FEMVERTISING: IRONY OR REVOLUTION?

A Project submitted to

Army Institute of Law, Mohali

In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award
of degree of B.A.L.L.B

Submitted to: Submitted by:

Dr.Amita Sharma Vidhi Goyal
Assistant Professor 2075
(Sociology)

Punjabi University, Patiala(Punjab)

1
 DECLARATION

It is certified that my project work presented in this report entitled

‘Femvertising: Irony or Revolution?’ embodies the results of original
research work carried out by me. All the ideas and references have been duly
acknowledged.

DATE: 15 JUNE, 2021 NAME: Vidhi Goyal

PLACE: ARMY INSTITUTE OF LAW ROLL NO. 2075

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This project consumed huge amount of work, research and dedication. Still
implementation would not have been possibleif I did not have a support of
many individuals and organizations. Therefore I would like to extend my
sincere gratitude to all of them.

Dr. Amita Sharma, our sociology teacher for provision of her expertise, and
technical support in the implementation. Without her superior knowledge and
experience, the project would lack in quality of outcomes, and thus her support
has been essential.

I would like to express my sincere thanks towards all who devoted their time
and knowledge in the implementation of this project.

Nevertheless,I express my gratitude towards my family and colleagues for their

kind co-operstion and encouragement which help me in completion of this
project.

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 INDEX

TOPIC PAGE NO.

Introduction to Femvertising 5
Femvertising Timeline 6-7
Dove Campaign for Real Beauty- A Spark for Femvertising 8-9
Contribution of Femvertising to Indian Advertising 10
Companies Successfully working on the idea of Femvertising 11
Problems with Femvertising 12-13
Advertisements by companies working on the idea of Femvertising that went 14
wrong
15
Conclusion
16
Bibliography

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 INTRODUCTION TO FEMVERTISING

For centuries, advertisers and marketers frequently used women in advertisements portraying

in sexiest role, restricting their role in upbringing children, looking after family and doing all
household chores. Thus women, in spite of being used in advertisements frequently, they
were presented in inferior manner irrespective of their potentials and capabilities. It was
leading negative consequences for women and strengthening stereotyped values in the
society. But today, an increasing number of advertisers are creating pro-female ads to catch-
up with the “latest trend” of feminism. The advertising Industry that once depended heavily
on the objectification of women to market its content has now taken a 360-degree turn to
attract the attention of female consumers and to make them feel “understood and valued”.
This phenomenon of employing feminism as an advertising tool has been labelled as
‘femvertising’.1

FEMVERTISING is defined as ‘advertising that employs pro-female talent, messages and

imagery to empower woman and girls’. The term was coined by women’s lifestyle and digital
media company, SheKnowsMedia, in 2004 with Dove’s ‘Real beauty’ campaign. Dove
redefined the concept of beauty by breaking the stereotype, that only young, tall, slim ladies
with flawless skin are beautiful. In 2015 SheKnowsMedia launched the first #femvertising
awards, which acknowledge brands that are shifting gender norms through breaking down
gender stereotypes in their messaging in ad campaigns targeted to women. In 2015, Google’s
“Think insights” marketing research team has categorized advertisements empowering
women as those advertisements who promote messages on gender equality, love and body
positivity (Wojcicki, 2016)2

Femvertising, simply put, is the use of feminist ideals by brands to sell their products.
Exploring of feminist issues, fabrication of women’s stories, presentation of female
protagonists and promotion of pro-female messages— all of this when done by advertisers
results in what we call ‘femvertising’. More brands are using femvertising with the aim of
shedding light on topics that have either been taboo while dispelling social views and
limitations that have restricted women in the past.

