Don’t let “female marketing” turn into brand “crisis public relations” in seconds!

March 8th Women's Day is here. The author of this article has sorted out some successful cases of female marketing for everyone. Let us learn from them together.

In terms of brand marketing to women, not long after All Cotton Era caused a public relations crisis by vilifying women, Cha Yan Yue Se and Ubras took over. The past February can be said to be a month of bullets flying everywhere and constant failures.

But there are also many outstanding female marketing. More and more brands are facing women themselves in advertising and promotion, and expressing women's power - "she is herself". This perspective that goes beyond the male gaze, I just want to say: It's great.

So facing the upcoming March 8th Women's Day, this tweet would like to share with you some of the "class representatives" who have done an outstanding job in female marketing, to see what experiences are worth learning from.

1. NOTAG, don’t label women

A mistake most brands tend to make is that they like to label women and put hats on them, while ignoring whether women themselves like it or not. The result of forcing wishful thinking often leads to a "high-incidence area" for marketing failures.

For example, on March 8, 2020, Women's Day, Xin Zhilei posted a Chanel advertisement on Weibo. The copy kidnapped and represented women with the sentence "Women who don't know how to use perfume have no future", which made many female consumers feel offended and they directly declared war on the brand and the artist in the comment section.

There is also the copywriting on the express boxes of JD Beauty that once made women angry, men cry out for injustice, and Tmall Beauty applauded: What’s the difference between you and men without lipstick?

I think the reason why Chanel and JD Beauty were criticized is that they defined women in a one-sided way.

As women's self-awareness awakens, there is no question of whether or not to market to women, only whether they like it or not. In marketing to women, we must return to the context of the female group: women’s beauty does not need to be defined, it is diverse, and cannot be “labeled”.

Let me share a case that I think is very well done: On this March 8th Women's Day, Tmall Super Brand Day joined forces with 26 super brands from A to Z to present a "Twenty-six-line Poem to Women" - a tribute to the ordinariness and greatness of women.

At the same time, the brand launched the #Ten Thousand Lines of Poetry for Women# campaign on Weibo, inviting Li Yinhe, Jiang Fangzhuo, Bo Bangni and others to jointly write about the true attitudes and voices of contemporary women. Ten thousand lines of poetry represent ten thousand different looks of women, and one in ten thousand of the answers belongs to you.

What is the highlight of this Tmall advertisement?

It fully conveys that one of the most difficult questions in the world is called the definition of women. It does not advocate the so-called "perfect women" and encourages women to enjoy diverse freedoms and equality. Having 26 letters does not necessarily mean being perfect, and not having any letter can also be "perfect."

It is this "universal" insight that puts Tmall and most women on the same page, empowering women and speaking for women: although different, they are unique; no definition is needed, they are born beautiful.

Another underwear brand that I have always admired is NEIWAI.

This video is the same as last year. Neiwai used a series of amateurs of different body shapes and ages to appear in front of the camera. They openly stretched their bodies: wrinkles, scars, freckles, pregnant bellies...

Compared to the deformed aesthetic of "white, young and thin" dominated by the mainstream market, after watching these women standing in the center of the camera slay the whole audience and showing their body stories that have been tempered by life, I instead thought: Ah, this is the best image of women in my mind: real and vivid.

Let's compare it with the incident in 2014 when the Victoria's Secret advertisement caused public outrage. In 2014, in order to build momentum for the big show, Victoria's Secret released a flat poster with a standing figure. The slogan read "Perfect Body", and the models all had big breasts, thin waists, long legs, and golden proportions.

This advertisement that created body anxiety was eventually strongly resisted by a large number of women, who demanded that Victoria's Secret apologize and stop the advertisement. The brand image plummeted in the minds of the audience.

As lingerie brands, Victoria's Secret caters to aesthetics, while Neiwai moves towards self-identification. Therefore, Victoria's Secret's sexy business has failed, and Neiwai has started to make a group of female consumers shout: It smells so good, I like it. "Shengchuan Lai's Creativity Studies" wrote: "Without a world view, creativity can easily become a casual expression without any other meaning."

To summarize the above two cases, both Tmall and Neiwai are based on the display of the multifaceted nature of women and diverse insights, giving the right to choose to women and leaving expression to life. This is the vision and pattern that brands should have in marketing to women.

2. Breaking down prejudices

I wonder if you have seen the short film "San Sheng Hua", a brand under Pechoin, shot in collaboration with director Zhang Dapeng: "Blooming for Yourself" Season 2 - "She's the Best".

