Faux Activism in Recent Female-Empowering Advertising

This study content analyzed six brands from Unilever and Procter & Gamble, whose advertisements promoted both male-targeted products and female-targeted ones. The study examined three femaleempowering advertisements and three male-targeted, or “opposition” advertisements. It concluded that companies producing these female-empowering advertisements are not truly supporting the feminism activist movement, but are manipulating consumers for bigger profits with faux activism for feminism. By shedding light on this recent trend of “ad-her-tising,” this study found that not all brand activism is genuine.