1
Gupta Shagun. (2017/5/30). Femvertising: How Corporates Co-opt Feminism to Sell Things.
https://feminisminindia.com/2017/05/30/femvertising-corporates-feminism/ (last visited: 8/5/21)
2
Theko Khumo. The Rise of Femvertising. https://www.fluxtrends.com/the-rise-of-femvertising/ (last:8/5/21)

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 FEMVERTISING TIMELINE

1849 - The Lily - First newspaper owned, edited, and published by a woman for women.
Initially only focused on temperance but slowly shifted towards abolition, and women’s
rights. Editor, Amelia Bloomer, became an advocate and namesake for women wearing
dresses with pants or “Bloomers.”

1870 – Woman’s Journal and Suffrage News - Weekly American newspaper focused on
women’s suffrage that partnered with the National American Woman Suffrage Association.
Continued publishing until 1931.

1911- Equality Tea - Tea brand created by suffragists to support the suffrage movement in
California. The brand was even featured on the side of a train car saying “Eight Amendment,
Suffrage Special, Votes for Women, Drink Equality Tea.”

1929 – Lucky Strike Cigarettes - American Tobacco couldn’t sell cigarettes to women in the
1920s because of the stereotype that women who smoke were fallen women. Public Relations
mogel, Edward Bernays, created the “Torches of Freedom” campaign to show modern
women walking down Fifth Avenue in NYC smoking to express their newfound liberation as
a fashion statement.

1943 – L’Aiglon and Career Women - Dress company encourages women to work outside the
home in easy to wash dresses.

1963 – Virginia Slims “You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby” - Virginia Slims cigarettes latches
onto the women’s liberation movement and specifically only targets women - a new tactic.
One of the most iconic taglines in advertising history.

1970 – Revlon’s Charlie Perfume- Charlie represents the free-spirited, modern working
woman of the 1970s - confident and feminine.

1971 – Republic Steel’s “Let’s Talk about Women Liberation” - Steel company sees the
opportunity of the women’s liberation movement to market products.

1971 – Tampax’s Modern Women - Tampax starts catering to the independent, busy woman
who needs sanitary products to fit her moving life.

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1973 – L’Oréal’s “Because I ‘m Worth It” - A battle cry for all women - not just feminists.
Became a longstanding advertising tagline.

1984 – Nike’s Olympic Runner - The advertisement featured Joan Benoit Samuelson who
made history as the first woman to win a marathon in the Olympics - became an icon for
female runners everywhere.

1987 – Lawman’s Jeans - Clothing advertisement emphasizes body autonomy and consent -
"No one has the right to pressure you."

2004 – Dove’s Real Beauty Campaign - Iconic ongoing beauty campaign that talked about
body image and photoshop in advertising. This campaign became an inspiration for many
other brands to follow suit.

2014 – Always “Like A Girl” - This campaign and video went viral for its open and engaging
conversation around stereotypes about using “run like a girl” as an insult. Paved the way for
future feminist social media campaigns.

2020 – Olay #MakeSpaceForWomen - Advertisement featured during the 2020 SuperBowl

featuring different famous women to advocate to close the gender gap in STEM. Raised
$500k for Girls Who Code.

2021 – Dove #StopTheBeautyTest - Dove, personal care brand owned by Unilever, has

released a new campaign, which aims to address a momentous stage in the life of every
young Indian woman subjected to a 'test of beauty' that makes her feel unbeautiful and
crushes her self-esteem.3

3
Brown Berit. History of Feminism and Advertising . Femvertising Timeline (hampshire.edu). (last visited:
8/5/21)

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 Dove Campaign for Real Beauty- A Spark for Femvertising
In 2004, Dove launched its Campaign for Real Beauty. In the process, Dove unknowingly
became the catalyst for a marketing trend that would greatly impact the ways advertisers
target female consumers today. Their advertisement featured six women in white underwear
showing off their “real curves” and first appeared on billboards in 2003. The media went wild
praising the company for promoting women of different sizes and showcasing different
beauty ideals.

After Dove’s researchers found out that “only 4% of women around the world consider
themselves beautiful” and “80% of women agree that every woman has something about her
that is beautiful, but do not see their own beauty,” Dove made the goal of its new campaign
“to redefine beauty” With taglines like “Every Body is Beautiful” and “Let’s Break the Rules
of Beauty,” the campaign targeted women with inspirational phrases and portrayals of
different body types.

