Marketing for Change: Smashing Stereotypes & Shaping Culture

The advertising industry holds the power to aspire and inspire - everything you feel about a thing, a brand, a company, or a well-known person is influenced by marketing. Cindy believes that as marketers and advertisers, we can use this influence to shape people’s attitudes, mindsets, and behaviours, making a positive change in society.

For a very long time, the advertising industry has been focused on creating aspirations fueled by materialism. But what if ‘aspiration’ meant something more than the dream of a lifestyle of luxury, status, and wealth that we falsely need to achieve? Cindy believes that the advertising industry has the power to reinvent what is aspirational i.e. make consumers want things that are genuinely good for them and can improve their lives. 

Our industry works with existing stereotypes as it makes the creative process for ads easier. For example, historically, we have perpetuated the stereotype of a man as the ‘strong, confident breadwinner’ and a woman as the ‘caring, nurturing homemaker’. Cindy challenges advertisers to reinvent an aspirational relationship role model of today i.e. showcase a partnership of equals to challenge this stereotype. If men were consistently celebrated as caregivers in ads, would we start considering this normal - to the point where it’s no longer a divisive topic of discussion?

Cindy shares an example of reinvented aspirational marketing in action as one of the Chairs of a Campaign Review Committee of an agency. In this position, they review the ad strategy, the creative concept of the ad, and the rough cuts before post-production. In one such instance, like many instances, Cindy and her team asked the creative agency to ‘flip the genders’ in the script so that the ‘girl is on the football field with the dad’ and the ‘boy is in the kitchen with the mum’. It’s a small change in the script, but a clear example of how agencies tend to lean into stereotypes.

Cindy shares that women are the primary purchasers and influencers of purchases of most consumer products, yet most of the direction of the advertising industry is dominated by men. She talks about the car market in the USA where women have held more driver's licenses than men, and buy more new cars than men. However, the automotive industry still largely ignores this to target their ads, CRM, and dealerships to focus on men. 

Cindy believes that the male-dominated leadership in the industry needs to hire brilliant, talented women to combat these issues in advertising. At this point, less than 1% of agency owners in the United States are women. 

A rising number of women and people of colour are changing the meaning of an ‘agency’, as they bring a fresh take on common societal themes, according to Cindy. Ad campaigns have now started to reflect more balanced perspectives and push positive ideas that benefit people and society as a whole.

MakeLoveNotPorn is a website that showcases user-generated content by real partners and couples, with the goal of changing the narrative around what good sex is. The platform embraces the idea of communication in the bedroom, setting and respecting boundaries, and valuing consent. By creating a platform that celebrates sex as a shared, enjoyable experience, the platform not only subverts the false ideas about good sex promoted by porn sites, but also makes consensual sex ‘aspirational’. If you wish to contribute towards building the go-to hub for sex positivity and education, check out Cindy’s Wefunder.