Just go with the flow

RED ALERT! We’re talking about period products! Pads, liners, and tampons – not to mention a hot pack, pain killers, and food, lots and lots of food. But we’re specifically going to talk about the ones that us girls use to trap our bloody well… blood! (And mucosal tissue, but let’s not get scientific/visual.)

This menstruation thing is just cramping our style, period. (#pungameisstrong) Ladies, back me up. Most period product ads are the same. A girl or group of girls in white pants or skirts, doing pirouettes, jumping and laughing like it’s all good, doing things they wouldn’t even do if they did not have their period!

The unrealistic advertising of pads and tampons are 100% unnecessary to begin with. First, because it’s totally wrong and counts as false advertising. I know when I’m on my period all I want to do is spend a couple of days in bed with an electric blanket no matter how hot it is outside, fetal position, eating fro-yo, sour squirms, and soup. I most certainly do not want to ride a horse nor do flips at a trampoline park while Aunt Flow is around. Second, I think period products shouldn’t even be advertised to begin with because we’re going to buy them anyway! We don’t have a choice. We will bleed – red blood, NOT some blue liquid. EVERY. SINGLE. MONTH.

Does brand matter? Yes and no. Yes, because we tend to become loyal to the brand we’re most comfortable using. I personally am not influenced by ads in this decision because it’s all a matter of experience. And no, brands do not matter especially when your monthly visitor comes without a warning – we’ll most likely use what’s accessible and not risk the apparently high chance of leaking through and staining our white pants.

A great thing to realise though is with the good ol’ Internet, women all over the world have now been responsive in creating videos and articles that reveal how periods actually work. These often point out how period product advertisers do nothing but ovary-act, showing us stuff that we can do if we had their pads or tampons, all the while masking the rather nasty side of things.

It’s obvious where I stand with this. What do you guys think? Shouldn’t period product advertisers just stop and go with the flow?

Cherubs, and expensive roses.

It’s that time of the year again when couples are excited and singles are freaking out! Whichever team you’re in this year (#teamthirdwheel!), I hope you have a fantastic Valentine’s Day! (You know, if you celebrate it at all and whatnot.)

But what is Valentine’s Day? History says that it’s the commemoration of one Saint Valentine and his act of martyrdom, marrying couples in secret which led to his imprisonment. This caused him to cross paths with his one true love: the jailer’s daughter. Since he was in jail, couples he wed would often send him flowers and notes to show their gratitude and the same is true for him and his lady. He sent his girl a note on his execution day, the 14th of February and signed it “From your Valentine.”

Sweet beginnings are used and abused by modern-day society, we can’t ignore the fact that Valentine’s Day is very much commercialised. Businesses and advertisers needed to give people something to spend on in-between Christmas and Easter, thus Valentine’s Day! Under the disguise of love, Valentine’s Day seems to do little more than raise women’s expectations and give men immense stress to deliver.

After all the heart-shaped lollies, roses, and the misuse of cherubs; how relevant is Valentine’s Day? Apparently, relevant enough to be the fifth most celebrated holiday in the world. Why does society (literally) buy into this holiday? With the power of the internet, you’d want to believe that there will be people who know that Valentine’s Day, much like other holidays such as Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, is used as an advertising tool to gain profit. This saddens me because I think that love should be celebrated every day.

False advertising has been a prominent issue in society for years, and with the Bunnings and Bike Barn fiascos that recently hit the news, isn’t it possible that Valentine’s Day counts as false advertising too, with its huge and unrealistic upselling of love?

We all will leave this world one day. Would your life’s highlight reel include Valentine’s Day? If you only made extra efforts on Valentine’s Day, then I’m sorry to say but I don’t think that’s love at all. You simply bought into the idea of love trying to please society rather than sincerely extending love to your significant other. Gestures of love are most genuine when you do it because of an overflow of love in your heart that you can’t help but pour it out – and not because advertising told you to.