When Dove first started its campaign for “real beauty” back in 2004, there were not many
depictions of women’s bodies outside of traditionally ultra-thin models in advertisements.
This automatically made its advertisements stand out from competitors and reinforced the
idea that Dove products are for “real” consumers with “real” bodies. One part of the Real
Beauty campaign was a series of billboards asking whether or not the model featured was “fat
or fit” or “grey or gorgeous.”

This advertisement, along with the others in this campaign, appeals to social comparison
theory which says that “people will make automatic comparisons to people and images that
they perceive to represent realistic goals to attain and be motivated to achieve these goals.”
When the aspirational images consist of extremely thin young women, companies perpetuate
unrealistic goals for consumers to pursue. Dove changes this narrative by showing “real
women” or women that exist outside of the young thin white woman. These models are able
to connect to Dove’s audience better because they are “relatable” and give a “fresh
perspective within the media which led to women feeling empowered.

In the second phase of its campaign for Real Beauty, Dove “unveils” the lies behind
advertising images in the beauty industry. The video, “Evolution,” shows the process of
shooting a campaign image from start to finish with a model. In showing how much goes into
doctoring the appearance of a model with makeup and photoshop, Dove reveals the reality of
just how unattainable a model’s beauty actually is. Media exposure for this video exploded

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with “over 1.7 million views during its first month, making it the most viewed video on
YouTube in October 2006” as people raved about Dove’s reveal of unrealistic standards of
the beauty industry.

Simple and captivating, this video reassures its viewers that their understanding of beauty is
skewed by the untrustworthy beauty industry not Dove. This is brought up again in Dove’s
“Onslaught” video that tells its viewers to “talk to your daughter before the beauty industry
does.” The continued dedication to depicting “real beauty” paid off with the company’s brand
loyalty doubling from 2003 to 2006.

While the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty aims to portray accurate representations of
women, the focus still tends to be on the body and certain types of bodies. One of Dove’s
most infamous attempts at being a size inclusive brand is its Dove Real Beauty Bottles. Dove
created 6 different shapes of body wash bottles that were supposed to “evoke the shapes,
sizes, curves and edges that combine to make every woman their very own limited edition.”
Asserting that “there is no one perfect shape” and “beauty comes in all shapes and sizes,”
Dove attempted to connect to the diversity of women’s body shapes. However, consumers
responded poorly to this campaign because instead of embracing women’s body shape
differences, the campaign objectified women’s bodies into actual objects. Consumers then
would face the dilemma of choosing one bottle or body over another making them a guilty
part of the body image crisis. 

In 2021, Dove released an advertisement showing that women being questioned on the
conventional beauty ideas at the time of marriage and how they are rejected on not
confirming to the same. #StopTheBeautyTest campaign was started by Dove to nudge out all
these ideas. Five strong, bold women who cover the five key beauty prejudices i.e. height,
weight, complexion, hair type and even birth marks, partnered Dove to make its point: When
you look for beauty you will find beauty.

Hiring a more diverse cast to appeal to a wider audience and increase overall brand loyalty,
indicates that Dove embraces diversity when it benefits the growth of the company. Unilever
being the parent company of dove, Unilever seems to push its companies towards whatever
will increase profits the most.4

