The aim of this study is to examine how female influencers on Instagram build relationships and trust against their young female followers and how the followers experience and relate to the influencers paid collaborative-marketing. A qualitative interview method is used to fulfill the aims of the study. The theoretical starting points used in this study are feminism and word-of-mouth, and also femvertising as a useful concept for this study. The results show that the effect influencers have varies depending on their communication, relevance to their character narrative, and the authenticity felt by the young women followers towards the influencers. The relationship toward the influencers are very similar and usually described as some sort of ”friendship”. The use of femvertising is seen as natural as these influencers are considered genuine empowered women.

Femvertising is a relatively new concept that describe the use of feminism in advertising. Femvertising aims to both strengthen the image of women and overrule stereotypical representations of women in advertising, whilst at the same time aims to sell products. This highlights a conflict within the concept, which is what makes femvertising an interesting subject to study. This study investigates the representation of women in contemporary fashion commercials withfemvertising messages. Further, it examines how young Swedish women create meaning in relation to these messages, and finally, how they interpret the conflict within the concept of femvertising.The main material consists of semi-structured interviews with ten young women, the secondary material consists of advertisements from three Swedish fashion brands; H&M, Gina Tricot and Monki. The theoretical framework consists of Stuart Hallsrepresentation theoryand encoding/decoding theory, as well as parts from the consumer cultural framework, a critical view on identity and fashionand finally, two critical theories on feminist messagesin advertisement. Through these theoretical perspectives the study has demonstrated that young female consumers care relatively little about feminist messages in advertising. Instead, consumers want companies to work with feminist values internally and throughout. Further, the results points to that young female consumers want a more including representation of female bodies in advertising and that consumers react in a positive way towards advertising that represents bodies which they can relate to. In conclusion the results suggests that it is not enough for companies to use feminist messages and values in their advertisement, if these messages are not reflected in the company itself.

Each day we’re exposed to advertisement with various commercial messages. It therefore becomes important for companies to stand out from the crowd in order to catch consumers’ attention. In line with the success of feminism, many companies have chosen to engage in the issue of equality and women’s rights. The aim of this study has been to investigate how feminism as a brand strategy is expressed and used. The razor company Estrid has been studied to exemplify how semiotic resources on social media can be used to produce feminist signs as well as how they can be used as a tool for the company’s brand. Gender and feminist theories have been used to answer the study’s purpose. Stereotypes and concepts such as Pinkwashing, Corporate Social Responsibility and Femvertising have also been used as a support in the analysis. The method, semiotic analysis, helped us to analyse Estrid’s Instagram posts and YouTube clips to find out what symbols, characters and expressions of stereotype- breaking material and feminism there are. The result that emerged from the analysis showed that Estrid communicated against stereotypes and used feminism as a brand strategy by expressing feminist values. The results also showed that it’s difficult for companies to appear as genuinely feministic because of the commercial interest and that it requires more than just communicating against stereotypes.

Syftet med denna studie är att utifrån en multimodal kritisk diskursanalys (MCDA) undersöka hur feministiska grundidéer, såsom jämställdhet och kvinnlig frigörelse, utnyttjas av företag i kommersiella syften. Med utgångspunkt i feministisk teori, postfeministisk teori och commodity feminism undersöks hur femvertising, det vill säga marknadsföring som hyllar kvinnor och flickor snarare än att objektifiera dem, används i ett antal sektioner av intimhygienföretaget DeoDocs webbplats. Studiens resultat påvisar att DeoDoc genom en medicinsk diskurs framställs som experter. DeoDoc betonar att företaget är grundat av kvinnor som vill empower, utbilda och höja andra kvinnor. Uttryck för female empowerment återfinns i form av uppmaningar till kvinnor om att älska sina kroppar och sig själva samt en överlexikalisering kring kvinnliga läkare, kvinnliga grundare och kvinnliga entreprenörer. Normbrytande och systerskap är feministiska grundidéer som existerar i materialet från DeoDoc. Även element av postfeminism återfinns, där commodity feminism, empowerment, självförverkligande och individualism är återkommande. Slutligen påträffas tre dominerande diskurser – en medicinsk diskurs, en feministisk diskurs och en postfeministisk diskurs. Användandet av feministiska grundidéer i marknadsföringssyfte kan uppfattas som positivt då femvertising bidrar till brytande av normer men samtidigt går det att argumentera för att femvertising riskerar att bidra till en stagnation av jämställdhetsutvecklingen i samhället och att feminismen avpolitiseras.

