be cautious with the results.

Paddy Barwise, professor of marketing at London Business School, thinks that there is a big gap between what women say and what they do at point of sale.



Will Ben Barry’s conclusions be taken into consideration in the next campaigns?

Source: MarketingDirecto, The Guardian, WARC

Best and Worse spots showing actual women role Awards

Last December, Peru hosted FemTv and SapoTv Awards. These awards prize the best and the worse spots aimed at women by FemTV- a group of associations in favour of women rights.

The Winner of FemTV 2008 was Visa:



Credits
Brand: Vea Visa Card
Product: Credit Car
Agency: Publicis
Company: Peruvian Supermarkets, Banco Internacional del Perú, S.A.A

The Winner of SapoTV 2008 was Saga Falabella:



Credits Brand: Saga Falabella
Product: Store
Agency: Circus
Company: Saga Falabella

Axe, Unique, Natura, Nivea or Brahma were some of the brands nominated for the awards.

Fem TV
All the spots nominated for Fem TV awards show an economically independent women who is a family lover but at the same time likes looking after herself.

Thus, what is the difference between the nominated spots and the winner?
Vea Visa Card represents a woman capable of combining work and family without giving up looking after herself. The role represented in the spot is the ideal of an actual woman although in real life it is not always easy to work and have fun with a family at same time.

Sapo TV
Although among Sapo Tv there were some Axe spots, FemTV Group chose Saga Falabella supermarket as a winner.

According to the spot directors, it captures woman as a hysterical consumer and a person that succumbs to sexuality. This makes spot embarrass not only women but men as well.

This year the awards prized by the jury have been the same as spots chosen by the audience. This fact makes us think that the winner spot has been fairly chosen… or not?

Click her to watch all the nominated spots.

Which spots should have won, in your opinion?

Source: La Primera newspaper

Natural born blogger

Debbie Weil is a blogger and social assessor of some of the most significant world enterprises (many of them are listed in the Global 100 and Forbes 500). She gives speeches during conferences in different countries all over the world. She teaches the great companies how to develop their own blog, and make the best profit of this most democratic tool ever known in the history of communication.

Apart from her blog-oriented job, Debbie has got her own blog where she publishes very interesting information and a wide scope of marketing case studies. It’s really worth to visit: http://www.debbieweil.com.

Here we go again!

Can anybody tell me what is so appealing about this add that it deserved to be published? Christina Aguilera is wearing sexy nurse clothes in order to sell some trainers…? No main story, no text, no concept. Pure provocation without any sence of responsibility. The author agency of this masterpiece is Agenda Inc. with offices in San Francisco and Paris. The advert is from 2005.

From: Adpulp

Feminine creativity without limit

Anyone can have fresh ideas! But one Irish girl made them come true. One day she just grabbed the camera and she has recorded herself dancing. After few time almost 3 millions of people have watched her dancing. From that moment on starts her amazing adventure with advertising, viral marketing, glamour and creativity:


Part One:



Part Two:

A sexist or revolutionary ass?

This is the advert to relaunch, surprisingly, 'L'Unità', the historic Italian newspaper founded in 1924 by the Marxist philosopher and theoretical Antonio Gramsci. This newspaper was the official organ of the Italian Comunist Party (PCI).

Copy: new, free, mini, beautiful, strong, independent, couragerous, surprisingly, revolutionary, intelligent, generous, essential, indomitable.

The campaign has been created by the controversial Oliviero Toscani to illustrate the transformation process of 'L'Unità', Italian left-wing symbol newspaper, which has reduced its format (it will be tabloid) and it will have a new design.

Always that female body is used gratuitously to sell a product, that advert is considered sexist. However, Concita de Gregorio, first woman to be at the top of the newspaper in its 84 years of history, doesn't feel that this advert was sexist.

