I’m loving this - a New york based “all girl creative agency” called 3iYing has released a series of videos on You Tube that features real teen girls reacting to a variety of print ads designed to market products to them.
From AdRants.com:
“OK. Pay attention. If you are a marketer or an ad agency that markets products and services to tweens, teens and twenty-something females you owe it to yourself to spend some time viewing these videos … hundreds of girls reacting to ads for a series called Adflip. In each of the videos, girls tell us why the ads they hold in their hands cause them to flip the page and get ignored.”
The girls themselves state that millions of dollars are being wasted on what they call bad advertising, and it’s bad primarily because it makes them feel bad. So if there was ever any doubt, now you know.
The campaign is a promotion for the 3iYing agency, inviting clients to stop wasting their money on ads that don’t work and listen directly to girls when creating campaigns. You know what? Not such a bad idea…
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11 comments
I'm conflicted!
Fist I'm thinking: Yes, it will be a good day when advertisers use their power to make girls feel good, not bad.
Then I think: Wait. No. I don't want to be advertised to on any grounds. I don't want companies to have the power they have to change how I think, be it good or bad. Advertising is scary.
If I feel bad reading an ad, I flip it, and maybe miss some of the message. If I feel good, do I buy in to the message more, or less?
There is lots of crap for sale using warm and fuzzy ad campaigns. For example, (because it's on TV right at this moment) Swiffer dusters. Women feeling good about cleaning, having orgasms while dusting on top of the fridge. So I buy a Swiffer for the fun, not for the cleaning. I give P&G; my money, and I've invested in something that creates sooo much waste.
The videos sound cool though, but is it any better if companies prey on building up our self-esteem than on smashing it down?
Posted by Erin
September 25, 2007, 5:02 PM
OK, so you saved me from writing this post on my own blog.
I had hopes that the message from 3iYing would be powerful and healthy, but . . . .
Here's an example from one of the videos. I think it is supposed to wrap up the ideas presented. The words on the screen say:
"Design. Never underestimate how visually sophisticated girls are."
Then the "girl" says:
"For starters, I guess it has to be cute. But not, not like cutesy-cute, it has be be the right kind of cute. Not, you know, that like annoying cute? The cute you don’t really get? It has to be that perfect kind of cute."
The next words that appear are:
"Intelligence. Girls are confident and savvy — they won’t tolerate shallow thinking."
And the same girls says:
"The big ideas . . . have to be clever. But not like, super clever? Like we need to like decode them to try to figure out what you’re saying? Just deep and meaningful. Just girl smart!"
Hysterical! It took me a while to figure out that this wasn't a joke. I don't know which is scarier: that this agency has clients who listen to them, or that girls may really want this.
I think we're in trouble until we can do something about this girl-power-via-consumerism culture. Self-esteem will never come in a jar. Or from anything we buy.
Posted by Two Knives
September 25, 2007, 7:22 PM
This is a neat idea, but I'm not sure how persuaded I am by it.
For one thing, all the girls in the videos seem very self-aware and media literate, and I'm wondering how representative that not just of teenagers, but of people in general. I don't know many people, teenage or otherwise, who unpick ads.
As well, just because as ad makes me feel bad doesn't mean I'm not going to buy the product. Yup, you got that right. What 3iYing is suggesting is that buying choices based on ads are rational decisions, and if we disagree with an ad on a rational level, we won't buy from the company.
Which I think is inaccurate - I think that ads target something deep within us that is totally irrational, like a desire to be loved or feel secure or admired. My rational understanding of what the ad is trying to do, and whether or not I like it, has nothing to do with whether or not I buy the product.
I've definitely bought things for companies whose ads I hate. I've even bought things from companies I flat out hate. I don't think I'm atypical - though I would be happy if others had more self-control than me!
I think what ads try to do is embed themselves in your memory - so that no matter what you think of the campaign, you associate , for e.g., shoes with Foot Locker, loons with Montana's Cookhouse, and mascara with Covergirl. That way, one day when your defenses are down and you're wandering the streets looking for a new pair of sneakers, some mashed potatoes and extended lashes, you'll give up and go where you know you can find what you want.
Posted by Thea
September 25, 2007, 7:24 PM
Forgot to say the most important part: I think the videos are valuable in and of themselves, and I like watching them. But as means to change the advertising industry I don't think they work, because I think the advertising industry knows that ads aren't succesful because people like them/don't feel insulted by them, ads are successful if people remember them.
At least, that's why I imagine there are so many stupid cruel ads out there.
Ok, now I'm done. And I'm going to appear in the comments box multiple times in a row. How humiliating!
Posted by Thea
September 25, 2007, 7:40 PM
I think 3iYing's heart is in the right place, but I was a little taken aback to find them advertising themselves at the end of each segment. I was honestly expecting a media watchdog. In the end, I felt like they were looking for ads to put down (not that it's hard) to make themselves seem more appealing as a firm.
