Empowering Advertisements

During the week before spring break, we were talking about advertisements and how demeaning they can be towards women. In 2019, the ads can still be very demeaning although they've eased up dramatically compared to the advertisements from the 1950s and 60s. For this blog post assignment we needed to find two advertisements that empowered women, and I found some very interesting finds.

The first ad I found was a from a brand named Brawny that makes paper towels. Now this company doesn't make any old regular paper towels, they make the strongest paper towel on the market. But how do we know that, well the big lumberjack on the packaging might have something to do with it. But the company decided to take this icon of strength and go an entirely different route with it. Instead of using the giant lumberjack, they decided to use 4 women wearing the same outfit that the lumberjack would wear with the motto "#strengthhasnogender" across the ad. I thought this was really cool just because I've been buying that brand for years and I've always been so used to seeing a giant lumberjack in the advertisements, but having one that can depict women in that same roll was a nice change of pace

The next ad I found tried to convey a message of empowerment but ended up doing the exact opposite. Whenever people think of empowering women in advertisements, the most well known ad that comes to mind first is Rosie the Riveter (Otherwise known as the "we can do it" girl). The ad uses the image of the well known icon and uses it to sell a Swiffer, which is exactly the opposite of what Rosie was all about. Rosie the Riveter was an advertisement that was released during WWII in order to encourage women to join the work force while the men were over seas. She was supposed to be an image of motivation for women everywhere and now her image is sending a message that cleaning was empowering.

• https://mashable.com/2016/03/08/brands-women-empowerment/#gMLYdyLS2aqu
• https://buffer.com/resources/pov