The People's weekly wrap-up newsletter 11.03.22 *International Women's Day special*
German Feminist group Wer Braucht Feminismus (WBF?), have revealed a vulva shaped spaceship concept designed to better represent humanity in space and ‘restore gender equality to the cosmos’. The feminist group, whose name translates to ‘Who Needs Feminism?’ aimed to challenge the convention of the phallic shaped spacecraft - redesigned to signal inclusivity. They have even created a petition on change.org calling the European Space Agency to consider the project. The unique vulva design has the hashtag #spaceisforeveryone with the tagline ‘It’s time for new symbols in space’ and claims to be ‘much more effective than traditional rockets’. The shape claims to be ‘surprisingly aerodynamic creating way less drag when the vehicle punches through the atmosphere’. Creating gender equality in space, to most, will be something they never thought about before seeing work by WBF?. This project could be history in the making. But more importantly, it is rewriting the gender narrative and inspiring generations of feminist innovators and engineers to come.
Most of us have heard or experienced an unpleasant scary online dating experience where one party wishes they knew more about the other person in advance. Dating app Tinder has announced the introduction of a new tool that lets users run background checks on their matches before going on a date. The development of the technology aims to protect women and members of marginalised groups and help them feel safer. The feature will enable users to discover if their match has a history of violence or sex offender registry records. Although it doesn’t provide a fool proof check nor guarantee total security, it is already a welcome change. However, Tinder will only offer the first two background checks for free, and then charge £2.50 for each new search. Which raises the question: why should people pay to be safe? Surely, matchmaking platforms have a responsibility to ensure users are secure.
Striking fear into the hearts of CEOs, a lowly Twitter bot exposing corporate hypocrisy left a trail of carnage through this year's International Women's Day. The Gender Pay Gap Bot reveals the extent to which UK-based brands celebrating IWD are paying their female employees less than their male employees. Unleashed on Twitter this week, the results were brutal: organisations proudly celebrating their support of female empowerment with images of smiling workers and blandly inspiring statements were confronted with the stark truth of their own gender pay gap. The bot used publicly available information from a government database that records differences in pay between men and women in UK companies. When one of those companies tweeted with the hashtag #IWD2022, the bot retweeted them with the data on their gender pay gap. As data becomes more available and AI more intelligent – corporations will have no choice but to be 100% transparent. Unless they want to get called out.
When a brand’s slogan starts to be used in the school playground then you know the campaign has worked. Our memories of the OG ‘You should’ve gone to Specsavers” is exactly that. From playground banter to bustling boardrooms, the campaign permeated into popular culture. Simple, but effective, the original UK campaign has gone down in one of the most memorable adverts to date. That’s why the return of the campaign has been welcomed by many but also questioned by a few. Now the multinational optical retail chain has turned its 20-year-old TV tagline into a brand platform. What do you think? Should they come back for more? Some think not but let’s see what the consensus is. Genius? Maybe. Made an impact? Most definitely.
After the infamous “mouldy burger” campaign in 202, Burger King comes back stronger with another campaign, which proves to be delightfully misleading, attention grabbing and oddly conceptual. In 2021, the burger giant kicked off the year with a rebrand. They’d moved away from the 1999 logo with an updated riff on the 1969 and 1994 versions that reads “Burger King” squished between the buns. And in March 2022, Burger King’s creative agency, David Agency, created the latest Whopper campaign, which at first glance, you'd be forgiven for thinking you're staring at a macro close-up of some red meat, but instead those are peppers, beetroot and radicchio. Like all of the best print ads, this one is designed to make you double-take. This ad campaign will definitely confuse both meat eaters and plant eaters, and it admits that with its tagline "Sorry for the confusion, meat lovers,". The message: our veggie burger is so good; it can be confusing.