This qualitative study investigates the incorporation of female empowerment discourses in Swedish lifestyle influencer Bianca Ingrosso’s YouTube vlogs. The aim of the study is to gain a better understanding of what it means to be a feminist in the current Swedish media moment, where the influencer industry is a commonly found subject for debates concerning the tensions between feminism and postfeminism. By critically analyzing the postfeminist expressions of female empowerment in influencers’ social media presence, the study problematizes the neoliberal feminism embraced by influencers like Ingrosso, whose feminist alignment mainly appears in promotional content for beauty and fashion products. A critical discourse analysis is performed, utilizing Norman Fairclough’s three-dimensional model, in order to examine the ways in which Ingrosso utilizes and reinforces postfeminist discourses in her role as influencer. The study is performed through a feminist perspective, supported by feminist and postfeminist literature, using feminist media theory and field theory complemented by theory on gender and erotic capitals to examine the material. The analysis show that Ingrosso, through the social and financial capital that she holds as an influencer in a feminized space, is empowered. The postfeminist discourse allows her to maintain an influential position, as her physical attributes and encouragement of hegemonic femininity through consumption align with the neoliberal gender norms and expectations that structure the advertisement field in which influencers function. However, as it is the capitalist structures that allow influencer like Ingrosso to commodify their social media presence, the female empowerment that she promotes is in no way contributing to the efforts of the feminist movement.

Denna studie undersöker hur kvinnor representeras i reklam. Syftet med denna studie är att ta reda på hur Lindex i två olika kampanjer representerar kvinnor i sin reklam för underkläder för kvinnor. Undersökningen fokuserar på om representationen i kampanjerna förhåller sig till stereotyper eller femvertising. Uppsatsen grundar sig på teorier om representation och semiotik samt vad stereotyper är. Metoden som har använts är en semiotisk analys. Resultatet visar att de två olika kampanjerna skiljer sig åt trots att de marknadsförts i samma produktkategori. Den första kampanjen visar många tecken som tyder på att reklamkampanjen är mer stereotypiskt, eftersom den representerar många förutfattade meningar om vad som är snyggt och attraktivt. Den andra kampanjen visar varierande kroppar och åldrar. Reklamen blir inte stereotypisk men är ändå inom ramen för vad som anses vara attraktivt, då alla kvinnor i bilden har fixat hår, har mjuk kropp, lagom mycket rynkor om de är äldre och så vidare. Detta tyder på att kvinnor måste vara attraktiva, för att representeras i reklam. Den första kampanjen blir en negativ syn hur kvinnor borde vara och upprätthåller kvinnliga skönhetsideal medan den andra kampanjen gör att fler kan relatera till personerna då de visar upp fler människor i olika kroppar, åldrar och etnicitet

Den stereotypiska framställningen av kvinnor i reklam har länge präglats av sexuella och objektifierande anspelningar.  Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka hur Nike använder sig av det feministiska begreppet femvertising, som tar ställning mot den traditionella framställningen av kvinnor, i utvalda klipp från reklamfilmerna Dream Crazier och Dream With Us som båda släpptes under 2019. Detta görs genom att studera hur kvinnorna och tjejerna i de utvalda klippen framställs och vilka återkommande teman som går att utläsa ur materialet. Studiens teoretiska ramverk utgörs av feministisk teori, den manliga blicken, femvertising, genusteori, genussystem och könsstereotyper. Undersökningen genomfördes med en kvalitativ textanalys i samspel med semiotik, där denotation och konnotation utgjorde grunden i det analysschema som togs fram för att besvara studiens frågeställningar. Vidare analyserades materialet med hjälp av de redan etablerade semiotiska analysbegreppen gaze, setting, pose och kameravinkel.   I resultatet framgår det att kvinnorna och tjejerna i de utvalda klippen och sekvenserna från de två reklamfilmerna framställs på ett normbrytande sätt och att det finns tydliga uttryck för femvertising genom de stärkande budskapen som förmedlas. Framställningarna motsäger också den traditionella kvinnliga stereotypen inom reklam som präglas av passivitet och sexualisering. I stället återfinns flera traditionellt sett maskulina tendenser och attribut som styrka, makt och självförtroende i de kvinnliga framställningarna. / The stereotypical portrayal of women in advertising has been characterized by sexual and objectifying allusions for a long time. The purpose of this study is to analyze Nike’s use of the feminist concept femvertising, which takes a stand against traditional portrayals of women, in selected clips from the two commercials Dream Crazier and Dream With Us, both released in 2019. This is done by studying how the women and the girls in the selected clips are being portrayed, and what themes that can be identified in the analyzed material. The study’s theoretical framework consists of feminism, the male gaze, femvertising, gender theory, gender systems and gender stereotypes. The study was conducted with a qualitative text analysis combined with semiotics, where denotation and connotation forms the basis of the analysis scheme that was developed to answer the study’s framing of questions. Furthermore, the material was analyzed using the already established semiotic analysis concepts gaze, setting, pose and camera angle. The results show that the women and the girls in the selected clips and sequences from the two commercials are portrayed in a norm-breaking way and that the commcercials contain a clear expression of femvertising through the empowering messages that are being conveyed. The presentation of the women and the girls also contradict the traditional female stereotype in advertising, which is characterized by passivity and sexualisations. Instead, many traditionally masculine attributes, such as strength, power and self-confidence are found in the female portrayal.

