All types of women feature in the TV ad, but are campaigns such as this having any effect on the industry that creates them?
Diversity is so hot right now. Take H&Ms new television advert for its autumn/winter 2016 collection, for example, which features a range of women including:
Black women with natural hair
Women with shaved heads
A muscular woman
Action shots of womens wobbly bits wobbling
A thin woman eating french fries without a side of guilt
Armpit hair
A septuagenarian
An ethnically ambiguous high-powered female business executive
A trans woman
Lesbians
In short, the ad features Normal Women doing Normal Things: the sort of people you see on the train on your way to work, the sort of people you are friends with and the sort of people who shop at H&M.
You may even see someone on screen that you, a modern woman in a multicultural world, can identify with! Which, of course, is the point. The campaign, which is set to an updated version of Tom Joness Shes a Lady, aims to modernise notions of ladylike behaviour. There are so many unique ways to be a lady today, the ad is saying, and theyre all amazing. Feel empowered to celebrate your individuality in identical H&M clothes!
Cynicism aside, this ad is brilliant. A multinational brand putting major marketing money into celebrating the sort of women that you dont often see celebrated onscreen is incredibly powerful. Ironically, though, its powerful ony because both fashion and advertising have spent so long reinforcing the idea that femininity looks a certain way in the first place. That default woman is straight, thin and white, and has the right amount of hair in the right places.
But with demographics shifting and society changing, people are pushing back against this sort of monolithic image of femininity. Marketers are only too aware of this. That is their job, after all. They spend a lot of money doing consumer research that says things like: Todays millennial female doesnt relate to images of skinny white women eating yoghurt while simultaneously doing yoga and the laundry. And so they change their advertising accordingly.
H&M is far from the only brand to be celebrating modern women. Netflix, for example, recently launched a campaign called Rules for the Modern Woman, which mocks old-fashioned notions of how women should behave. Similarly, Organic Valley unveiled the Real Women Report, an ad making fun of the disconnect between womens perfect lives as portrayed by adverts versus womens real lives.
FREDDY (@FreddyAmazin) February 15, 2016
adidas is so amazing for this pic.twitter.com/VO4x4CHYRC
Advertising isnt just updating its views on women. Earlier this year Old Navy caused controversy for putting a mixed-race family in one of its ads three years after Cheerios caused major backlash for doing the same. (Yes, in case you were wondering, it is actually 2016 and some people do think that showing a mixed-race couple doing crazy things like eating breakfast or wearing T-shirts is anti-white propaganda.)
Adidas prompted similar backlash when it showed a same-sex couple in a Valentines Day Instagram post. But these brands bravely stood their ground because it was the Right Thing to Do. And also, one imagines, because theyd already found that these ads tested well with their core consumers, would boost their brand image and maybe win them an industry award. Move over, Malala: let Madison Avenue show you how activism is done.
Diversity on screen is one thing, but does it have any knock-on effect off screen? Have Benetton ads led to Benetton boardrooms?
Take the advertising industry itself, for example. While creating big, anthemic ads celebrating diversity may be en vogue, doing the hard work of actually making the industry more equitable is not quite as fashionable. I know three female advertising executives who have left jobs at major ad agencies in the last year because of sexual harassment or discrimination. One senior advertising strategist I know was referred to as good dog by her boss, and was repeatedly told not to be too confrontational.
But things are slowly changing. Earlier this year Gustavo Martinez, the global chief executive of the advertising agency J Walter Thompson left his role amid allegations that he called black people monkeys, said he hate[s] those fucking Jews, and made rape jokes. Harmless advertising banter, you know? Martinez and the agency denied the claims but it still proved toxic enough to end their relationship. And Kevin Roberts, executive chairman of Saatchi and Saatchi was recently suspended and later resigned after making comments about women in leadership roles. Im not sure that would have happened a few years ago.
A focus on diversity on-screen is helping to drive a conversation and real change when it comes to diversity off-screen. Lets just hope it stays in fashion beyond autumn/winter 2016.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/sep/28/hm-advert-diversity-ad-women
