Marie Claire encourages women to love their bodies now
Airborne
Pacific Magazines owned Marie Claire is taking female empowerment to the next level encouraging women to learn to like their bodies earlier in life with its #whywait initiative, getting six local agencies to produce ads to support the idea.
Marie Claire asked OgilvyOne, Publicis Mojo, M&C Saatchi Australia, Airborne, Whybin\TBWA and DDB Group Sydney to produce an ad encouraging women to start loving their bodies, after being shocked when learning the average Australian woman learns to like her body at 45.
The magazine’s editor Jackie Frank told Mumbrella: “When we found out that was the age of women actually liking their body we thought wow, isn’t that incredible and we thought can we re-shift it? If they get to a stage where they do like their bodies, why are we waiting until 45? Let’s bring it out into the open, create awareness of it and maybe make women like their bodies earlier.
“We thought we would challenge the way women are thinking about it and go to the creative minds, we invited the top ad agencies to produce a single page ad convincing women to like their body,” she said.
OgilvyOne creative director Rob Morrison told Mumbrella: “It’s well-worn territory. There’s been a lot of attempts of addressing this issue, Dove’s doing and it doing it really well but the impact that they’re having clearly isn’t from an issue point of view, they’re still trying to sell product, they’re still promoting their brand.
Ogilvy One
“What we wanted was a completely fresh way in, to find a way of looking at the issue and get to the heart of it in a way that hadn’t been discussed before or looked at before and that’s where we got to with the whole education approach to it.
“This isn’t in the DNA of women to compare themselves unrealistically to unachievable images, its something that women through lots of different sources are taught or taught themselves.”
Morrison explained that the “uh-huh” moment came when considering what people find beautiful about babies and children.
“The things you find beautiful and cute in a child are precisely the things that you hate when you look at yourself in the mirror. That’s the reason we pulled out the list of physical features of the baby as the crux around the insight.”
On the work produced, Marie Claire’s Frank was full of praise.
“Everybody loved it. They were so varied and using different things – like using the baby and the child to engage and typography and the whole juxtaposition of the do you see a curve or do you see a bulge on the DDB one,” she said.
DDB Sydney
DDB Sydney senior writer, Jeff Galbraith told Mumbrella the curve attempts to visualise how women feel about the curves in their bodies.
“I think women should aspire to have a curvy body, but if its curved the wrong way suddenly they just don’t feel the same way about themselves, it’s only certain curves that they want. We just found a way to visualise that which showed both of those curves very simply without hitting you over the head with it,” he said
“We wanted to keep it quite subtle, and feeling very feminine and hopefully something that would inspire some self-reflection.
“One of the big struggles we had was Dove has done so much excellent work in this category. They have set the bar incredibly high. We were trying to be careful not to just copy the things that they’ve done and try and come at it in a little bit of a different way.”
Galbraith was full of praise for Publicis Mojo’s work.
Publicis Mojo
He said: “I love the piece from Mojo, I am the woman, hear me ramble. I thought it was beautifully written and very well art directed too.”
Publicis Mojo’s executive creative director Grant Rutherford told Mumbrella: “It sucks you in – I am woman, hear me ramble on. You really do want to capture the imagination, we thought the Helen Reddy song would be the perfect vehicle for that. ”
Rutherford said the work was challenging as it required an angle that somebody would listen to.
“Any women could look at these ads and say that’s not actually me,” he said. “In any campaign like this, you can’t really let people off the hook, you have to make them feel something or do something, in that way its quite hard.
“I think it’s fair to say a lot of the agencies would have had the same ideas – babies and children and projecting that image onto them and how we want them to think and what we’re actually passing onto the next generation. I think overall the standard was good, some were more inventive than others.”
Jackie Frank
Following on from the brief issued to the ad shops, the Marie Claire team has extended the challenge to its readers, establishing the #whywait hashtag and asking women to try to embrace their bodies before they are 45. The team is asking for readers to take a photo of yourself holding the #whywait hashtag and upload it to social media.
“It’s not enough to just put it there, we wanted to engage our readers, they could get involved and take a step forward. We thought we would hashtag why wait and get them involved in it,” said Frank.
The full range of work produced for the campaign can be viewed here.
Miranda Ward
Miranda Ward worked for Mumbrella from 2013 to 2017, eventually becoming deputy editor. Miranda joined Mumbrella in September 2013 from Sky News.
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So Rob, don’t you think that it is mags like your client’s that are largely to blame? Is Marie Claire changing it’s editorial?
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The problem is that you can’t come from an industry that promotes size 8 women and then try and do one campaign that encourages us to like our bodies earlier. Just taking a look at the front cover of any Marie Claire makes this pretty clear. The reason it takes us until 45 to like our bodies is that 45 is around the age when we just stop caring.
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Thanks for the note Mrs Morrison.
Truth is Marie Claire aren’t an OgilvyOne client – this was a pro bono project. But I also disagree they are source of the pain. As we wrote in the ad “The truth is body issues are unnatural. They’re learned. We teach them to our daughters, reinforce them with our girlfriends and punish ourselves with them – every day.” These are 2-way conversations, not 1-way commercial messages. Marie Claire are putting a spotlight on the issue – as are all the agencies who got involved. And should be applauded.
I’ll be home about 7pm.