This short film tells the stories of three different women, a female drummer, a female driver, and an art college student. It revolves around the two completely different gender traits of "sissy" and "man", and raises the highly conflicting social issue of #Man is a positive word, while sissy is a negative word#. From the perspective of girls, it breaks the inherent prejudice against women in society and shows that "sissy" does not mean cowardice, but is also inclusive and can be soft or hard...

The short film "San Sheng Hua" has resonated with countless women. Its real charm lies in:

1. Sense of value identification: There are many brands and products that can meet consumer needs, why should they choose you? Therefore, at this moment, it is particularly important to speak from the consumer's inner perspective.
2. Immersive experience: From innovation to conception, the brand explores more social prejudices and women’s own struggles, explaining that no one kind of beauty should be the dominant standard, and we decide what kind of beauty we want: a customized beauty is a beauty that blooms for ourselves.
3. Personalized sense of trust: If a good creative idea wants to maximize its voice and value, it is necessary to establish emotional communication with consumers. At this time, the brand is like a person, with flesh and blood, and can allow consumers to get energy output through the brand's language: consumers may not remember the brand because of the advertisement, but their feelings will not deceive you.

Prior to this, San Sheng Hua had teamed up with spokesperson Zhou Dongyu to launch an aesthetic attitude blockbuster based on her personal experience - "Blooming for Yourself".

You can appreciate the text carefully:

When I was 18, I didn't expect

I will be so beautiful at the age of 28

No one is more beautiful than you

If so, it can only be a more beautiful you

Don't call her a beauty, is she beautiful?

It has nothing to do with others

Regardless of age

Regardless of mood

It has nothing to do with him

Nothing to do with the world

What if you were the only one left in this world?

I want beauty too.

What if another 10 years pass?

I will be more beautiful.

Bloom for yourself

Looking at the two promotional videos of San Sheng Hua, both try to speak for women from their perspective, thereby establishing a deep emotional resonance, and ultimately gaining consumers' value recognition and enhancing their favorability towards the brand.

Equal rights and respect: A reader on Zhihu raised this question: "What does it mean to truly respect women?" One answer received a lot of likes: "The first step to respecting women is to abandon the perception that the other person is a woman."

Various rules about how men should be and how women should be mostly reflect human imagination rather than the innate reality of biology. Any attempt to impose roles on others using this imagined gender order overemphasizes gender differences while ignoring the commonality that both are "human beings."

Among them, the text of this poster by Fujia with Marie Curie as the protagonist is: Don’t call me a female scientist, I am a scientist, and I am eliminating the differences between men and women. After all, it's 2021 now. It's so outdated to still use gender as an excuse.

Likewise, when it comes to focusing on women who are contributing to the world, there are two brands that are doing an outstanding job and that I think are worth learning from.

One is Apple: for example, last year Apple released the Women's Day episode "Salute to You Behind the Mac", which paid tribute to "every generation of women who have pushed us forward" in the form of a short film, using images to convey the greatness of women. The short film shows how women from all walks of life, including drama, music, and entrepreneurship, devote themselves to their passions and change the world with their extraordinary creativity, and in a progressive manner, help promote the recognition of "no discrimination based on gender" to become a social consensus.

Another is NIKE: In the sports world dominated by men, female athletes have become the foil of competitive sports. Against this background, Nike uses "gender discrimination" as its entry point and takes female athletes who now have a huge influence in their own fields as an example to emphasize the power of women. It has released a series of marketing advertisements paying tribute to women, such as "Dream Crazier", "How Easy It Is to Be a Woman", and "Release Your Restlessness".

Nike uses real images to tell the stories of female athletes. Through their inspirational lives, they inspire more ordinary women: "The more it is said, the more we have to continue." Regardless of your gender, the "female power" conveyed by this short film, every line can accurately hit the consumers' ignition point.

The common feature of these brands' marketing to women is that they eliminate gender differences, return to the "people" themselves, do not make exceptions for women, and emphasize individual self-growth and breakthroughs. They are also telling the global female community that "I" am paying attention to you sincerely. This is the real "good advertisement that respects women."

After sorting out these outstanding female marketing cases, we can conclude that female marketing is human marketing. Only by returning to human nature and respecting women themselves can we win the respect of consumers.

Author: Sister Mulan

Source: Mulanjie (ID: mulanjie-)