Review of Women's Day marketing of 10+ brands including OLAY, SK-ll, Pure Cotton Times, lululemon, etc., revealing four major trends

Women's Day is an important node for women's brand marketing. At a time when women are awakening to themselves, what kind of marketing can impress female consumers and build brand reputation? This article analyzes and summarizes the Women's Day marketing cases of multiple women's brands, providing a reference for friends who are engaged in marketing planning.

As women's rights are widely recognized, more and more brands realize that the marketing of March 8th Women's Day is not just a big promotion, but also an excellent opportunity to establish brand image, express brand attitude, and communicate with female consumers. The marketing points of brands are also becoming more specific, more refined, and more powerful.

Looking back at last year, PROYA launched the "PROYA Public Welfare·Workers' Legal Consulting Service" to support the rights of women in the workplace; Libresse provided free sanitary napkins to women in 46 coffee shops across the country; OLAY and CCTV.com launched the "Science Has Her" Young Female Scientist Support Program... We see that the marketing of Women's Day is not just about slogans. More and more brands are bringing care offline and into life.

Morketing sorted out the cases of more than 10 brands and found that this year's Women's Day marketing often has four directions:

First, discover and display women’s plight and provide solutions.

Second, showing women’s power is inspiring.

Third, tear off the labels and focus on the individual.

Fourth, the offline economy has recovered and scene marketing has been upgraded.

It is worth noting that with the recovery of the offline economy, the upgrade of scene marketing has also brought some new ways of marketing to women.

01 Talking about women’s plight requires additional solutions

Let’s first look at the first category, which is to discover and display women’s predicaments and provide solutions. This type of advertisement often starts with a predicament faced by a woman in reality. The predicament may be big or small, but it must hit the pain point. Then “girls help girls” helps the protagonist solve the predicament. In this way, the audience will feel the same emotions being observed in the TVC or poster, and the brand’s potential in the audience’s mind will be correspondingly raised.

A more advanced way to play is to "go beyond paper" and provide solutions in real life, such as Cotton Era, OLAY, IKEA, etc.

This year, Princess Nice, a sanitary napkin brand under the Cotton Times, launched a public welfare theme film "Letters from the Mountain City", telling a story about menstruation and mutual assistance among women. The short film is adapted from letters from 300 girls in difficult situations and messages from 2,000 anonymous donor sisters. It is artistically processed based on real materials, and condenses the stories of more people into two concrete characters. The elder sister and the younger sister in the film have never met each other, but the letters they exchange are full of friendship and affection between girls.

It is worth mentioning that in some public welfare films in the past, the energy between the giver and the receiver flows in one direction, and the party with strong voice often presents a more powerful and perfect form, while the weak are simply protected. The help in this film is two-way, and the sponsored sister also provides emotional support to the older sister, without ignoring the difficulties faced by the helper herself, including the workplace bottleneck caused by her academic qualifications, the helplessness of working alone in the city, etc.

This concept breaks the conventional logic that the audience often only identifies with one side, and invisibly shortens the emotional distance between the brand and the audience. Many netizens commented, "We are not 'sisters', we were also sisters."

In addition to the short film, Princess Nice and the China Women's Development Foundation launched the "Beauty for Her" public welfare project for friendly actions for menstruating women, donating money and materials worth a total of 2 million yuan, and linking up with the Ai Xiaoya Foundation to distribute sanitary napkins and parent-child reading picture books to 12,000 primary and secondary school girls in disadvantaged areas, and conduct menstrual health classes and volunteer teacher training. At the same time, free emergency sanitary napkins are provided in many domestic schools, shopping malls, airports and other places. Starting with a sanitary napkin, Princess Nice has further implemented the concept of "female mutual assistance" through a series of specific actions, allowing consumers to feel the brand's pragmatic attitude and sincerity and care for female users.

"TVC+Public Welfare" takes the whole film's concept and brand image to a higher level, forming a closed loop online and offline.

OLAY focuses on the theme of "Female Science". In 2023, under the guidance of the China Women's Development Foundation, OLAY launched the "Science for Her - Girls Love Science" public welfare project, directly addressing the difficulties faced by women in scientific research, such as lack of material and spiritual support, lack of leadership guidance, and lack of access to more resources and equal treatment.

This year, OLAY continues to build a platform to connect female college students who are interested in pursuing a career in scientific research with outstanding female scientist mentors. It has collaborated with three of the country's top universities, Peking University, Northeastern University, and Lanzhou University, and five outstanding female science and technology workers to provide six months of systematic scientific subject guidance for 40 female college students majoring in science and engineering. In addition, it has also arranged corporate practices and visits to R&D centers.

