Strength Has No Gender, Marketing Has No Scruples, and the Emperor Has No Clothes: Happy Women’s History Month?
I am not a fan of gimmicky marketing campaigns, particularly those that co-opt very serious social issues like civil or equal rights. They are, of course, ubiquitous in our age of hyper-capitalism, when everything and everyone is somehow or another “branded”.
The very language of capitalism and marketing have become so pervasive as to be invisible. We simply don’t or can’t recognize how this terminology has seeped into every aspect of our lives. It is the same logic that has replaced citizens with consumers.
Our highest and most noble purpose has become the capacity to buy shit. It is the fullest extent of our contributions to what now masquerades as democracy.
“We the people” are now “we the purchasers”. Participation is reduced to finding agency in the meaningless and hollow slogans of advertising. We now tweet our gushing solidarity with messages about gender equality promoted on paper towel packaging.
The brand’s “Strength Has No Gender” initiative falls under Brawny’s “Stay Giant” tagline, which it introduced in late 2015 with help from agency Cutwater. According to Knebusch, “Stay Giant” positions Brawny as a brand that celebrates the toughness and resilience in everyday people and recognizes them for how they’re overcoming life’s challenges.
“… a brand that celebrates the toughness and resilience in everyday people and recognizes them for how they’re overcoming life’s challenges.”
Just let the sheer absurdity of that sink in…
In “celebration” of Women’s History Month, Brawny paper towels revived its ad campaign from 2016, “Strength Has No Gender”. At the beginning of March, 2017, they announced: “For #WomensHistoryMonth, we’re proud to celebrate the strong women everywhere who break barriers and inspire us all.”
This year again includes a set of four personal narratives from women who have “broken barriers”, with the requisite spectrum of diversity in age, ethnicity and race (although no Asian Americans were included).
The four women featured on the packaging can boast some noteworthy achievements. They are Dr. Anna Kornbrot, an oral surgeon who was the first woman to graduate from Columbia College; Vernice Armour, a Marine and the first black female combat pilot in the U.S. armed forces; Brittany Wenger, a self-taught software programmer who created a method of detecting breast cancer; and Patty Lopez, an engineer with seven patents to her name. (CBS News)
A significant part of the marketing message (the source of their pride?) is the $75,000 donation Georgia-Pacific (Brawny’s parent company) would be giving Girls Inc. to promote STEM fields to girls.
According to Laura Knebusch, vice president of marketing activation at Georgia-Pacific, last year’s “Strength Has No Gender” campaign received “a tremendous amount of positive feedback and engagement,” which is why the brand wanted to make this year’s effort even bigger. […]
Highlighting women who work in STEM is something that Knebusch said that Brawny will continue to focus on down the line.
“We’ll continue to recognize everyday women who’ve been very successful in their fields, but focus even more on STEM, just because we want to continue to raise awareness of the accomplishments of women in those fields,” she said. “We see women underrepresented in STEM fields not only in actuality but especially in media and content, so it [is] a great opportunity to raise awareness.” (The Drum)
Forgive me if I seem cynical about this and other, similar marketing strategies that exploit identity politics to make a buck. March is meant to be a national month of reflection on and exploration of the historical contributions of women to the world. Now you may be thinking, “but isn’t that what Brawny is doing?” I don’t think so.
What they are actually doing, as all branding does, is promoting their own self-image through emotional appeals to consumers’ feelings of empowerment (and oppression), particularly of women. This is filtered through a network like the aptly named Collective Bias, Inc., which pays for positive content in what it calls “influencer marketing”.
It is, simply stated, an appropriation of women’s history put in the service of corporate identity politics. It rides the coattails of the four extraordinary women, whose stories are exploited for the benefit of Georgia-Pacific’s bottom line.
There is also a fifth short film called Breaking Barriers, which honors the accomplishments of legendary women including Harriet Tubman, Amelia Earhart, and Serena Williams. (Self.com)
Despite the ridiculous assertion that this 30 second PR clip is a “short film”, Tubman is presented as the “First Woman Conductor of the Underground Railroad” and Earhart as “The First Woman to Fly Solo Across Atlantic”. In addition, Susan B. Anthony is noted for being a “Pioneer for Women’s Voting Rights” and Marie Curie the “First Woman to Win the Nobel Prize”.
