1. Introduction

Since the 21st century, with the development of women’s economy and the improvement of social status, the new term “her economy” has entered the public eye. This concept refers to a unique economic circle and economic phenomenon formed around female consumption [1]. At present, “her economy” has become a new growth point in economic development, causing widespread concern in society. The booming development of “her economy” provides new opportunities for brands, especially consumer brands focusing on female consumers, but also brings greater challenges for brand marketing. Under this market trend, female consumer brands add extra emotional value to their products and brands by focusing on female growth, female independence, female power, etc. [2]. However, the marketing form and content of many brands are ostensibly aimed at catering to women, packaging their products in the concept of “pleasing yourself” and “realize your self-worth”, but in reality, they are contrary to the new era of women’s consumerism in terms of values, and beauty brands are even using commercial advertisements to convey the message of age-independence. Beauty brands even use commercials to convey age anxiety and appearance anxiety. The purpose of this paper is to analyse both positive and negative cases under the guidance of marketing theory and by case analysis method. This paper cuts in from the perspective of female consumerism, studies how the market will catch the wind of the female consumer market dominated by emotional value under the new consumer market, and makes suggestions.

2. She Economic Advertising Marketing Status

According to the 2020 Women’s Quality of Life Trend Insight Report, China’s female consumer market has exceeded 10 trillion RMB [3]. Women’s increasing spending power has made women’s emotionally driven spending and potential anxiety about themselves a “wealth code” for businesses, especially in the beauty industry. Feminism has become a keyword in brand communication, with brands choosing influential female characters to act as spokespeople, appealing to modern women’s values and improving their brand image while boosting their own product sales. But, from the essence, the manufacturing of anxiety about women’s appearance serves as a fundamental weapon for brands to constantly maintain and increase their company’s profits. For example, when L’Oreal Paris invited a female e-sports Hearthstone Legends professional as a spokesperson, the brand recognized the uniqueness of her status as a female e-sports player in the male-dominated e-sports area [4]. Making her a representative of independent and powerful women encourages women to be unafraid of challenges and to make the realization of their own value a part of the brand’s communication; it is also a way to break the previous stereotype of being limited to choosing a spokesperson who takes beauty as a starting point. However, L’Oreal’s collaboration with a well-known domestic journalist on the “Are you, really, not afraid of getting old? The advert is so straightforward and obvious about the anxiety of selling. Such an advertisement itself is not to establish emotional resonance with consumers, but to provoke women’s anxiety about ageing, and the source of this anxiety is precisely the panic about the disappearance of the value of one’s own appearance when women are the objects of gaze and their appearance is the only value in the traditional gender values [5]. L’Oreal amplifies the demand for women’s self-confidence on the one hand, and weakens the supply of women’s self-confidence on the other hand, thus creating a huge lack of self-confidence and triggering negative emotions, stimulating the demand for making up for the negative emotions through consumption, and explicitly using the negative emotions to set up a consumption trap. This kind of contradictory behaviour is proof of the materialistic and narrow-minded nature behind L’Oreal’s propaganda of “women’s independence”, which represents capitalism’s pursuit of profit and the false nature of this kind of “propaganda”. In addition, women need to be aware that conceptual advertisements are not the same as “false advertisements”, which are easy to identify, and that audiences need to be more alert to the traps of consumerism behind them. True self-independence depends not only on subjective changes and verbal propaganda, but also on the ability to truly strive for life and independence like the spokespersons [6].

3. Case Analysis

Unlike L’Oreal, Ola Ballet Cat and Dove, for example, two brands in very different fields, both have positive social reactions and good brand communication through advertising and marketing.