4
Brown Berit. Femvertising Overview. Intro to Dove Campaign (hampshire.edu). (last visited: 8/5/21)

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 CONTRIBUTION OF FEMVERTISING TO INDIAN ADVERTISING

For the past few years, a large number of companies in India, are creating advertisements
either to break the stereotypes or to portray women in a more confident, decisive and super
women image doing multitasking. Companies started using femvertising in different forms to
distinguish themselves in the clutter of advertisements-
 Promoting girl’s education- The best example is Govt of India’s awareness campaign,
“Beti Bachao, beti Padao” to improve social welfare and social status of girls. “Oriflame-
beautiful change” is a recent ad with the same message where an established woman from
a higher section of society takes the responsibility of her maid’s daughter education.
 Break the taboo- “Anouk” an ethnic wear brand from Myntra has promoted a series of
ad campaigns under the title “Bold is beautiful”, where either it was about choosing life
partner of same sex or portraying a message that “pregnancy is not creating any handicap
situation for any woman nor it is an end to a woman’s career. Whisper created short ads
to break different types of taboos and stereotypical mentality regarding menstruation
cycles.
 Gender equality-Nike’s “Da Da Ding” ad was one of the most popular ads focussed on
the athletic spirit of women and stood out within the clutter of advertisements by giving a
strong message to people who don’t give enough importance to female sports.  Ariel’s ad
campaign “Share the load” promoted the idea “Why is laundry a mother’s job?”
questioning century old Indian stereotypes.
 Beauty reframes– Titan’s “I am- flaunt the flaws” is a beautiful ad where beauty of
woman is redefined as the advertisements projected women as they are.
 Questioning norms- In the “Nayi Soch” campaign, Star plus has launched an ad where
the name of the sweet shop is kept “Gurdeep Singh and Daughters”. The ad overwhelmed
us by challenging the age-old Indian convention of keeping names of any business by the
name of father and sons.5

5
Nandi Shampa. Femvertising: FAD in Indian Advertising? https://www.isme.in/femvertising-fad-in-
indianadvertising/#:~:text=Today's%20Indian%20women%20across%20social,become%20an%20increasingly
%20dominant%20theme.&text=Advertisements%20focused%20more%20on%20%E2%80%9Cempowered,in
%20advertisements%2C%20known%20as%20femvertising. (last visited: 8/5/21)

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 Companies Successfully Working on the Idea of Femvertising

 Anouk- Bold Is Beautiful, The Calling: Debunking the old rules to make her own way,
Radhika Apte shows us how bold is beautiful and breaks the pregnancy stereotypes that a
woman can’t manage child and office.
 Havell’s “Hawa Badlegi”: A couple sitting at a registrar's office, with the husband
taking the wife's last name and making the official do a double take.
 Titan Raga: #HerLifeHerChoices: They showed us a strong and independent woman
who is capable of making her own life choices and chooses not to marry for the sake of
her work. She has aspirations and is not afraid to take control of her life in her hands.6
 Libresse: #BloodNormal: 2017 saw the global launch of Libresse’s #BloodNormal
campaign which aims to dismantle the stigma of menstruation that is at times portrayed in
advertising. The ad was the first ad in the UK that showed real menstrual blood versus
blue liquid that is usually used.
 Nissan: #Shedrives: Nissan launched the #Shedrives marketing campaign in support of
the land mark move which saw Saudi Arabia give women the right to drive. The
campaign is said to shed light on the ‘drive for equality and freedom of movement for
all’.

 PPS: #WomenAcknowledged: Financial service firm, PPS launched a campaign titled,

‘Women Acknowledged’. The campaign is targeted at female professionals to provoke
dialogue on stereotypes women face within the workplace. The campaign focuses on
women in careers that traditionally make up PPS’ membership base, which consists of
engineers, academics, accountants, architects etc7

PROBLEMS WITH FEMVERTISING

6
The Economic Times. (2017/3/8). 6 Ads that broke gender stereotypes over the years.
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/advertising-marketing/6-indian-ads-that-broke-gender-stereotypes-over-
the-years/breakingstereotypes/slideshow/57539044.cms. (last visited: 8/5/21)

7
Theko Khumo. The Rise of Femvertising. https://www.fluxtrends.com/the-rise-of-femvertising/ (last:8/5/21)

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The advertising agencies typically criticised for using sexist and racist means of publicity are
now selling empowerment to women. Thanks to them, 'Femvertising' is now a word that
needs attention.

