The period is political - Activist advertising of female sanitary products

Sammanfattning: This thesis aims to understand the use of political messages as part of a branding strategy through a discourse analysis. The empirical material consists of two campaigns advertising female sanitary products; Always #LikeAGirl (2014) and Libresse Blood Normal (2017), with a purpose to understand the incorporation and the adaptation of activist and feminist discourse in these commercial campaigns. What happens to feminism as a political project and struggle when its key ideas and discourses are co-opted by market forces, and how this kind of advertising is used in the process of building brands.The theoretical framework consists of critical perspectives on Postfeminism, Counterculture in relation to consumer culture and Transmedia storytelling. The campaigns are understood in a Swedish context. In the analysis two nodal points are identified; Active/healthy femininity and Responsibility, where the subject positions within the campaigns and the understanding of the subject positions of the campaigns in a marketing context are explored. By formulating different (political) problems in their marketing, Libresse and Always has the discursive power to position themselves as part of the solution to the problem of girls and women’s low self-esteem. On one hand, the solution includes consuming female sanitary products or interact with the brand on social media. On the other hand this means that the brands position themselves as political actors, advocating women’s rights.