In Morketing's view, this is not just a node marketing, but involves the selection of business management talents, and even academic and social contributions. On the one hand, the brand uses universities and these scientists to endorse its products, and on the other hand, it establishes a brand image with a strong sense of social responsibility. From the perspective of business, it is also a direct delivery of talents, achieving three goals at one stroke.

IKEA is also a typical representative, focusing on the pain point of women's inability to balance work and childcare. Together with the Ant Foundation, it has created five unique "Mulan Growth Spaces" in five relatively remote areas, including Yijun County, Suide County, Foping County, Qingjian County in Shaanxi Province, and Jishishan County in Gansu Province.

According to the official introduction, "Mulan Growth Space" supports women to work with peace of mind, pursue career development and better realize their self-worth by providing children with a place to play and learn after school. The five child-friendly spaces will directly benefit more than 400 children and indirectly support about 300 women to work without worries in the workplace.

Of course, not all brands have to make big moves like long-term donations or joining forces with the government. Some “small and beautiful” marketing methods are equally useful.

For example, Shanghai Jahwa's brand Yuze paid attention to the group of female food delivery riders, who are very susceptible to various skin barrier damage problems in a windy and sunny working environment, but have no time to take care of their skin. Therefore, they jointly launched the "Dream Guardian Self-Healing Station" women's care campaign with Ele.me, delivering Yuze self-repair gift boxes to female riders at food delivery counters in five cities: Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Hangzhou.

When talking about the original intention of this marketing campaign, Mickey, General Manager of Shanghai Jahwa Beauty and Maternal and Child Care Division, said: "With a sincere and respectful attitude, starting from female consumers, we strengthen product value and quality, bring personalized products and services to consumers, meet and care for the special needs of the female group, establish emotional connections with female consumers, demonstrate the brand's sense of social responsibility, and convey the image of women's independence and confidence through brand stories."

As they said: "Brands cannot stand in opposition to female consumers and talk to them from a superior perspective. The core perspective of marketing cannot be "what you should do", which will cause consumers to be disgusted, because today's female consumers are increasingly clear about their values ​​and persistence. What brands need to do is to understand first and then support. At the same time, in addition to emotional resonance, female consumers are also paying more and more attention to the effectiveness of efficacy. Brands need to provide truly effective solutions."

Aesop held an Aesop Women's Literature Library event with the theme of "A Tale of Two Cities" to express the voices of women with the power of literature. During the event, the products in Aesop stores will be temporarily replaced by a series of selected books written by women or related to women's themes.

Lululemon realized that in the sports industry, women did not receive enough attention and sufficient resource support in terms of competitive opportunities, representation and exclusive products. Therefore, it launched the brand's first women's ultramarathon project FURTHER.

As Dabai, the founder of Naitangpai, said, good marketing must not be a flash of fireworks, but a slow infiltration of the long-term. I personally insist that the essence of business is altruism . Finding a suitable business model with an altruistic sense of mission is positive and effective. During this period, we must objectively understand what their needs are, rather than what we subjectively think they need. Doing one thing well with heart is more effective than doing ten things blindly.

02 To show the power of women, choose those who stand out from the crowd

In addition to showing women’s plight, another common way of marketing to women is to show women’s strength. This year’s typical cases are Perfect Diary and Quardy.

Perfect Diary and Xinhuanet invited four outstanding women from different fields to shoot the blockbuster "Ambition".

The film's protagonists are all women who have emerged from male-dominated fields, including Yao Rui, leader of the mechanical group of the "China Sky Eye" FAST Operation and Development Center, Zhou Yijun, a former war correspondent, Zhang Hanliang, a national martial arts champion, and Dong Yilin, winner of the Wenhua Award. These titles alone are enough to make the audience feel the core idea that the brand wants to express.

Perfect Diary cleverly links ambition and lipstick. In the past, lipstick was synonymous with charm and sexiness, but in this film and song, lipstick represents ambition. As the copy says: "We use flowers and applause to praise your patience, perseverance and determination, which inspire the world. Only this lipstick should be used to praise your ambition, because it will challenge the world. May this touch of ambition red-brown accompany you to realize your endless ambition."

Another domestic brand, Quadi, shouted out a similar slogan, "Energy is a talent that every woman can awaken," and jointly launched the female energy blockbuster "Girls Are Fierce" with New World. The selection of the protagonists is also similar. "News Queen" Charmaine Sheh, swimming world champion Zhang Yuhan, "I Can 47" team member Xu Fuli, and climber Luo Jing all showed the power of women in the film.

In addition to showing the brand image, this TVC also showed the main product "Energy Girl Limited Edition Gift Box" at the end. This is very good, and can effectively attract traffic and convert consumption, but the only drawback is that it lacks strength in promoting products. After Morketing searched the keyword "Quadi Gift Box" on Xiaohongshu, it found that there was not much content promoting products, and many of them were New Year's marketing activities, which resulted in a closed loop of content downward and promotion upward.