Rxx
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I Am Woman, Hear Me Ramble does not come across as particularly positive at all. So the take home message is that unrealistic body sizes and shapes are to be perpetuated throughout the media landscape, and if that has any impact on a woman, or her children (boys included), it’s her fault?
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If Marie Claire is, as a brand and a business and a magazine, actually committed to this philosophy, that’s brilliant and I stand and applaud them.
But if all they’re doing is getting agencies to make a few pro bono ads for them, and a little hashtagging exercise, then they can GAGF.
Why create a #whywait initiative, when with their very own product they already possess the means to actively influence how women perceive themselves?
Women’s mags want to promote realistic body image? Start showing realistic body images.
Food companies want people to eat less fat and salt? Put less fat and salt in your foods.
Anything else is just empty marketing.
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This just screams hypocrisy. Marie Claire are no different to any other fashion magazine – it’s all size 6s, 6 foot tall models, and glamour at an unattainable level. It’s the nature of magazines, and they are designed to be inspirational, but Ms Frank’s ideas and actions are two different things.
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Blah blah blah
Magazine drivel supported by ads
We don’t teach our daughters poor body image, their peers do, they read yr mags! Go produce something worthwhile!
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Give.Me.A.Break.
I always find it amusing/infuriating when women’s magazines try to promote ‘positive body image’. Those magazines are a huge part of the problem, and they know it. I am never more aware of how unacceptable my body is than when I open a copy of Marie Claire (or similar).
You can run a feature about how great it is to love your body and accept your shape etc but it doesn’t really do much good when the next 40 pages are full of ‘perfect’ bodies which have been touched up anyway, because even the most beautiful people aren’t beautiful enough for magazines.
If Marie Claire or any publication was serious about this very serious issue, they would do more than run a quick hashtag/publicity campaign about it. They would start using a more diverse range of women in their magazines. It’s so obvious I feel silly even pointing it out.
Also, calling out this guy – Jeff Galbraith: “I think women should aspire to have a curvy body.”
Oh do you, Jeff? Well thank you. Thanks for telling me what I should aspire to because I was just starting to think that I shouldn’t have to aspire to have any body other than what I was born with? Incidentally, I am one of the many women that does not have a naturally curvy figure. I’m certainly not thin, but I am well within a healthy weight range and don’t have ‘curves’. Does that mean I’m not a ‘real woman’ by your standards? Should I seek out surgery to give me some child-bearing hips and child-nourishing breasts? I realise the biological requirements/jerk in you would see those features as necessary in a woman but unfortunately (DRUM ROLL FOR JEFFY!) women are not just here to have babies and be pleasing to the male eye. SHOCKER!
So Jeff, and all other men and women who think they have the right to tell people what kind of body they should ‘aspire’ to have, particularly under the guise of promoting positive body image, kindly blow it out your arse.
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Taking female empowerment to the next level – woah cowboy, lets not get too excited about this drivel. If Marie Claire really want to change the way we think about our selves they should stop retouching and have a range of body types on display on the pages.
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I’m a reader of Marie Claire and they have consistently created meaningful campaigns that have proven to be a huge success. They launched the sweater exchange campaign, the We Do campaign lobbying for marriage equality, Shine a light on Depression, the Red Dresses for the Heart Foundation… there have been so many! And these campaigns are all making positive steps to creating change for Australian women. I’m excited to see a campaign like this being backed by a major voice in women’s media. Bring it on Jackie! #whywait
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RE: Anon
I think the difference with the other campaigns you’ve mentioned is that the magazine didn’t run said campaign, then proceed to plaster its pages with that campaign’s antithesis.
I also find the idea of a “campaign” on this front somewhat short-sighted; as though there is a defined goal to reach, and once there, we can relax. Meaningful and long-term change is needed in the way we discuss and represent bodies – yes. That means being kinder to ourselves and each other, but it also means that VALUING and REPRESENTING a broad range of sizes and shapes SHOULD BE THE NORM – NOT A ONCE OFF GOODWILL CAMPAIGN.
And Jeffery, this means ALL FIGURES; naturally curvy, bean pole, or those with naturally occurring model proportions. As Flora discussed, insisting that women aspire to a “curvy” figure is as damaging as insisting that women aspire to a lean, Marie Claire-endorsed figure.
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@ Elly. Amen sister.
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I really enjoyed this campaign, but it will mean nothing if Marie Claire doesn’t change its attitude. How about trialling not photoshoping anyone’s body for a whole year and see how the public react. Many magazines have done this once or twice and say they get overwhelmingly negative responses from women but one or two pictures doesn’t give the public time to adjust. I think it would change the readership and the magazine would gain women who normally won’t buy magazines. Also I want to see at least one plus size woman in every magazine, and a positive article on fat acceptance movement. Also on praise for Dove they are owned by the same company that put out the most misogynistic ads for men’s companies. Teaching young people to deconstruct their media is a great way to create change.
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I’m surprised I’ve never seem a campaign focusing on what we could all do with the time we’d get back if we stopped beating ourselves up about not being thin/pretty/toned/perfect enough. The feminist ideals of the past seem to have morphed into having ‘freedom’ to enslave ourselves to a rigid definition of what’s acceptable. The schizophrenia shown by Marie Claire in running this campaign while not adhering to its ideals are just a reflection of what seems to go on in the minds of all the women I know.
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