Digital Marketing- The Extractor of the Deleterious Elements of Society!

I am going to start by asking you a few questions that will provide you with an idea of how influential our society can be on our psyche. Have you ever done something merely because you knew people around you would appreciate it? Have you ever buried your dreams, aspirations, and individuality because of the fear of exclusion from society? Have you ever let the harshness of society make you feel less of a person than you are? For me, the answer to all of these questions is sadly in affirmative. And I am pretty sure that you must have had the pleasure of experiencing at least one of these in your life at some point. And this fact needs to change. Why should we let someone else dictate our lives? Why should we feel ashamed of ourselves because of society’s wrong judgment? Why should we be the ones falling victim when we have the power of being the liberator? Do you think I am wrong? I will tell you a situation that would make you understand my point even further. I lost my job in the pandemic, as many of us did. My primary source of income was gone with it. That was the point in my life when I had finally become loan-free after years of jumping installments because of a lack of money management. When I lost my job, the friends I thought I had become distant. When I asked them for monetary help, nobody was willing, despite having the funds. People living in my building started looking down on me because I had not paid the rent that month and the news had spread. I applied for government benefits and had a freelancing job; still, I needed more money, so I got one of the loans for poor credit on benefits and tried to sail through. Even when we are at our lowest with distress being the only feeling we have, society would only contribute to making us feel worse. Why should we have to endure that? Our society and the parameters it has set for us to fit in are not only unrealistic, but they are also more than bizarre. So, we need to break them. We need to transcend every limitation and inhibition that society had ingrained in us and be our wonderful, beautiful, accomplished selves. We can try doing it one person at a time. The only problem with this is that it would take decades to change every deleterious element in society and make the world a happy place for us all. But what if there was a concept that would take this goal of transformation to a global platform? Would that not be a blessing for us all? And the good thing is I know one such way.

Digital Marketing and Its Virtue

This is a concept that uses the internet and makes brands a household name all over the world. But it can be used for so much more than just product advertising. Digital Marketing has made it possible for brands to address the negative side of our community and make it take a positive turn. Look at the Black Live Matter campaign, all the digital platforms and the importance given to the same by major brands on their social media handles has moved to a global event, wherein a change is almost foreseeable in the future. Digital Marketing has the potential of uniting the world through the internet and making it seem less unfortunate and more prosperous for those of us who are suffering. Here are two social injustices that we have to face every day and how digital marketing has ensured that a change would start.

Encouraging Gender Equality 

I would start with a social injustice that has had the most impact on how women are perceived. Ever since the dawn of time, women have been considered to be inferior to men, and the sad part is the majority of us still believe it to be true. Women are more emotional than men; Women are less strong than men; Women are not meant for boardroom discussions like men; Women should know that their careers are so much less significant than that of their male counterparts; Women like Margaret Thatcher, Theresa May, and Angela Merkel have proven that women have the brains and the competency of running an entire nation better than any man could.  So, why is the discussion still on? The biggest democracy in the world, the USA, has not had a woman president so far. Is this not proof that women are not considered equals? Women face more rejections on their loan applications than men, everywhere in the world. Some lenders have tried to remove the prejudice, like AOne Credit, but there is still a long road ahead.

The Digital Campaign 

All over the world, a common phrase is used to insult men. I am sure you must have heard the phrase “like a girl,” and I am also sure you must have used it once, or it must have been used on you at least once. If “like a boy” does not have a negative connotation, then why does doing something like a girl has to be humiliating. People need to understand this. And Always’ digital marketing campaign tried its bit of making people understand the same with its #likeagirl campaign. If you look at the ad, you would realize that being a girl does not have to demean. The phrase like a girl should mean doing something with as much dedication and strength as possible.  The ad made headlines globally as it should have, and every digital platform was inundated with its clippings. I think it paved the way for gender equality or at least started the dialogue about it. Kudos to Always!

Promoting a Healthy Body Image

At present our society has two standards of the body for the women; One is to be the stick-thin, size zero models we see on the runways; And second to have the perfect hourglass figure like Nicki Minaj and the Kardashians. So, people like me, who do not fall into these two categories are often considered to be flawed and imperfect. It results in low self-esteem and develops a self-hatred in the individuals for their own body. People starve themselves to make society accept them. Why else do you think problems like anorexia and bulimia nervosa, are so prevalent in the present times? Apart from the way our body is shaped, we are also often criticized about our facial features; If someone tells us we have a gummy smile, we become conscious and start smiling less; If someone tells us that our forehead is little too big on our face, we start hiding it with our hair or makeup; If someone tells us our nose looks odd on our face, we might even go the extreme and get a rhinoplasty. We would do all this because we are already insecure about our bodies and our appearance. If people highlight the same insecurities, we become all the more insecure, and our confidence takes a plunge to the bottom of the sea.

The Digital Campaign

In this aspect, Dove, along with Twitter, developed a digital marketing campaign that made people feel good about them. A person will not be affected by criticism if he knows he is good at what he is being criticized for. So the root of the problem is what we are thinking and believing. So, Dove and Twitter started a #speakbeautiful, which highlighted one fact, and that was to think highly of ourselves.  If someone calls us ugly, we should never think that we are ugly, instead focus on how beautiful we are. You might have crooked teeth, but that does not mean that your smile is not going to be fair. Once we start appreciating ourselves, all of our strengths and weaknesses, we would genuinely overcome the societal standard of beauty and make our parameters that would know no boundary ever.

Winding Up

In the end, all I want to say is that society and everything that it imposes on us is nothing that can hold us back. We are more than a predefined parameter; we are our person,  we can look any way we want to,  we can dress any way we want to,  we can become anyone we want to, and society can never stop us. The fact that big brands understand this is a great help for all of us. Their support in changing the world can make that change happen. From Reebok to BBC, every one of these brands has had a digital marketing campaign that has contributed to the extraction of social taboos and making the world more accommodating to all kinds of people and celebrates their individualities. Digital marketing is one of the few platforms that is not constricted by national boundaries. It is something that all of us, despite being in Indonesia or the UK, can access. So, businesses that are not only using this medium to enhance their personal gains, but also eradicating the deleterious elements of the society are the business that needs more support from us. What do you think? 

Description:

Digital marketing is one of the most significant platforms in the world to create awareness about what is appropriate and inappropriate in society. Here are a couple of ways it has done the same.