Also, um... some girls DO like to see other girls in bikinis. I don't necessarily want to see it in an ad for shoes, but as a girl of alternative sexuality, I felt automatically alienated by how many times the speakers complained about not wanting to look at half-naked women.
Posted by Bo
September 25, 2007, 8:35 PM
I'm also conflicted...
on the one hand, I'm glad to read that someone is as frustrated as me and is interested in stopping the production of ads that make us feel awful about ourselves.
on the other hand, these girls are betraying women. They are contributing to a multi-billion-dollar-a-year industry that makes its money by brainwashing, desensitizing and preying on the insecurities of its consumers.
also...we've all dissed ads. It's become as much a part of the culture as watching tv. It's a waste of time, but we still antagonize over ads and knit pick everything to find the flaw because we are bored with our own lives.
I don't think these girls have uncovered anything unusual. And if they have any affect at all, if they achieve their goal; is it really better that the brainwashing will just take place in a more subtle form?
Still, good on them! Way to take lemons and make lemonade.
Posted by Taylor
September 25, 2007, 10:10 PM
This is super interesting. At first, it looks like an empowered act of media literacy that not only demonstrates girls' abilities to deconstruct and critique ads, but also gives a big F-you to companies that use ads to make girls look stupid or feel guilty about eating lunch (excellent point!).
What is interesting and maybe disturbing, is the way they use marketers' marketing language to critique the ads, calling not for a re-think of consumerism (i.e. do we need more of the same junk?) or even less advertising, but instead for less offensive, even smarter, ads (and even then it's kind of vague. One girl was offended at the suggestion that she should smell like Jennifer Hudson!).
The girls' comments about "billions of dollars being wasted" are kind of a tip-off that maybe someone else is behind this campaign. What is 3iYing? Who owns it? Did they hire these girls for the video? The YouTube videos give the impression that some friends got together to call BS on the advertising industry, but the skeptic in me doubts that this is the case.
I'm thinking some savvy, youth-oriented market research firm was inspired by Dove's meta-advertising move -- in which they made a video that reveals how beauty products are marketed in order to market beauty products -- and is using similar guerrilla tactics via YouTube. Very clever.
Still, some of the girls' comments are really insightful, and I don't think their critiques should be dismissed.
Posted by Nicole
September 25, 2007, 10:30 PM
Wow! I love that everyone is interested in the implications of this kind of promotion.
I'll let you know that this idea of agencies asking teens what they want in advertsing is now a new one. There's a similiar North American firm called Youthography that offers clients research conducted with a core group of young people. It certainly is an interesting debate: are these types of approaches to advertising ethical if ultimately they make ads less harmful to young women? Or is advetising too harmful to be remedied by this faux revolutionary kind of agency? And Nicole's right- it does reek of Dove.
I have to agree with BO that the some of the videos make heterosexist, alienating assumptions about what girls want to see, primarily that all girls are straight and no girl wats to see another girl naked.
Having said all that, I do find something really refreshing about watching a teenage girl tak about how she can rock a cold sore and doesn't appreciate a company tell her she can't look hot with one. It gives girls some credit, and I like that.
Posted by Stacey May
September 26, 2007, 9:11 AM
I think Youthography was actually behind Presto, the Nike art gallery that tried to open in Toronto's Kensiington Market neighbourhood a few years ago.
Utilising "guerilla advertising" (ie spraypainted logos and even skateboard decks with the Presto logo painted and then nailed to the outside of empty buildings) Presto represented itself as an urban art gallery that fit with Kensington's anti-corporate, community-oriented, bohemian and hippie-heavy atmosphere. Residents didn't buy it and the gallery was forced to shut down. Presto is still in operation though, just not in Toronto: http://www.nike.com/ap/presto/flash.html
Presto is similar to Far Coast, the fair-trade, eco-friendly, bamboo-floored coffee shop recently opened in Yorkville and owned by Coca Cola. Is it better when huge corps try to sell people's own anti-corporate-ish ideologies back to them, because at least corps are acting better - or is it worse?
Posted by Thea
September 26, 2007, 10:14 AM
Thanks for explaining Far Coast to me, Thea. I had no idea. I was walking through Yorkville in TO the other day and came across it and was, well, confused by it. It was the ultimate in "I am not a plastic bagness." Uber-trendy eco empathy, which actually makes me gag. I actually really hate when people wearing $3,000 suits buy eco-ethical, fair trade coffee, but I can see the "better than nothing" argument.
Posted by STACEY MAY
September 26, 2007, 10:26 AM
Here's a NOW Magazine article about Far Coast: http://www.nowtoronto.com/issues/2006...
I too feel annoyed when I see eco-friendly spaces that are only accessible to people with lots of money. This summer I cleaned rooms at a very expensive spiritual retreat centre, and I struggled with that a lot there too. When I talk about this with my mum, she says I complain about everything and need to lighten up.
Posted by Thea
September 26, 2007, 10:36 AM
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