Boss, Not Bossy

It's a constant struggle for brands to be able to adopt positive social strategies and implement them in ways that enable growth and impactful change. To do so on a long-term basis, with a strategic purpose to instill them as part of the fabric of the brand's genetic make-up, is even tougher.

Fempowerment: A new wave of female power centric marketing (aka the reason for your recent purchase of Girl Boss, your t-shirt that reads Flawless, and shameless #selfie Sundays).

 The controversial issue of female portrayal in media is nothing new. Now the topics of female empowerment and feminism are at an all-time high, with advertisers leveraging girls-rule and be-strong messaging with a whole lot of self-analyzing tactics … and for good reason. People are talking. If it wasn't Beyoncé pioneering the "I woke up like this" movement, it was P&G's Always letting you know doing anything #likeagirl meant just as boldly, quickly or powerfully as anyone.

Why not play with electronics? Why not choose to be happy instead of seeking it elsewhere? Why let being female continue to lessen the strength of the individual? 

The takeaway? We can pride ourselves for having equal opportunity and defy the standards of not having keys to the C-suite all day long. But at the same time, we still inherently have that depiction of women being less than in the back of our minds. Why? Because of our history, because female degradation still happens globally, because not many people are brave enough to continue the conversation -- just use it as a follow-up during trips to the break room. So, yes, the advertising works. It makes us think. Reevaluate our values and our vision of what standards we uphold as part of the female population. But to what end?

To ensure the efficacy of brands' means to capitalize on the bottom-line while creating a conversation about fempowerment, it's important to be strategic, not opportunistic, and as specific as possible. The ability for any change message to permeate the social landscape is dependent upon frequency and function. Is it purely to cause disruption and yield followers? If so, messages like these offer up just as many impressions as three back-to-back Facebook posts (SPOILER: not many) – there's no time for the message to breathe, to be absorbed, to be hooked onto by audiences so, therefore, it dies and gets thrown into oblivion.

We can't knock fempowerment advertisers for trying. In fact, we should be grateful that alongside videos of how to make yourself look more like an 85-pound Barbie, our girls can see the thrill of using toys to create mind-blowing engineering contraptions. Issues like body image and self-esteem are being criticized at the same time the number of female CEOs is growing. What we can do is keep the conversation going with a purpose to educate, inform and inspire … not exploit. 

Fake It Until You Become It

Grin Grabbing, Confidence Catching

It has been proven that emotional contagion is a real phenomenon.  The kind of people you are around most often is directly related to the emotional state you most often exude.  I’ve always been a diehard advocate in the idea of having a positive outlook on life.  Even through the stresses and annoyances we face in life, why sulk when you can toast to the fact that you’re still living and breathing?  Unfortunately, I haven’t had the advantage of surrounding myself with other people who have similar interests – until now. 

There’s something about graduate school that empowers students to feel confident and inspired, no matter how different the walks of life they come from.  Graduate students only make up a small portion of the entire population, yet they have these unyielding beliefs in themselves that anything in the world is possible.  It’s absolutely extraordinary.   I’m a first generation female college graduate.  I’m also the first person in my family to have ever even attempted graduate school.  Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not declaring bragging rights.  I’m stressing the utter necessity to maintain an ambitious attitude, especially when you have no one else to look up to.  As someone who has lived her entire life as her own advocate, I am completely fascinated by this opportunity to be surrounded by such amazing individuals. 

Positivity.  Seems so simple, except for the fact that we live in a city where people will anxiously honk at you if you’re even a millisecond late after the light turns green.  A city where the only people who smile back at you are the retirees walking their dogs down the block.  Will Smith once said, “You can tell how far you’ll go in life by the five people you hang out with.”  So surround yourself with positive energy and happy people…it’s contagious.