https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjJQBjWYDTs
I chose this advertisement as my favorite for a variety of reasons. In my life so far, I have found a lot of frustration with normative notions of femininity and “being girly.” Stereotypes regarding weakness and timidness not only affect how others perceive women and girls, but also their self-esteem. This is definitely something I have struggled with as I’ve grown up. In this ad, different demographics of girls are given the same prompts. The older demographic of girls, mostly people my age, when asked to “run like a girl” or act out another action, conform to stereotypical notions of what a girl should be: bad at running, weak, “soft,” and timid. But when these prompts are given to young girls, they show themselves working hard, “running as fast as they can,” and giving it their all. The ad continues to ask the question “When did doing something “like a girl” become an insult?” and the conversation progresses to discussing how young girls are severely impacted by the association between “like a girl” with weakness.
The ad is roughly 3 minutes long so I won’t explain the entire thing, but I think the message it carries is a really important one. The whole point of the ad is to disrupt the notion of girls being weak and to inspire confidence in women everywhere. I think this ad is especially effective as it not only portrays a strong and powerful message but it also instills those values into the brand. Not once are Always’ products mentioned and instead they focus on something much bigger: the confidence of the people who buy their products. Additionally, putting a message out for young girls everywhere to be proud of who they are and their “girly-ness” is something that I know would have gone a long way for me if I saw this when I was younger.
This was such a wholesome ad; thank you for sharing this! One effective thing that this ad did was addressing the “elephant in the room” as it relates to notions of femininity, gender roles, and what it means to be a girl or woman in today’s society, By following up this confrontation with a set of normative statements and actions, I believe that this ad not only persuaded audience members to change their views towards girls and women but to also align with businesses who promote such values.
I think this ad is a very important one to being into the conversation. It effectively mixes the verbal message of words and phrases that carry in our society an underlying gender-bias with the visual message of what these phrases look like, or mean, to girls of different ages. The overlap of these two methods works to create a captivating and strong message of the impact of these phrases on the views of girls and on their views of themselves.
I appreciate your choice in ad because I found this ad to be very powerful. As you mention and the ad demonstrates, there are often negative connotations around doing something “like a girl” which can detrimentally impact girls self-esteem growing up. Always is placing an importance on showing their company values of redefining what that phrase means and empowering women. This message is very important and likely to resonate strongly with many females. Overall I think this ad is very effective in promoting the product, even though so specific mentions are made, and the company overall.
I agree with you. This is also one of my favorite ads. It relates to the ad I posted as it touches on feminism in advertising. The Nike Ad I chose shows that being a women doesn’t represent weakness but represents strength. I think ads that are touching and inspiring are the ones we remember the most.
I agree with everything you said! I also thing that this ad gives off a very strong feminism vibe, implying that being a girl makes you feel strong and not weak. A lot of people also want to support brands that fight for feminism/women and support them, so just the fact that this advertisement was made from a feminist perspective would entice people to buy this product and support the company!
I remember being blown away the first time I saw this ad aired because of its contrast to other typical “girly” commercials. The phrase “act like a girl” is spoken time after time in depicting how women should present themselves, and this ad does a great job showing the other ways girls “act like girls,” as well how stereotypes inform our understandings, and those stereotypes can change.