Born to buy

For the majority of my life, I’ve been “one of the boys”. I grew up with two older brothers, so  I got their hand-me-downs, I was always bugging them when they were with their friends, and I even learned their hobbies.

So naturally, I was closer to guys. This being said, I’ve gained a clear perspective on how boys have this perception that they have to be sporty, they have to be taller than girls, and they should never cry.

Most of the guys I knew growing up didn’t really care much for clothes or anything like that until high school, but nowadays, I see 1-year-old boys getting the most fashionable clothes and even wearing designer shoes. I used to know a 3-year-old boy who wore Gucci school shoes and that was the first time that I thought about how kids – no exceptions, both girls and boys – are raised to be fashion-forward right off the womb.

I recently saw a video on Facebook from “The Illusionists” about why young girls are sexualized, and needless to say, it’s very true. Raising children to be concerned about how they look and how they dress gives the industry heaps of advantages because opening their eyes to these things at a very young age only means they will treat it as the norm growing up. Children are raised to be consumers.

Going back to that little boy with the Gucci shoes – I then realized how a lot of my guy friends are now very concerned about the clothes and (especially) the shoes they wear. Over time, I’ve had guy friends ask me for fashion advice or send me photos of the clothes they’re trying on in the stores to get a “lady’s opinion”. Today many of my guy friends follow their own fashion icons, male models or celebrities they look at (I’d say look up to, but I know they don’t actually look up to them – they just look at them) for “inspiration”.

This so-called “inspiration” is nothing more than fuel for insecurity. YES! It even happens with men and we are all victimised by media and its impossible standards of beauty.

In my honest opinion, we can blame media, marketing and advertising all we want but at the end of the day, we always have a choice whether we’re going to listen to the marketing messages that tell us we’re not good enough until we have ticked all the boxes that society and businesses dictate. The truth is, we’re never going to tick all those boxes because there’s always something new that gets added to the “must-have” list every single day. Satisfaction is a matter of self-awareness and contentment with who we are inside and not what marketing and advertising tell us to be on the outside.

Advertising: A source of insecurity

I was an insecure teenager growing up. I had an eating disorder and I was depressed for years until I discovered who I really am. During that season in my life, I saw other girls who were trying to be closer to the preconception of perfect, battering themselves to become someone off the Internet or in magazines.

The Internet, advertising and general media impacts our lives whether we know it or not. I didn’t know that as a young teenager but learning that it’s simply advertising affecting my perceptions gave me a sense of clarity that there’s nothing wrong with me.

This video shows that magazines are merely product catalogues packed full of advertising.

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD WATCH THIS! A shocking video about the ugly truth hidden in beauty and fashion magazines.

Advertising is everywhere and as for women, we are led to believe that we are not good enough as we are. Society’s standard for beauty is raised every single day and advertising creates an illusion that we’re only going to be beautiful when we have a certain, often expensive, product.

Some time ago, I saw a Facebook post of mine, ‘round about the time I was going to finish my degree. The post was an infographic showing how deceiving food labels can be. It urged me to share my two cents as to how sad it is that advertising and marketing all too often bend the truth to gain sales. I majored in marketing because I’ve always believed that marketing is the artistic side of the business but what happens when art comes in a deceitful form? I didn’t want to be that kind of marketer, so I promised myself that I would be as honest as possible once I start to work in the industry.

It’s still true today that advertising has its way of manipulating our behaviour as individuals. As I’ve mentioned, I became insecure and I knew other girls were too – but the moment I understood that those photos are manipulated first in order to manipulate our thoughts and emotions, is the moment that I knew that there’s more than meets the eye. Hey! Even celebrities were affected by this and they’re the ones we look up to.

I want to believe that behind the façade that advertising puts up, there are some advertisers who know that there’s nothing wrong with us.

In my next blog, I'll look into a company that started an advertising campaign to empower women and how this work created a huge ripple of panic among traditional advertisers.