Female Consumers Want More Than Pink Packaging

Plus Size Model, Denise Bidot promotes “There is no Wrong Way to be a Woman”

Social media is allowing brands to get immediate information about what is grabbing the attention of consumers. This information is allowing brands to stay current and helps brand better target their preferred audience. With the women leading as main purchasers in households, brands are looking for better ways to capture their attention. With immediate feedback from female consumers, brands are quickly catching on that they will need to look beyond pink packaging to get a woman’s dollar.

With hashtags like #effyourbeautystandsards, #nowrongwaytobeawoman, #leanin, and #askhermore, women are letting it be known that they want to be heard.  There has been vocal backlash about the way women are represented in the media. Brands only featuring “sample size” models in their advertising with great attention to photoshopping, some argue, is creating a damaging depiction of what women should strive to be. When girls in first through third grade wish they could be thinner, then Houston, we have a problem.

Major brands like Dove and Aerie are responding by featuring women of all shapes and sizes often without retouching. The advertisements help brands in two ways. First, the advertisements themselves appeal to a greater female audience as women feel they are able to relate the the brand and the messaging. Second, the ads generate their own social media buzz with articles praising their new advertising choices.

The Dove ad employs emotional advertising to pull at the heartstrings of female consumers. Mothers speak about what they dislike about their bodies, and then their daughters are asked the same questions. The daughters seemed to have internalized a lot of the same insecurities expressed by their mothers. The ad shows the greater importance of the body positivity movement.

But it’s not just body positivity. A comment on a recent Vogue post said “I’m sick and tired of having my intelligence insulted. Like we would care about something so insipid. Unfollow.” The comment has since been deleted, but really sums up the sentiment that women want advertisers to recognize that they are more than just what they look like. A recent Secret ad event took a stab at the gender wage gap. Although some might argue the ad is a bit simplistic, at least it’s raising the issue.

Social media is providing a forum to voice what they will ultimately attract their dollar. They are seeking brands that underscore their beliefs and value them beyond their looks. If these hashtags are any implications, maybe the future really is female.