HASHTAG FEMINISM: It all starts with a hashtag. In the age of social media posts
dictating consumer decisions and heavily influencing their thoughts about a brand.
Companies don't just run contradictory marketing campaigns; many promote ideas of
feminism in marketing while embodying the opposite. In 2015, KPMG, one of the world's
largest auditing companies, released a video titled "Glass Ceiling" with the slogan:
Continuing our commitment to the next generation of women leaders. In August of 2019,
KPMG became the subject of a $400 million class-action lawsuit alleging a pattern of gender
discrimination.

COMMERCIALIZING A COMPETITIVE MINDSET: "Why should boys have all the

fun?" is a tagline that clearly indicates a flawed concept of gender superiority that indirectly
promotes a competitive mindset. This clever attempt to turn the unconventional idea of
femininity into an empowerment indicator has made scooties for girls very popular in the
Southeast Asian region over the past decade. So popular that the scooty market in India alone
generated a revenue of $80.0 million in 2018.

OPPURTUNISM OVER IMPACT: The companies actively convince that with the
consumption of this product, we are supporting the feminist cause. Dove became the pioneer
of femvertising in India in 2013 when they released "Real Beauty bottles". It targeted the
vulnerabilities and insecurities of women regarding the shapes and sizes of their bodies. The
actual intention of this campaign might have been to support women's confidence about their
bodies or to simply make money, but what they actually did was force women to seek self-
confidence from a plastic bottle.

Playing this card with female-driven content, brands bank on the idea of a rather commercial
aspect of feminism. This particularly benefits mostly the companies, not the demography that
actually needs it.8

8
The Daily Star. (2020/3/8). Femvertising: Who Benefits?
https://www.thedailystar.net/next-step/news/femvertising-who-benefits-1877191. (last visited: 8/5/21)

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FEMVERTISING SHOULDN’T HAVE TO BE A TERM: We really shouldn’t be in a
situation where all advertising is so un-feminist and so degrading towards women that there is
a term for advertising that simply depicts women as powerful. When the bar is set so low, we
shouldn’t praise companies for doing the minimum required to represent women both
accurately and positively. We should be holding our advertising, media, and all other forms
of visual representation to much higher standards. Femvertising shouldn’t be a thing because
we shouldn’t have to give a term to what responsible advertising agencies should be aiming
for when they represent women.

FEMVERTISING DOESN’T MAKE ANYONE A BETTER FEMINIST: Feminist

advertising tends to hit all our social media feeds with its easy share-ability and often,
controversial messaging. Although these campaigns succeed in spreading awareness of
female empowerment and the idea of “girl power,” this isn’t enough. “Feminist advertising
does help with the visibility of feminism, which is a crucial first step, “Banet-Weiser said.
“But it’s difficult to see how feminist advertising is committed to structural change, since the
appeal is to individual women rather than a collective movement. “Feminism can’t cause
change if it appeals to individual women as consumers, it has to resonate with a collective
community to spark a cultural shift of equality for women.
We don’t need feminist advertising — we need companies to hire more women, have more
women in leadership roles, and implement diverse hiring strategies.9

Advertisements by Companies on Idea of Femvertising that Went Wrong

1. ORIFLAME- WOMEN’S DAY: Oriflame released its Women’s Day ad on March

8 ,2017, glorifying the woman’s adherence to the prevailing gender roles. She’s shown to
be multitasker who juggles her work, household chores and the child simultaneously
without any help from her husband. This ad reverses a woman’s subjugation by putting it
under the label of “Superwoman”. Promoting gender disparity and applauding women for
adhering to it? A femvert that lacks understanding of feminism only works to push
9
Curtis Cara. (2018/12/19). ‘Femvertising’ does nothing for feminism.
https://thenextweb.com/news/femvertising-does-nothing-for-feminism (last visited: 8/5/21)

