Her Voice Blog

Social media has changed how we communicate with people and how often. From things like posting pictures of our delicious breakfast to staying connected with loved ones across the globe, we can utilize social networking sites in any way we choose. We are more connected than we could have imagined and now there’s a day to celebrate it.

Staff from FletcherPR were at the Waldorf Towers in NYC last week meeting with jewelry and accessory editors from major magazines, websites and blogs. This effort is part of the “Jewelry For Your Life” campaign that we conceptualized and are executing for my former employer and long-time client, Jewelry Television (JTV).

We’re all familiar with Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty but did you know the campaign is reaching its 10-year birthday? Since 2004, Dove has been marketing to women to celebrate their natural beauty.

With the recent success of their latest advertisement, Dove has men and women alike discussing the perceptions of beauty. Through forensic sketches, the ad revealed that we are our own worst critics and people don’t usually see the supposed flaws we do.

Dove also launched an ad in March combatting the overuse of Photoshop on women in advertisements. This involved disguising an “undo-Photoshop” tool as a “skin brightening” tool. The tool reversed all editing and stamped a demand that editors not manipulate our perceptions of beauty. Although it was not as successful as the women sketches ad, we can see Dove’s message of embracing natural beauty throughout the entire campaign.

Marketing to women has been a major focus of Dove's ad campaign but what else is it bringing up? Are women realizing that beauty and happiness are not defined by physical attributes? Or is all this talk about being beautiful refocusing our attention on beauty?

A Tumblr response to the viral women sketches video looks at the message through a different lens. Jazz Brice felt uneasy about the ad’s focus on physical beauty over inner beauty. A quote from the Dove ad video said that she should feel grateful for her natural beauty and how it’s critical to her life choices and relationships. Whether or not she meant her physical beauty or her inner beauty is left to be discussed.

One thing is for sure – Dove has us talking about the power of media and society’s view on women and beauty.

FletcherPR is a national communications firm that specializes in reaching women through the power of media. Headquartered in Knoxville, TN, we are a full-service agency providing strategic public relations, social media and marketing communications services to our clients throughout the U.S.

Throughout this blog, we’ve talked about some pretty crazy things being marketed specifically to women (here and here). Well today is no exception. Nestle has come out with a premium, high-end water bottle called Resource.

Trying to compete with the Fiji waters and Smartwaters of the world, Resource is what Nestle calls its first domestically-sourced, premium brand of still water, meaning it is noncarbonated and pure. Larry Cooper, Resource’s group marketing manager, said the ideal consumer is a trendy woman with a higher income around 35 years old. Sounds like they know what they want!

The ads show the bottle of water in lush woods and claim that it has 100 percent naturally-occurring electrolytes and 50 percent of the bottle is recycled plastic. To promote this new brand, Resource will be featured on the reality show Project Runway and endorsed by the Today Show’s Bobbie Thomas.

So what do you think about another seemingly gimmick product being marketed to women? Will you try it?

FletcherPR is a national communications firm that specializes in reaching women through the power of media. Headquartered in Knoxville, TN, we are a full-service agency providing strategic public relations, social media and marketing communications services to our clients throughout the U.S.

For those of you internet culture-savvy folks, you may have seen the recent backlash surrounding Facebook’s allowance of pro-rape fan pages (be advised, that link contains images and language people may find disturbing).

Summer brings out our creative nature. Gone are the dark, heavy clothes of winter and here to stay are the bright, fun fashions of summer. And summer has definitely arrived! I know this because of the apparel choices that have recently emerged on Market Square.