Fashion advertising has long been repudiated for fostering narrow and stereotypical imagery of women. Today consumers demand advertisements to be inclusive and real in their portrayals. As a result, there is an increasingly visible marketing phenomenon, called Femvertising, which merges the feministic ideology of empowerment and liberty with brand image and sales. The purpose of the study is to explore consumers’ opinions about femvertising by fashion brands. Within this, the thesis seeks to explore how consumers feel about these advertisements and the outcome they perceive these to have. Through snowballed sampling focused on reaching diverse people connected via social media, a wide array of thoughts and perspectives on femvertising is sought to fulfill the purpose. The research employs a mixed method with a deductive approach to analyze its findings in relation to literatures and theories reviewed. The study used an open-ended online questionnaire designed through literature review and advertising theories and distributed it electronically to collect data. Using snowball sampling, the respondents were gathered via social media, who further distributed the questionnaire. The findings demonstrated that our sampling mainly expressed positive responses to the femvertising due to its inclusive, diverse and empowering portrayals. Moreover, these advertisements were viewed as a harbinger of change within the fashion industry. They also, generally view the media and advertising to shape people’s perception about gender roles, albeit if femvertising and its ideals are implemented for the long-term. Within this, respondents also urged brands to ‘walk the talk’ and implement the portrayed ideals within their own businesses’ functioning for larger impact. The findings are useful for fashion marketers and researchers, by showing how femvertising within popular media culture is expected to push forward ideals of feminism both within the fashion industry and society. This thesis contributes to the knowledge of consumers’ opinions and perspectives on femvertising and its potential to profit brands and engender more empowerment and liberty to female gender-based roles.

Syftet med föreliggande studie är att studera betalda samarbeten mellan kvinnliga svenskainfluencers och företag på sociala medier. Närmare bestämt studeras företag och influencersexploatering av feminism i kommersiella syften. Studien ämnar bidra till ökad kunskap ochförståelse om hur femvertising verkar inom Influencer Marketing i den svenska socialamediekontexten, specifikt på medieplattformen Instagram. Med hjälp av den multimodalakritiska diskursanalysen undersöks tre Instagram-inlägg publicerade av influencers. Studienhar sin utgångspunkt i teorierna; tvåstegshypotesen, postfeminism och kommodifieradfeminism och undersöker hur feministiska budskap uttrycks samt hur influencers med sinauktoritet och tillförlitlighet har möjlighet att påverka människors attityder och värderingar.Resultaten används för att diskutera och problematisera företags och influencers exploateringav feministiska budskap och hur det kan påverka allmänhetens förståelse av feminism.Studiens resultat visar 1) att det till en övervägande del är postfeministiska budskap omsjälvständighet, individualisering och självsäkerhet som kommer till uttryck. Dessa tillskrivsäven till agerandet av att konsumera produkterna som marknadsförs. 2) Feminism exploaterasi syfte att stärka både företags och influencers varumärkesidentiteter. 3) Exploateringen avfeminism i marknadsföring är både problematisk och gynnande för allmänhetens förståelse avfeminism. Det är gynnande då fler blir medvetna om problemet, men är problematiskt pågrund av att problemets tyngd och väsentlighet förminskas på grund av de kommersiellaintentionerna.

Date: 2022-06-01Level: Master Thesis in Business Administration, 15 cr Institution: School of Business, Society and Engineering, Mälardalen University Authors: Enkhluun Enkhmandakh (93/02/20) Vanda Vlajkovic (94/09/16) Title: The Impact of FemvertisingSupervisor: Stylianos PapaioannouKeywords: Femvertising, CSR, equal rights, women empowerment, #LikeAGirl Research question: How has femvertising impacted corporate social responsibility? Purpose: The aim of the study is to describe and define the changes in P&G’sCSR strategy after their subsidiary’s successful #LikeAGirlfemvertising campaign. Further, explain the phenomenon of howf emvertising influenced the internal and external CSR activities of theircorporation. Method: The study was conducted through qualitative analysis on an abductiveapproach. The data has been collected based on literature reviews andtwo semi-structured interviews of one corporation that works towardscreating a global change in the world. Conclusion: The study has shown that the femvertising campaign #LikeAGirlsignificantly impacted P&G’s internal and external CSR activities.