Concita de Gregorio

According to her: "I don't think it's right to use a woman image to sell, for example, cars. But in this case, I think it's perfect. Since two months, this newspaper is controlled by the body and the head of a woman, me, so in this case I think is pertinent to use a woman's image."

Toscani also rejects the acussations of sexism. "The miniskirt was revolutionary and, as the format of 'L'Unità' was going to be reducted, I thought that this image combines very well these two concepts".

"The photo is like her (Concita de Gregorio): solid, present... It isn't the image of a woman in seduction position, but it's the image of ordering", he said.

At the moment, the controversy is there and there are views to suit all tastes. What do you think?

Source: El Mundo

Health only for women

In the United States, CARE Media introduces Women’s HealthCARE Television Network, specialized in women's health. Women’s HealthCARE TV will cover topics such as urinary disorders, mammograms, heart disease, infertility, pregnancy issues by trimester, and sexually transmitted diseases such as HPV.

Women’s HealthCARE TV will be broadcast via broadband across 32” flat-screen, high-definition monitors in OB/GYN offices across the entire United States.

American Advertisers will be offered both segment adjacency and category exclusivity

Roll-out begins October 1, 2008 in 100 beta sites. Throughout the remainder of 2008, subscribing offices will receive installation with the expectation of 1,000 offices enlisted by January 1, 2009. Expansion will continue throughout 2009 with growth expectations reaching 2,500 offices by the end of Q4 2009.

Read more: http://www.womenshealthcaretv.com/

60 women, 60 lives

Antena.Nova, Spanish Antena 3's DTT channel, started showing the docu-series 'Sólo ellas' ('Only women') the last 22 of September. They are produced by Coeficiente and they will be broadcast from Monday to Sunday

This new space presents sixty women very different to each other. They will talk about sixty lives, about sixty views of their labour situation, about men, about sex, about friendship, about feminine clichés, in a word, about what supposes to be a woman on 21st Century

I think it can contribute an interesting view about "real women". We usually complain because they haven't presence in media. This program can be very useful to discover the true worries of today's Spanish woman. We will pay attention!

Source: El Publicista

Source: Formula TV

http://www.elpublicista.es/frontend/elpublicista/noticia.php?id_noticia=4363#
http://www.formulatv.com/1,20080921,8864,1.html

Women don't feel understood by companies

In Spain, 90% of women consider that companies don't communicate with them in an efficient way and 85% of them points out that many companies don't bear them in mind as a target, because they only talk to men. These are some of the conclusions of the research “Empresa, Mujeres y Comunicación” ("Bussiness, Women and Communication"), made by Actitud de Comunicación between women from 29 to 49 years old, middle class, workers and that live with another people.

90% of the women asked says that they don't feel identified at all with the messages that companies transmit, because they consider that these messages are based only in things as cleaning, family, house and esthetic, and 85% of them point out as values which they feel identified with, intelligent, independence, capacity to decide and proffesional aspects.


Also, there is a high percentage of women (85%) that demand to the sectors focused only on men that also communicate with them. They mention as the more frequent automotive, financial products, insurances, computers and products related to leisure time, sports and travels.

The objective of the research is analyze woman's perception of the communication that is directed to her. Women take a lot of purchase decisions and companies starts to be worried about the way they are directing to them.

Because of the results of the research, I think it is going to be necessary overcome the old stereotypes about women, think about their current aspirations and include in the communication new values in agreement with the role that is playing woman in the society right now.

Against the sexist advertising

AGAINST SEXIST ADVERTISING. The 14th of September was "The Woman's Image International Day", as a symbol of rejection and repulsion, mainly, to the sexist advertising.

The sexist advertising reproduces gender roles and stereotypes that insist in showing women as housewives and as mothers as their only function, at the same time that sells a female image as sexual object.

The fact that one international day has been dedicated to this topic is one more sign of the increasing concern about the way women are represented in communication.

Read more: http://www.kaosenlared.net/noticia/14-septiembre-dia-internacional-imagen-mujer