Another brand that also demonstrates the power of women in its products is Shuangmei. This year, Shuangmei and Guanxia jointly reproduced Shuangmei's first legendary perfume, Department Store No. 475, on Women's Day. In 1910, the legendary perfume launched by Shuangmei became a popular star product. At that time, modern oriental women were coming out of their boudoirs, receiving education, and opening up their self-awareness and expanding their living space through shopping and socializing.

In 2024, Shuangmei once again demonstrated the power of women, continuing the freedom and imagination of contemporary women with packaging that challenges tradition, and paying tribute to the spirit of oriental women who break through shackles and enrich their spiritual world.

03 Self-acceptance becomes the choice of more brands

As people's understanding of feminism deepens, more and more brands have begun to notice that feminism is not simply about praising women's strength. Women who have not achieved great success should also be accepted. Empowering people does not mean giving them the right to succeed but giving them the right to choose, just like the copy of Hanxuan's International Women's Day marketing two years ago, "May you have the courage to compete, and the confidence not to compete."

"Self-acceptance" and "tearing off labels" have become the directions that more brands are focusing on.

PROYA, a top student in female marketing, continues its three-year theme #Gender is not the boundary, prejudice is# and launches the TVC "Just Different". The article focuses on the life snapshots of many women. In the film, we can see the various prejudices faced by women, and also see the different choices they make in the face of these prejudices.

The whole film conveys a message that different lifestyles, genders, occupations, and hobbies are just different and do not need to be judged good or bad. Seeing this, we see the freedom that should exist. PROYA expands the perspective, encourages society to accept differences, encourages individuals to accept themselves, and focuses not only on women but also on the entire gender issue.

However, this has also caused quite a bit of controversy. On March 4, PROYA posted a Weibo post inviting five real users, two of whom were men, to express their views and true feelings about prejudice. This move sparked dissatisfaction among many netizens, who believed that adding a male perspective would deteriorate the nature of Women's Day.

While also encouraging self-acceptance, the OSM Women's Day TVC is more gentle. There is no gender comparison, and it instead focuses on the topic of "slowness" which does not have a strong gender connotation, except that the main characters are all women.

OSM, together with the specially invited talk show actor Niao Niao, writer Yang Benfen and professional August Baye of People magazine, jointly launched the short film "Pearl Girls, Beauty is in Slowness" for International Women's Day on March 8, telling their stories of "slowness". It encourages girls to have the courage to "slowness" and feel that "slowness" is worthwhile.

Most skin care products’ March 8th marketing prefers to present a natural and self-consistent state, which is also the image that the brand wants to convey to consumers.

SK-II's marketing strategy is content + promotion . Five women were invited to shoot TVCs. They are loyal users who have used the products for 10 to 30 years. Through five real stories about growth and self-reliance, they shared their experience of "getting rid of pretense as you get older". These five stories are not only about growth, but also about self-persistence and inner strength.

At the same time, the #GettingNotZhuang topic was also shared on Xiaohongshu, with KOLs and KOCs promoting the idea. The link is relatively complete and can be used as a reference for the above-mentioned Quadi.

Some brands also did a good job in promoting products, such as Youtong. Youtong co-creator Chen Weiling created "Golden Moon Dyes Thousand Mountains", inviting Jingjing Mark and many KOLs to use the theme #Break Invisible Prejudice, Get Rid of Her Label#, focusing on the prejudices against Chaoshan women in society, speaking for women and paying tribute to women's power.

When Morketing interviewed Jane Fong, the brand manager of Youtong, she learned that "the inspiration for this event is that we see that in the current social environment, many people have stereotypes about the Chaoshan area of ​​Guangdong as 'preferring sons over daughters' and 'feudal superstition'. The Chaoshan women hidden behind the men are also labeled as 'virtuous', 'good at housework', and 'supportive of husbands and children'. As a company in Guangdong, we can feel this prejudice more intuitively."

In addition, as a contact lens brand, U-Touch focuses on comfort, which coincides with the needs of today's women. Therefore, this Women's Day marketing also attempts to break the constraints that women have on themselves, remove labels, and call on everyone to eliminate gender gaze, be a free person, and be comfortable with themselves.

Another jewelry brand that also advocates women's freedom is YIN. Unlike ordinary jewelry brands that link their products with the sweetness of love, YIN advocates that women gain freedom in their emotions and instead focuses on single groups with greater consumption potential.

On Women's Day, the brand launched the "Yi" ReSingle series of diamond rings and a full set of cultured diamond jewelry works co-created with many female artists. It is worth noting that this is also the first time that a brand has dared to officially provide products and services for the emotional needs of divorce, breakup, and returning to singleness.

