A bitesize deconstruction of social media content from big brands.Â
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Newsletter edition â Thursday 11th March.
đBurger King, an American multinational chain of hamburger fast food restaurants, marked #InternationalWomensDay with this shameful tweet.
đThe intention was to take a dig at the gender disparity in its restaurants, where only 20% of chefs are women. Backing up its words with actions, Burger King has also established a scholarship program for female staff interested in attaining a culinary qualification.
đ It wasn’t good enough. One user replied: “We know youâre doing this for controversy. Expected better from a large company than to use toxic marketing.”
đAfter initially defending their intentions, Burger King backed down and deleted the tweet: “We decided to delete the original tweet after our apology. It was brought to our attention that there were abusive comments in the thread and we don’t want to leave the space open for that.”
đ·Interflora, a flower delivery network, marked #InternationalWomensDay in a fresh way with its campaign highlighting inequality.
đčUsing a mix of white and red roses, the ads used flowers to visualise some shocking statistics around the gender pay gap, and the lack of women CEOs and political leaders around the world. It’s a great campaign â relevant to the brand, yet unexpected.Â
đȘSouth Yorkshire Fire and Rescue marked #InternationalWomensDay with a video challenging myths and stereotypes around women in the fire service.
đȘIt challenged sexist beliefs like âwomen canât driveâ, âwomen arenât brave enoughâ and âwomen arenât fit enoughâ as well as old-fashioned attitudes like âshe couldnât carry me out of a burning building.’
đȘ The video went viral and was praised for showing footage of SYFRâs female firefighters doing all those things and more, underlining the contributions they make at every level of the vital service.
đ đœââïžBoohoo, women’s fashion brand, marked #InternationalWomensDay with its ‘A NEW WAVE OF WOMEN’ campaign, which involved gifting three women a 5K cash prize for their “incredible work”. They’ve not specified what kind of ‘incredible work’ though.
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đ»ââïžIt angered lots of users. Boohoo is already under scrutiny for poor wages and horrendous working conditions. Users jumped on the post with comments like, “Speaking of female empowerment, it would be good if you could pay your garment workers a fair living wage. Empowering women means empowering all women.”Â
đTHROWBACK to when McDonald’s flipped its ‘M’ upside down for #InternationalWomensDay. McDonaldâs global chief diversity officer, Wendy Lewis, said that the stunt was âin honour of the extraordinary accomplishments of women everywhere, and especially in our restaurantsâ.
đFeedback can be summed up by, “This empty McFeminism has nothing to do with womenâs liberation and everything to do with McDonaldâs attempt to sanitise its image. If they actually cared about women, theyâd pay their workers a living wage and stop forcing them onto zero-hours contracts.”
đ€·ââïž One angry user suggested that for the rest of the year, perhaps the ‘M’ was aimed at favouring men.
