ABSTRACT
Past research in marketing and communications has attempted to uncover the complex relationships between gender and feminist discourses, brand narratives, and consumer responses. This research examines the branding efforts of Under Armour, an athletic wear company, and Always, a feminine care brand owned by Proctor and Gamble—two campaigns that have been heralded by the popular press as promoting positive themes of female empowerment.
Under Armour launched its first global campaign targeting women in the summer of 2014 through the “I Will What I Want Campaign.” Labeled in the popular press as “femvertising,” or “advertising that employs pro-female talent, messages and imagery to empower women and girls” (Castillo, 2014), the campaign featured a range of female endorsers, such as skier Lindsey Vonn, model Gisele Bündchen, ballerina Misty Copeland, and tennis player Sloane Stevens. Promotional activities consisted of television spots on ESPN, E!, MTV, and ABC, digital advertising efforts on Glamour, Mode, People, Refinery29, Us Weekly, Well + Good, among others, utilization of a social media hashtag, as well as the creation of a fitness-focused app. Due to the success of the campaign, Under Armour was named Ad Age’s Marketer of the Year for 2014 (Schultz, 2014). Within the same time period, the brand Always, launched their “Like A Girl” campaign in June 2014. The brand sought to tackle the negative connotations surrounding the discourse around using the phrase like a girl (e.g., throwing like a girl, fighting like a girl, etc.), while also utilizing the hashtag #likeagirl. Their agency Leo Burnett later placed in the ad during Super Bowl 2014 where it garnered significant media attention.
Utilizing the cases of Under Armour and Always, this research investigates: 1) How do brands draw from gender and feminist discourses to frame global branding campaigns targeting women? 2) What are consumers’ responses to a so-called “femvertising” campaign as enacted on social media? We examine these questions using a case study method exploring two campaigns at the height of their launch and by analyzing social media responses online. First, over 600 tweets produced by individuals on Twitter using the brand campaign hashtag (#IWillWhatIWhat) are analyzed to uncover the nature and valence of consumers’ responses to the campaign. Next, we collected over 2,300 tweets during the first five days of the launch of the original Always “Like a Girl” campaign utilizing the hashtag #likeagirl and immediately following the airing of the television spot on the Super Bowl.
Implications are offered from a consumer welfare perspective with regard to the use of “femvertising” as a possible form of positive marketing and how consumers respond to such so-called positive messages through social media.
