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.

This thesis aims to understand the use of political messages as part of a branding strategy through a discourse analysis. The empirical material consists of two campaigns advertising female sanitary products; Always #LikeAGirl (2014) and Libresse Blood Normal (2017), with a purpose to understand the incorporation and the adaptation of activist and feminist discourse in these commercial campaigns. What happens to feminism as a political project and struggle when its key ideas and discourses are co-opted by market forces, and how this kind of advertising is used in the process of building brands.The theoretical framework consists of critical perspectives on Postfeminism, Counterculture in relation to consumer culture and Transmedia storytelling. The campaigns are understood in a Swedish context. In the analysis two nodal points are identified; Active/healthy femininity and Responsibility, where the subject positions within the campaigns and the understanding of the subject positions of the campaigns in a marketing context are explored. By formulating different (political) problems in their marketing, Libresse and Always has the discursive power to position themselves as part of the solution to the problem of girls and women’s low self-esteem. On one hand, the solution includes consuming female sanitary products or interact with the brand on social media. On the other hand this means that the brands position themselves as political actors, advocating women’s rights.