Unilever’s Chief Marketing Officer Keith Weed was at Cannes this year to discuss how consumers engage brands that challenge stereotypes and take up strong corporate social responsibility issues.
In his keynote Cannes Lions 2016 seminar “The Future of Brands,” Weed made a global pledge to change the often stereotypical portrayal of women in advertisements: “We need to find a different way of representing beauty and move to a much more enjoyable, non-critical perspective in reflecting women and how they are in everyday life.”
Weed added: “The time is right for us as an industry to challenge and change how we portray gender in our advertising. Our industry spends billions of dollars annually shaping perceptions and we have a responsibility to use this power in a positive manner.”
Unilever’s recent global ad study reveals that 50% of the advertisements surveyed depicted women in a stereotypical manner – only 2% were portrayed as intelligent and 1% as funny.
Gender equality has emerged as a critical theme at Cannes this year, as evidenced by the many high profile seminars at the festival.
Unilever has pledged to stop using sexist stereotypes in their advertising. The decision came after research showed 40% of women did not identify with the women they see in advertising.
The company used Cannes as a platfrom to declare they would move towards portraying more “authentic and three-dimensional” women reflective of advances in gender equality and how gender roles have changed.
While Unilever has launched campaigns fighting stereotypes in the past like Dove’s Real Beauty, Choose Beautiful, or the Brooke Bond tea campaign featuring India‘s first transgender band, the pledge will extend to other brands like Axe/Lynx.
The men’s grooming product company built the majority of their early hyper-masculine marketing around promises that their products would guarantee attractive women pursuing the consumer sexually. The company-wide pledge is a positive move, considering Unilever faced accusations of hypocrisy for promoting conflicting messages during Dove’s Real Beauty campaign.
Lynx, known as Axe in most global markets, released its “Find Your Magic” campaign in January, which Weed pointed to as the epitome of the necessary shift towards inclusivity. The campaign aimed to dispel traditional portrayals of masculinity and celebrate individuality. Weed pointed to success of Axe’s strategy of repositioning ads for a broad scale, while also zeroing in on individuals.
One of the best ways to reach individuals is through influencers and brand ambassadors. Weed explained how campaigns can be magnified by identifying “what people are talking about and who the power influencers are.” Unilever used supermodel Kendall Jenner to promote the launch of Magnum Double last year in Cannes. According to the company’s research, purchase intent goes up 5.2 times if campaigns use influencers, like celebrities.