The inclusion of Serena Williams*, however, is completely anachronistic and out of place, both in terms of her still active career, but mostly of her listed achievement, “Most Major Singles Titles by Any Tennis Player”. I admire Williams to be sure, and she is a fantastic role-model for women and girls, but this is an achievement of many male and female tennis players, indeed all of them who held that record before her!
This smacks of an unpaid celebrity endorsement, but in reality Serena’s sister Venus is “partnering” with Brawny in a cross-promotion of her own for EleVen and V*Starr Interiors, which is… wait for it… “Breaking the barriers of interior design”. I think this is what they call, like, corporate “synergy”?
Honored to join @Brawny in celebrating women who break down barriers #StrengthHasNoGender https://t.co/0jb8TleNZZ #Ad
— Serena Williams (@serenawilliams) March 1, 2017
Much more fitting for the purported theme here would be either Althea Gibson or Billie Jean King, both of whom are far more significant historical figures in women’s tennis. In an odd twist, this is a point made by Venus herself!
My heroes are close to sports. Definitely Althea Gibson, who was the first African-American tennis player to be №1 and to win a Grand Slam. She was dealing with inequality in being both a woman and African-American. Her experience was very challenging, but still she succeeded. And, of course, Billie Jean King, who is a trailblazer — not only for women’s rights in tennis, but all over sports. She is still helping women to this day. She’s impacted hundreds of thousands — no, millions — of women. It’s incredible and important what they both did.(ESPN.com)
But furthering the understanding of women’s history is not the mission of Strength Has No Gender. Its sole mission is promoting brand loyalty and Brawny’s corporate image. It is what James Bartholomew dubbed “virtue signalling”. Is it working?
I would be remiss were I not to mention that many have found the #SHNG campaign a source of satire and critique, even RedState.com! There is also the very strange set of confluence at #BoycottBrawny, which is an unlikely mix of allied critiques. An “anti-feminist” YouTube video makes a interesting case study.
Ellen brings some much needed levity.
One might ask a few key questions here. Were each of the four women featured in this year’s campaign paid for the use of their narratives? If so, how much? And, how much did Georgia-Pacific pay Cutwater to produce the elaborate multimedia campaign?
To the first question, if the women were not compensated for allowing their stories to be used to bolster perceptions of the brand, then Georgia-Pacific has either taken advantage of their altruism and willingness to participate or appealed to flattery in order to solicit their unpaid contributions. If they were given some form of remuneration, was it the same for each of them? Was it key to getting them to participate?
To the second question, and more importantly, one can most certainly assume that this was a multi-million dollar undertaking. So why is this of any significance? Well, because of the paltry donation being made by Brawny/Georgia-Pacific.
Brawny is donating $75,000 to the group, which will use it for developing “girls’ enthusiasm for STEM as part of its Operation SMART programming. As a national sponsor of the program, the maker of Brawny is helping fund STEM education opportunities for more than 46,000 girls across 76 Girls Inc. affiliates,” reads Brawny’s press release. (Self.com)^
This comes out to a whopping $1.63 for each girl, or just over $1000 for each affiliate. I have no doubt this is much needed funding for a very worthy cause and organization, but let’s put this into some kind of perspective.
Numbers have been difficult to come by, however, in 2004 it was estimated that Brawny had about a $24 million advertising budget, with some $240 million in sales.
In 2005 it was announced that Koch Industries Inc. (the second largest privately owned company in the U.S.) would buy Brawny parent company, Georgia-Pacific, for $13.2 billion. Koch Industries has some $100 billion in annual revenues. It is estimated that each of the Koch brothers is worth nearly $50 billion.
I find the pittance being donated to Girls Inc. rather offensive. It would seem that the organization is being prostituted for a public relations campaign burnishing the reputation of a Koch brothers’ brand.
