How to Avoid These Common Brandsplaining Mistakes with Jane Cunningham

My guest today is Jane Cunningham, the co-author of the highly-acclaimed book Brandsplaining: Why Marketing is (Still) Sexist and How to Fix It.

Jane is also the Co-Founder of PLH - the UK's leading market research agency specializing in female audiences. She began her career in advertising at such notable agencies at DDB and Ogilvy. As she rose through the ranks to become part of the leadership teams, Jane repeatedly noticed how female customers were perceived in ways that were - at best - inaccurate and - at worst – diminishing and dismissive.

 I invited Jane to be a guest on my show to discuss why brands need to understand women’s motivations and decision-making in order truly be successful. I wanted to learn how she and her business partner Philippa, are attempting to right the wrong that’s still going on in branding today. And, I was curious to hear the story behind the name Brandsplaining.

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Transcript

Joelly Goodson : 0:10

Hi, I'm Joelly, your Branding Badass, and welcome to Season Two of Branding Matters. My guest today is Jane Cunningham, the co author of a book called

Brandsplaning: 0:20

why marketing is still sexist and how to fix it. Jane is also the co founder of PLH, the UK's leading market research agency specializing in female audiences. I invited Jane to be guests on my show to discuss why brands need to start understanding women's motivations and decision making in order to truly be successful. I wanted to learn how she and her business partner Philippa are attempting to right the wrong that is still going on in branding today. And I was curious to hear the story behind named Brandsplaining. Jane, I'm so thrilled to have you with us here today. Welcome to Branding Matters.

Jane Cunningham: 1:01

Thank you so much. It's great to be here. And Lovely to see you again Joelly.

Joelly Goodson : 1:06

Oh, it's lovely to see you too. I'm so impressed with what you're doing and about your book. And I want to talk about all of it. You know, it's interesting when I'm researching guests for my podcast, and a lot of people that are in the ad world, especially the leaders, whether they're owners or creative directors, they're all men, most a lot of them are I've had a couple of women on and yourself included, but it's mostly male dominated. So do you think that that affects how brands are going to market? I mean, we're going to talk about your book and brand splaining. But do you think that might have a reason for why there is that imbalance in the way brands are?

Jane Cunningham: 1:39

Yeah, definitely. I mean, I believe in the US only about 11% of creative directors are women. And it's higher here in the UK, 35%, but still male dominated. And of course, at the same time you have most CEOs are still men, the men leading kind of businesses and particularly big businesses. So even if you do have a female marketing director, and there are now quite a lot of female marketing directors, she's quite often stuck between the male lens of the creative director and the male lens of the of the CEOs struggling to help them understand what it is that women really want. And that's the problem in a nutshell really, that women struggled to get heard and struggled to get and research because we're all sort of so used to culture shaping women to please others, rather than culture sort of setting out to understand what it is that women want for themselves, how it is they would like their lives to be from their perspective. And invariably that therefore limits brand's ability to connect with them. If it's all produced through the male lens, the lens that tells women what they should be, because that's helpful or pleasing to men, then what an opportunity for brands that take the alternative perspective and choose to present and project from a female perspective. So I think we would say that that's a really big and important part of moving marketing and brands on in terms of their relationship with women is ensuring that there is at least equal representation of women and particularly in those crucial creative roles, which is where the ideas come from.

Joelly Goodson : 3:06

Interesting. So when you get accounts to work on, was it divided up? Like whenever there was an account, let's say for I don't know, some kind of woman product, whether it's perfume, or makeup, or nylons, women automatically assigned to those accounts and men are assigned to like the alcohol and the cars.

Jane Cunningham: 3:23

And definitely, that definitely was the case, when we were working in advertising. I think it probably has improved a bit now in terms of the account teams. But it is still the case that once you get to the creative process, it is male dominated, but we were certainly always assigned the sort of, you know, the 10 pounds. Yeah.

Joelly Goodson : 3:43

So were you a fan a madman Did you watch it

Jane Cunningham: 3:46

Yeah, it was great.

