Aug. 27--Bic thought "Act like a lady, think like a man" made a great ad slogan. SheKnows Media thought it made a great teaching moment.
The entire ad, "Look like a girl, act like a lady, think like a man, work like a boss," was the brainchild of the pen-maker's South Africa division and was designed to honor National Women's Day (in South Africa) on Bic's Facebook page.
Women, feeling the opposite of honored, took to social media with such swift and unanimous outrage that the company removed the ad and apologized.
Meanwhile, SheKnows gathered a group of teens and tweens in New York to discuss the message the ad sends to boys and girls, men and women. The media company runs a workshop program called Hatch, which encourages kids ages 7 to 17 to discuss social issues and create content around those discussions.
The Hatchlings created a video wherein they consider and dispute the ad's directives.
"Why would you think like a man?" asks one girl. "I mean, not all men are smart. Some men are dumb. Some men are geniuses. Wouldn't you want to think like a smart person?"
"You can think like a woman and still work like a boss," another girl notes.
Smart kids.
"We discuss topics that would be relevant and educational to the kids and also to the grown-ups we serve," Samantha Skey, chief revenue officer for SheKnows and founder of Hatch, told me.
"Our primary goal as a media company is to educate grown-ups and to allow kids to enlighten their parents, their educators, their aunts, their uncles, their older siblings," Skey said. "The purpose really is to inspire adults to have more open dialogues with their kids about race, gender, the use of technology. It's really a conduit to understanding how kids think."
Previous Hatch videos have focused on Caitlyn Jenner, Super Bowl commercials, the word "bossy" and other social issues.
"We never script the kids," Skey said. "We never tell them what to say. That's one thing we're really adamant about. We never know what's going to come out of their mouths."
Which makes Hatch the antithesis (thank goodness) of those swearing princesses videos we were subjected to last fall, wherein little girls were dressed up and coached to drop "f-bombs for feminism." Gag.
"Our goal is not to cultivate a group of future celebrities," Skey said. "We're trying to cultivate a group of thinkers."
Creating a product for the public to consume is also part of that goal.
"We do focus on teaching the kids to produce responsible, thoughtful content themselves," she said. "We talk about the fundamentals of online security, making a thoughtful beginning, middle and end, considering their audience, considering their sources."
And if the result is a world in which fewer ads like Bic's "Act like a lady, think like a man" get created, all the better.
"That's what we're trying to advance, the idea that advertising can be decent and thoughtful about what they're propagating," Skey said. "We want advertisers and consumers to think about the choices they make and the message they're putting out there."
Ideally before they post it on Facebook.
hstevens@tribpub.com