In order to receive the gift, Girls Inc. and affiliates essentially have to partner up with a corporation owned by multi-billionaires notorious for infiltrating our political system and seeking to dismantle public funding for everything from education to the environment to Veterans Affairs.
Indeed, it is reported that the Koch brothers “network” committed some $400 million to the 2012 and $290 million to the 2014 election cycles. For 2016 this number was to reach nearly $900 million!
Top officials in the Koch brothers’ political organization Monday released a staggering $889 million budget to fund the activities of the billionaires’ sprawling network ahead of the 2016 presidential contest.
The budget, which pays for everything from advertising and data-gathering technology to grass-roots activism, was released to donors attending the annual winter meeting of Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, according to an attendee. (USA Today.com)
The stunning disparity in funding priorities is difficult to fathom. Nonetheless, it belies the level of tokenism engaged in with this promotional theatre disguised as goodhearted philanthropy.
With all of this, we now have a president and his “skinny budget” proposing the complete de-funding of Public Broadcasting and the Endowment for the Humanities. PBS series like American Masters and American Experience provide a wealth of historical programming that is especially important to rural areas, which have few options for such high quality content. Indeed, American Masters has produced documentaries on both Althea Gibson and Billie Jean King, as well as Harper Lee, Dorothea Lange and Alice Walker, among many others.
The president’s budget would eliminate the NEA’s $148 million budget, the NEH’s $148 million budget and the CPB’s $445 million budget, as well as $230 million for the Institute of Museum and Library Services, which supports libraries and museums across the country. Additional cuts could affect the Smithsonian Institution and the National Gallery of Art. (The Washington Post)
David Koch has a history of “infiltrating” public broadcasting and has been accused of pressuring PBS to scrap the broadcasting of a 2010 documentary Citizen Koch. And while the Koch brothers may not be directly engaged in advocating the elimination of government programs like the NEA and NEH, they support organizations who do, most notably the Heritage Foundation.
Donald Trump and his team have proposed a budget that will not only gut the kind of programs Republicans always take aim at — focused on arts and culture, civil rights, and science — but also those dedicated to law enforcement and victim’s safety. The slash-and-burn budgetary approach is based largely on recommendations from the Heritage Foundation, a hard-right think tank that receives partial funding from several Koch brothers-backed entities. First reported on by The Hill, the proposal is aimed at reducing spending by $10.5 trillion over the coming decade. The cuts seem likely to come with incalculable human, cultural, and societal costs. (Truthout.org)
The convoluted irony here is that we have a paper towel brand posing as a promoter of women’s history and supporter of STEM education for girls, while the owners of the brand itself work to eradicate the very sources of funding that provide for the production of and access to historical content and the public system responsible for educating girls in the first place. The duplicity and hypocrisy of it all is simply repugnant.
END (for now)
^Update 4/1/18 This year, Brawny (Koch Industries) is giving an additional $25,000 for a grand total of $100,000 to Girls Inc. Note again, that this is a fraction of what this ad campaign is costing.
*Update 3/8/18 Serena Williams has been removed for the 2018 reboot and replaced her with Margaret Thatcher. Clearly Williams was paid for the use of her image for a specified period of time only, or chose not to renew her participation.
Update 4/5/17
In an almost cruel gesture, Donald Trump donated his first quarterly salary to the National Park Service.
At the daily White House briefing, Sean Spicer, the president’s press secretary, presented a check signed by Mr. Trump for $78,333.32 to Ryan Zinke, the interior secretary, who oversees the park service. “I’m thrilled,” Mr. Zinke said. […]
But in picking a government agency, Mr. Trump chose one with a large backlog of deferred maintenance that could be deferred even longer under his budget. Mr. Trump proposed a cut of $1.5 billion, or 12 percent, from the Interior Department, which oversees the park service and other agencies. The proposal did not specify how much of that would come out of the park service budget. (New York Times)
Read a 2015 interview with Charles Koch on Public Radio’s Marketplace:
Explore the turbulent relationship between David Koch and PBS, WGBH (Boston) and WNET (New York City)