Joelly Goodson : 3:48

Yeah. You know, it just remind me what we're talking about, you know, Peggy Olson would get like the pantyhose accounts, right. It's just made me think of it more talking.

Jane Cunningham: 3:57

So yeah, well, that definitely resonated for us even watching Mad Men, which should have been wildly out of days by the time we watched it. But of course, it wasn't.

Joelly Goodson : 4:05

Of course not. I know. Isn't that funny how that is? Yeah, crazy. So let's talk about you know, we're talking about men and women. And right now we're living in a time where there's a lot of blurred lines and gender definitions really have changed a lot. Right now. It's a I have two teenage children, when they talk with their friends. They don't say he or she they say them, right. Yeah, there's always this blurred definition. So do you feel that brands are keeping up with them? And how do you think they've changed as the terminology and the vernacular has changed?

Jane Cunningham: 4:35

I think brands struggle like lots of people do to understand where people are at in terms of gender blurring, and it's very early days. Certainly the younger women that we speak with are in the main dedicated to the idea that gender is a construct and that it can be and generally is a very limiting set of ideas, in particular for women. However, how that gets played out in terms of what women buy and what not bias is yet to really come to fruition. I mean, there are gender neutral brands, particularly in clothing, and to an extent and beauty. But in clothing in particular, it's pretty notable that most of the stuff that is called gender neutral or engendered is actually male clothing. There's very little about that, that you would associate with female. But I think what is true to say, despite the fact that it is pretty nascent in marketing is that all audiences of women young, old, midlife, they're all conscious and much more outspoken than ever about marketing that diminishes them in both the sort of overt ways and in the in the sneakily sexist ways their social media has given them an opportunity to voice this because, of course, it disintermediate, the male editor, which has been so dominant over the last however many hundreds of years. So that is certainly something that women are much more outspoken about gender blurring for us. And in terms of the research we do feels like something which is much more commonly understood and taken on board by the younger audience, the older audience still tend to be pretty bewildered by the whole thing.

Joelly Goodson : 6:05

Oh, yeah. You have children,too. Right?

Jane Cunningham: 6:06

You I have two, I have a 15 year old boy and I have a 12 year old girl.

Joelly Goodson : 6:11

Okay, so similar. So are they very much in tune with that?

Jane Cunningham: 6:14

Oh, yeah.I mean, I, you know, there are bear traps everywhere. And, you know, I love that I love the fact that they're, you know, they're so conscious on other people's behalf. And I think what they have is a genuine understanding of just how important languages, which is one of the things that I think has been an important part of the work that we do is trying to help the marketing people understand that there is a lot in the minutiae, and the little details of what gets played out and marketing, which is unhelpful, or diminishing, or limiting. And I think that's something the younger generation have really taken on board, that language is vital, it is really important, and it does have impact, and it can be very harmful, and that you need to be careful what you say, you know, it's a great thing. It's a great development. Yeah, even if it does mean I get into hot water go yeah, all the time.

Joelly Goodson : 6:58

You know, it's funny, I want to back up for a second, you talked about clothing, I work in the clothing world, right? I say, to my customers, and I've been doing this for 20 years. And when we started most styles were unisex, right? That's what we called it, we call the men, you know, hoodies, or jackets, or whatever. And there was a huge demand from our clients where they wanted men's and Lady styles because what they used to do is they would take a men's let's say, a golf shirt, I sold a million golf shirts, and they would take the men's and they would get an extra small but it still didn't fit right. So there was a lot of demand for women's style. So it took many years. And now here I am. 20 years later, everything comes in men's only two styles, right, ladies cut and men's cut. And it's great. Well, now, you talked about that. And I read an article recently, where now there's a demand for non gender specific clothing again, and yeah, and I'm kind of going wait a minute, I was there. And there was a complaint because and we call it unisex. And now they want it non gender specific. So it's like, I'm not sure where that's going. And I'm curious to know your take on that?