According to Morketing, more than 80% of the team members are women, and its founders are also two women with pioneering ideas. They have also supported the #春蕾计划# (mountain girl education) for seven years.

In addition, some brands focus on age-related self-acceptance and accept themselves at every age.

For example, the TVC launched by Embry Form in collaboration with China Women's News invited women of different ages to express the theme that people of all ages can bloom with beauty, and the copywriting was: Elegance is not owned by a few people, and there is more than one definition of elegance.

"Unlocking the Ageless Code" launched by Runxiquan expresses the essence of skin care. It is not for eternal youth, but for caring about the real demands of the skin at every stage and advocating awakening the beauty of women at every stage.

7or9's short film "Just Right" also uses actors of different ages to express the theme of love by showing some small happiness in life. For example, when playing hide-and-seek, you are always the first to be found, when you need to relax, you are always invited to relax, and the person you miss is always running towards you... These moments that you thought were just right are actually "deliberate" by the people who love you.

The short film "Welcome to Her Island" jointly launched by Midea and Sanlian Life Weekly attempts to provide an answer from the perspective: every girl has a "spiritual island" of her own - this island has nothing to do with age, occupation and background, but only with independent choice, self-expression and self-improvement.

Fu Erjia and Ren Suxi filmed the short film "Auntie". The auntie in the story is facing all kinds of pressure and confusion, but in the eyes of her little niece, she is still an idol. The film encourages women to face themselves, stick to themselves, and love themselves. Even an ordinary star can shine with moving light.

04 Offline economy recovers, scene marketing upgrades

In addition to high-quality content, some brands choose to use creative scenes to impress female consumers.

UNIQLO has built "Flower Lifestyle Halls" in more than 20 stores across the country, including its global flagship store. Stores across the country have simultaneously launched the "Flower Fitting Experience", with thousands of employees transformed into "Flower Protectors" recommendation officers. Walls, models, fitting rooms... are decorated with a large number of flowers. In the minds of the public, the main color of UNIQLO is white. This scene marketing breaks the classic scene and has indeed attracted the interest of many consumers.

Talking about marketing inspiration, Uniqlo said that nowadays people are more looking forward to the sense of consumer participation and like face-to-face real social interaction to bring a lively life. The original intention of Uniqlo to launch a diversified store experience is to make the store an extension of scenes and emotions outside of work, so that customers can feel the exclusive sense of shopping ritual in the flowery fitting atmosphere, and help consumers better express their personality through clothing through the dressing recommendation service, and gain a sense of energy.

This year, MINISO also chose pink as its marketing theme for Women's Day. It once again joined hands with Barbie and took "Sisters and Sisters Are Pink to Heaven" as its marketing theme. It launched two MINISO×Barbie themed flash events in Shanghai Jing'an Joy City and Beijing Chaoyang Joy City. At the same time, it held an immersive float parade in Dongshankou, Guangzhou.

"You can be anything" is the spiritual core of Barbie. By combining IP attributes, the brand can effectively amplify visual scene marketing. Innovative scenes and creative marketing can also allow consumers to have a deeper understanding of the brand and products.

In addition, the marketing of Chongqing Longhu North City Paradise Walk this year is also very popular. On the one hand, the copywriting is well chosen, "'Niang' refers to female elders or elderly women", "'Sister' refers to women born into high-class families and both talented and beautiful", "'Saint Mother' refers to mythical women with supernatural powers and status"... By explaining the terms, it refuses to stigmatize and stereotype the female group.

On the other hand, also because of the scene, high-intensity information dissemination is carried out on zebra crossings in crowded commercial areas, on street lamp advertisements, and on large screens in shopping malls to create a landscape.

With the recovery of the offline economy, scenario marketing has also become a good choice for node marketing. Of course, content and scenario are not a choice between one and the other. If they can be combined, there will be better results.

Conclusion

As Jane Fong, the owner of U-Tong, said, with the improvement of women's social status and consumption ability, Morketing found that today's female consumers are very different from before, especially in the consumption environment of economic, healthy and happy living. Female consumers pay more attention to product quality and brand tone when making decisions. In addition, it is also very important that they will pay more attention to the consumption experience and are willing to pay for high-quality, high-value-added products and services.

Therefore, in the end, the competition of brands' International Women's Day marketing is about the depth of their understanding of feminism and whether it fits the current context. In general, these methods are not single-line, but interspersed or parallel. As long as they are sincere and suitable for the brand, it is a good marketing event. But you must pay attention to the following points:

• Respect women and don't be clever on gender issues.
• Don't treat feminism as the "sugar coating" of consumerism.
• Don't overdo it and don't provoke confrontation.

Author: Tiana

Source: WeChat public account "Morketing (ID: Morketing)"