What springs to mind when someone mentions a great female-focused advertising campaign? For me, it's Sport England's 'This Girl Can' campaign. 

Far removed from the usual focus of perfectly sculpted, unattainable bodies looking glamorous as they effortlessly parade about getting even fitter, This Girl Can features normal women doing sport. They're red-faced, sweating and their wobbly bits are wobbling. The wonderful thing about the campaign is that normal women sat on their sofa at home see themselves in the women in the campaign. And they're inspired by that. 

But Google UK's head of advertising marketing, Nishma Robb, believes female-focused marketing will become "stale" if it continues with the 'mission-statement' style, like This Girl Can. 

Speaking at Dots 2016 in Brighton on 16 September, Robb was full of praise for Sport England's campaign, but insisted that marketers need to normalise female-focused marketing in order to achieve real gender equality. 

“Things [such as This Girl Can], although massively impactful and fantastic, are at risk of becoming formulaic. Female-focused advertising might create fatigue if it keeps telling the same message, so it has to evolve," she said. 

So what exactly does she mean? Well, rather than issuing a rallying call to women, like This Girl Can, Robb wants to see more normal adverts featuring women in key roles - female firefighters, female surgeons. That sort of thing. 

“I have twins, a boy and a girl, and even though they have the same toys, they have already categorised them by gender roles,” she added.

“Gender stereotypes are most defined when people are between five- to seven-years-old, so we need to ensure kids are seeing strong women in advertising all the time and not just as a one off statement.

“There is still not enough being done by advertisers or the industry at large. Marketing needs its own Bechdel test.”

If you're not familiar, the Bechdel test rates films (and any media you want, really) on the amount of time two or more women spend talking about something or someone other than a man. 

 

By Jonathan Davies, editor, Digital Marketing Magazine

 

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