3.1. Ola Ballet Cat

Ola Ballet Cat is a brand of Great Wall, which is dedicated to creating women’s exclusive elegant seats. It combines the essence of Chinese and Western aesthetics, and the whole is a rounded and elegant gesture, and the design concept of “Elegant Renewal Aesthetics” is in line with women’s aesthetics. Aiming at the female market, Ola understands the high emotional value attached to the products that women need, and through visual impact and inner rituals, it brings women emotional value from functional satisfaction to emotional recognition, and brings them a better experience of using the car. Therefore, while polishing the product dimension to be more suitable for women, it releases an advert called “For You” to convey the brand value and brand core. The advert uses heartfelt stories to be a powerful “companion” in women’s life scenarios, establishing a strong relationship of trust with users. It provokes users’ emotions and stands out in the homogenized creativity [7]. The advertisement is divided into three short films, namely the part of girlfriends, the part of growing up and the part of loving pets. Through different life scenarios, it directly hits the user’s heart, which not only allows the fee to listen to the core of the brand, but also makes the consumer willing to bring in relevant content, or even dialogue with it. “For You” also hits the needs of contemporary women, and is recognized by them in the dimension of emotional resonance. The expression of diverse identities in different scenarios enables different women to get a sense of involvement and thus arouse empathy. At the end of the advert, through the interpretation of companionship, soft implantation is brought into the product, and the practicality of the product is emphasized, such as the installation of rear cameras to protect women’s safety. Showing the figurative nature of companionship in details also allows more users to have a deeper understanding of the product’s points of interest. Due to gender stereotypical marketing, female drivers are always inevitably stigmatized in the social context. The design of Ola Ballet Cat, on the other hand, is designed from more perspectives, allowing women to become more comfortable in the process of driving, and allowing more women to enjoy the pleasure of driving. Under the unavoidable stereotypes, Ola Ballet Cat is designed with real heart to let users feel more possibilities about driving. Heartfelt is not all about emotional buildup, the only way to truly capture users is to truly take the user as the core and consumer demand as the benchmark. The marketing of Ola Ballet Cat takes advertising as the core, abandoning the excessive interpretation of users under the traditional social discourse, but starting from the user’s perspective, further transforming emotional identity into brand identity, and then opening up the chain of cognitive recognition and subscription.

3.2. Dove

Dove is a globally renowned brand with a history of nearly 50 years in the beauty industry and is one of Unilever’s most valuable brands. The brand’s motto is “Simple and True Beauty”. Since its inception, the brand has been committed to breaking down gender stereotypes and encouraging a woman’s natural beauty, which has won the brand almost unanimous praise in the international market. In recent years, in order to break the media’s monotonous communication of women’s images, Dove has launched a global advertising campaign “Show Us” this year, working with women around the world to build the largest photo library of real women. According to Dove, 70 per cent of women believe that their true image is ignored by the advertising media, and Dove wants every woman to be seen. In partnership with Getty Images (one of the world’s leading image creators and distributors) and Girlgaze (a creative platform that directly connects women, transgender people and brands around the world), Dove captured photographs of nearly 5,000 real women from 39 countries for advertisers to use, encouraging all women to show their true selves. Through this massive ad campaign, Dove actively promotes a diverse aesthetic. Wrinkles, spots, muscles, leucoderma and other seemingly “unattractive” features deserve to be seen and embraced. In the first year alone, the Show Us hashtag was used more than 7 million times on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. With this campaign, Dove spoke directly to the feelings of the target audience, discussing the brand’s values with them and encouraging them to be proud to be themselves. The strategic planning helped to reach a worldwide audience of female users. As women’s self-awareness continues to awaken in the eyes of female users, it is imperative to break down the stereotypes of women and the image of women in the eyes of others, and Dove’s actions can help them to reflect this social phenomenon and trigger a change in the public’s perceptions of what’s possible for the women of the future, putting an end to the world’s narrow definition of what it means to be beautiful.

4. Suggestions

4.1. Clarifying Value Judgment

In order to cope with the development trend of “her economy”, the brand should take the user as the core and value judgment as the basis, correctly grasp the user’s consumption preference, and convey positive brand values. For example, the brand in this case, Dove, has always adhered to the brand positioning of “true beauty” and the brand essence and product concept of “ultimate care”, and is committed to helping every woman get “ultimate care” and become “the best”. The company is committed to helping every woman get the “ultimate care” and become the “best version of herself”. Dove’s marketing plan is inspired by all real women, who are not only Dove’s consumers, but also Dove’s collaborators and supporters. Dove brand marketing plan will be all women as the target population, divided into girls and adult women, targeted research, every three years, Dove will carry out global research, through the research can be found that more than half of the world’s girls are dissatisfied with their own appearance, especially teenagers. So Dove launched a self-confidence programme, and consumers formed value resonance and emotional resonance, so as to stimulate and guide consumer perceptual awareness, to help consumers quickly make a purchase decision. Therefore, the brand cannot be empty promotional concepts and slogans, to be integrated into all aspects of product design, promotion and public welfare activities, the brand in the concept to achieve common values with consumers, can attract a greater sense of self-awareness of the awakening of similar values of the female fans, and is conducive to the long-term construction of the brand, for users to improve beyond the emotional value of the product itself, the establishment of a good brand reputation at the same time In addition, it is also conducive to the long-term construction of the brand, increasing the emotional value for users beyond the product itself, and building a good reputation for the brand, while also obtaining user precipitation and its stickiness.