13
 against it. Oriflame is preaching the conventional beauty ideals through its products and
prevailing gender roles through its advertisements, on Women’s Day nonetheless.
2. AIRTEL’S BOSS AD: Airtel released its Boss TVC in 2014 with a “modern” twist
where the woman is her husband’s boss. The advertisement did try to break the
stereotyped representation of a woman as only a homemaker, and even showed holding a
position of power in the workplace. However, even when the boss of her husband at
work, still comes home to do what pleases him.
3. BIBA- CHANGE THE CONVERSATION: Biba launched its campaign ‘Change Is
Beautiful’ in 2016 and under this campaign on dowry, their ad ‘Change the
Conversation’. However, is this how we must overcome the practice of dowry? By
replacing it with the practice of buying and selling of the woman in a marriage? The
family of the groom decided to give material things and money to bride. While talking
about eradicating one malpractice, are they promoting another?
4. VOGUE INDIA- MY CHOICE: This ad basically proposes women’s domination, not
women empowerment. The video not only happily evades the central issues of feminism
by making proposing mostly frivolous choices but also proposes making a choice as the
simple solution to gender disparity. In addition, the video comes off as hypocritical in
general. A line in the video is, “my choice; to be a size 0 or a size 15.” However, all the
women featured in the video adhere to conventional body types.10

CONCLUSION

Advertisements are always reflective about the social changes and the recent fad of
femvertising is also following feminist wave and paradigm shift in Indian culture. Critics
often pointed out that marketers and creative copywriters simply create these pro women
advertisements just to attract the recent upcoming, affluent, ambitious women and intent to
increase the sales of certain types of products. Some criticised that femvertising are more
visible in a certain day of a calendar, like Women’s day. According to some scholars and
researchers, companies are using femvertisments for promoting consumption of products and
shopping spree which is against the philosophy of feminism, where women are tagged with
shopping. Whatever be the motives, pro-women advertisements are actually created to elicit

10
Gupta Shagun. (2017/5/30). Femvertising: How Corporates Co-opt Feminism to Sell Things.
https://feminisminindia.com/2017/05/30/femvertising-corporates-feminism/ (last visited: 8/5/21)

14
actions that any brand desires from its target market and eventually they are also promoting
women’s liberation movements, which are essential for India. Pro women or men,
advertisements should evolve to promote a brand not just to a gender but to a life stage or a
personality trait.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

 Gupta Shagun. (2017/5/30). Femvertising: How Corporates Co-opt Feminism to Sell

Things. https://feminisminindia.com/2017/05/30/femvertising-corporates-feminism/
(last visited: 8/5/21)

 Theko Khumo. The Rise of Femvertising. https://www.fluxtrends.com/the-rise-of-

femvertising/ (last:8/5/21)

 Brown Berit. History of Feminism and Advertising. Femvertising Timeline

(hampshire.edu). (last visited: 8/5/21)

 Brown Berit. Femvertising Overview. Intro to Dove Campaign (hampshire.edu). (last

visited: 8/5/21)

15
 Nandi Shampa. Femvertising: FAD in Indian Advertising?
https://www.isme.in/femvertising-fad-inindianadvertising/#:~:text=Today's%20Indian
%20women%20across%20social,become%20an%20increasingly%20dominant
%20theme.&text=Advertisements%20focused%20more%20on
%20%E2%80%9Cempowered,in%20advertisements%2C%20known%20as
%20femvertising. (last visited: 8/5/21)

 The Economic Times. (2017/3/8). 6 Ads that broke gender stereotypes over the years.
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/advertising-marketing/6-indian-ads-that-broke-
gender-stereotypes-over-the-years/breakingstereotypes/slideshow/57539044.cms. (last
visited: 8/5/21)

 The Daily Star. (2020/3/8). Femvertising: Who Benefits?

https://www.thedailystar.net/next-step/news/femvertising-who-benefits-1877191. (last
visited: 8/5/21)
 Curtis Cara. (2018/12/19). ‘Femvertising’ does nothing for feminism.
https://thenextweb.com/news/femvertising-does-nothing-for-feminism (last visited:
8/5/21)

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