Girls Rule, and I Found the Ads to Prove It
I think it’s fair to say that I am passionate about all things to do with supporting women (I get to spend my days working with some extremely driven and intelligent women here). Another thing I love? Clever marketing campaigns. I recently came across an article on Fast Company recently that perfectly combined the two, and it is just too good not to share.
The article is called “The Birth of an Idea: Ads to Rebrand Girls”, and is a series of mock ad campaigns designed to promote the birth of baby girls as “the No.1 choice for consumers from China to the U.S.” I admit that this premiss surprised me. I have traveled to places around the world, like China and India, where it is widely known that boys are the preferred choice. But here in the U.S.? To be honest, it never really occurred to me that people would still, if ever, have a documented preference for the sex of their offspring. However, according to the hilarious website Don’t Diss Daughters, dads-to-be actually prefer sons over daughters 2 to 1.
Take a few minutes to scroll through the actual ads designed for this “campaign”. They range from comical taglines like “Boys are 76% more likely to set something you love on fire”, to the more serious “Born to Rule”. Do you think ads like this have the power to actually change minds? It may be worth a try. With countries in Asia increasingly tilting their gender ratio towards males - there are some serious consequences to turning the other cheek. Governments in India and China are currently implementing programs that create incentives for couples that do have daughters, but these efforts have not been very successful.
So why not try an ad campaign? It definitely seems like a cheaper long term solution. And seriously, check out the angle Don’t Diss Daughters is taking. The home page is full of pictures of “d-bag” would-be dads, and how daughters definitely wouldn’t pick them either. Potentially more appealing to women, I would assume, but undeniably awesome. (Just see below.)