4.2. Providing Differentiated Services

In the context of “her economy”, women’s consumption patterns show diversification and personalization, the former sloppy marketing cannot meet the needs of consumers, the new trend requires brands to understand the market situation and the premise of the consumption psychology of female consumers, tailor-made products for different groups of women to provide customers with differentiated services, especially in offline shops [8]. For example, in order to reflect their uniqueness in the group, more and more women are paying more attention to and pursuing a personalized image in both consumption and dressing, and for this reason, they tend to buy more products or services that show their distinctiveness and satisfy the extra emotional value they need. As a result, some niche brands are now increasingly sought after by women. For limited edition clothing or jewelry, due to their relative uniqueness and scarcity, they cater to women’s consumer psychology of pursuing personalization, and have also become a sought-after direction for many female consumers. Therefore, in terms of product design, brands should pay attention to the demands of this group of women and design unique products. In terms of publicity and promotion, it is also important to focus on personalization and differentiation.

4.3. Creating a Convenient Internet Platform

Along with the rapid development and popularity of e-commerce, women prefer convenient and time-saving online shopping [9]. Women’s brands should strengthen the importance of online e-commerce platforms and create online official flagship shops with a higher degree of consumer convenience. At the same time, the brand implementation of precision marketing using modern information technology can be timely product information dissemination to the target customers, and then for the brand to reduce the cost of marketing and time costs, service and product sales costs, prompting female consumers to search for the target product in the shortest possible time, will be limited marketing resources to focus on the use of the brand to obtain a higher return on investment [10]. Therefore, in the “her economy” model, the brands should actively apply e-commerce precision marketing, faster and more accurate positioning to the needs of female customers, in order to better serve female consumers. In the case, L’Oreal, Dove and other brands have opened online e-commerce sales channels. Brands should create online flagship shops, improve high-quality pre-sales and after-sales services, and improve the logistics and distribution system, which are important ways for brands to increase the convenience of customers in the purchase process. In addition, the brand online through the analysis of its shopping records, to understand the customer’s consumption habits, as far as possible to meet the customer’s personalized needs in the transaction. At the same time, during the purchase process, the products can be targeted to recommend to the user, so that female users can get a pleasant buying experience, improve loyalty and satisfaction. In this way, with the Internet and “her economy” more closely integrated, can continue to adapt to the new changes in the needs of modern women.

5. Conclusion

She-economy is a new group economic form, showing unique consumption trends. Brands need to correctly grasp the values of female consumers and convey positive emotional values. And currently many brands create women’s anxiety about appearance, age, etc. as a strategy to constantly maintain and increase company profits. This way of using negative emotions to increase product sales is wrong. This study combines emotional value and her economy to form a marketing framework for female consumerism, which bridges the theoretical gap of how brands go about adapting to the female consumer market in the new era. By analysing successful marketing models, this study points out that brands should really start from the needs of female consumers, break the social stereotypes of women, and allow users to transform from emotional identification with the brand to brand identification. In terms of practical contribution, this paper proposes that brands should take “value judgment” as the basis and important premise of marketing, and integrate positive emotional value into products and publicity; brands should avoid homogeneity and meet the personalized needs of female users through differentiated services; and brands should build a convenient Internet platform to achieve e-commerce precision marketing, thus improving the convenience of female users. Female users to provide convenience, thus improving brand competitiveness. Finally, in the construction of the marketing system, this paper only focuses on values, 4C integrated marketing theory and so on, and does not involve other elements of marketing such as public relations, competitive strategy and other levels, which are yet to be analyzed in future studies.