International women's day, solidarity and the commercialization of womanhood

Andrea Catalina TAFUR PEDRAZA

Master's thesis

Marketing Feminism. International women s day, solidarity and the commercialization of womanhood

Abstract:

This thesis applies elements of critical discourse analysis and visual analysis to study through the lense of a multimodal method three marketing campaigns: 1. Agent Provocateur's Pump it up for spring-summer 2019, 2. Agent Provocateur's Play to Win for spring-summer 2020, and 3. Unilever's brand Dove's campaign For Real Beauty. This research is done with the purpose of exploring how- with the use of different discursive and visual elements used in marketing for International Women's Day (IWD), companies commercialize and re-present womanhood?, how these practices resonate with (or defy) the aspiration of European gender equality and impact the development of feminist ideals, solidarity, and European advertising?, and in what way the initial goal of IWD shifted and opened a space for new ways of expressing "solidarity", through marketing and social media campaigns?. To answer these questions, this thesis will open with a theoretical and conceptual framework that contains a historical overview of feminist thinking and the influence of the sexualized representation of the female body in the development of feminism, followed by taking a look at the importance of critical feminist studies and feminist media studies to analyze the visual and discursive representation of women and their body. Next, we will observe the sexualization of women as a marketing tool that evolved to be used as part of commodity activism and femvertising. This will be followed up by an overview of the methodology used for the research. Consequently, the thesis will present the analysis of the aforementioned campaigns suggesting that the aspirations of the European Union to promote equality of representation in marketing campaigns has not been reached completely, but companies have made efforts to advocate for eliminating stereotypes in advertisements and improve gender representation in marketing media. The results of the analysis will then be presented and finally the thesis will end with the conclusions and final remarks.

Abstract:

This thesis applies elements of critical discourse analysis and visual analysis to study through the lense of a multimodal method three marketing campaigns: 1. Agent Provocateur's Pump it up for spring-summer 2019, 2. Agent Provocateur's Play to Win for spring-summer 2020, and 3. Unilever's brand Dove's campaign For Real Beauty. This research is done with the purpose of exploring how- with the use of different discursive and visual elements used in marketing for International Women's Day (IWD), companies commercialize and re-present womanhood?, how these practices resonate with (or defy) the aspiration of European gender equality and impact the development of feminist ideals, solidarity, and European advertising?, and in what way the initial goal of IWD shifted and opened a space for new ways of expressing "solidarity", through marketing and social media campaigns?. To answer these questions, this thesis will open with a theoretical and conceptual framework that contains a historical overview of feminist thinking and the influence of the sexualized representation of the female body in the development of feminism, followed by taking a look at the importance of critical feminist studies and feminist media studies to analyze the visual and discursive representation of women and their body. Next, we will observe the sexualization of women as a marketing tool that evolved to be used as part of commodity activism and femvertising. This will be followed up by an overview of the methodology used for the research. Consequently, the thesis will present the analysis of the aforementioned campaigns suggesting that the aspirations of the European Union to promote equality of representation in marketing campaigns has not been reached completely, but companies have made efforts to advocate for eliminating stereotypes in advertisements and improve gender representation in marketing media. The results of the analysis will then be presented and finally the thesis will end with the conclusions and final remarks.

Keywords

International women's day (IWD), Feminism, Marketing, Commodity Activism, advertising.

Language used: English

Date on which the thesis was submitted / produced: 31. 8. 2020

Thesis defence

• Supervisor: Mgr. et Mgr. Michaela Antonín Malaníková, Ph.D.

Palacký University Olomouc

Faculty of Arts

Master programme / field:
Humanities / Euroculture