Jane Cunningham: 8:03

Well, I suppose one of the issues that constantly arises when it comes to things being non gendered is that quite often what that means is male, the default thing is, well, therefore it's male. So like, you describe the shirt as default male. Yeah. And then the extra small is supposed to be for women, but it's not actually. Exactly. So provided within this sort of unisex, gender neutral model, there is room for diverse shape, whether that is female shape, or male shape, or big or smaller, whatever, airy, and whatever it is, then that's okay, isn't it. But the issue for us, I think, is that so often, and that wonderful book, invisible women, which you may or may not have read, which is a brilliant book, which demonstrates how the whole of our economy of our science of our medicine is really based on understanding men and what it is that they want to need and giving them what they want to need, and then doing a sort of pale version for women that that's the mode and the model that gets adopted. So I think that's what I think, yeah, is that quite often it's just an excuse for making something right for men and then not doing anything for women. And if that's the case, then obviously that's profoundly unhelpful for women. Yeah,

Joelly Goodson : 9:11

I agree. So let's talk about your brand. splaining. I love the name. What inspired you to write this book? And how did you come up with a name?

Unknown: 9:17

Well, the name you'll know, mansplaining, presumably the term mansplaining, which comes from that wonderful essay, men explain things to me, which is where the author discusses the drinks party that she goes to. And she'd written this incredibly sort of erudite book. And she'd actually written many books, but she turned up to this drinks party at which this man proceeded to describe her own book at her. So somebody said, you know, you should read it. And he said, Oh, yes, I've just read this wonderful book and started to tell her all the bedroom book and she kept trying to interject saying, that's my book. I read that and he ignored her and eventually, he's the man spender and her base, and we really love that story because for us, it really helped sort of encapsulate what we feel is at the heart of the problem in marketing still, which is that brands continue to assume that they are in charge of the relationship with their female customers in the same way, he assumed that he could explain to this woman her own book, that's why we're called a brand splaining really was to try and sort of sum up what we think is the is wrong with the nature of the relationship that brands and brand owners assume they have with their female customers.

Joelly Goodson : 10:27

That's interesting. I love that. Can you give an example of how Brown would be in charge of a woman?

Jane Cunningham: 10:31

Well, we talk about the culture generally seems to be in the business of telling women how to be and what they should be. And so for little girls, that means being soft and being affectionate and being good with animals and caring. For young women, it's about being very focused on your parents and ensuring that you're sexy and alluring to men. For women with children, it's about being the perfect mom. And then for older women, it's about disappearing. Because you're no longer needed. You're sort of redundant, I guess, as far as the male lens is concerned. And so the ways in which marketing sort of crystallize those ideals is that you see it in toy marketing, where babies and animals and soft colors like pastels are used to target little girls, were the sort of plethora of makeup and haircare and beauty brands targeting women and even greater quantities in terms of what young women are consuming. telling young women how they look is what matters. And then of course, there's the perfect mom ideal. That's my dad. Okay,

Joelly Goodson : 11:36

that's the background. Hey, you know what? It's okay. I've had many dogs and kids in on my podcast. It's funny. So this is real life, right?

Jane Cunningham: 11:46

I've got a puppy, a new puppy, and then old dog. And so the old dog is trying to teach the new puppy lesson.

Joelly Goodson : 11:53

So that's funny. Well, it's all good. Not to worry. You know, it's funny. You talk about makeup to girls. And so back to children for a second my son, I don't know if you know, this is a drag queen. He does drag. Oh, really? Okay, cool. So I think he you know, makeup is a big thing for him. And it's interesting, because he's shown me like, especially like on Instagram, and you're seeing men wearing makeup. Now brands are targeting more men. So are you seeing that shift? Or do you still think we have such a long way to go?

Jane Cunningham: 12:22

I think it's still pretty at the beginning of its journey. I mean, I think there are some brands, which have done really great things, obviously, over the last 10 years, which is part of the reason for writing the book now, I guess is that there do seem to be brands that are really trying to do things different. And it started I guess, with Dove and many brands, like always from Procter doing a really brilliant job, you know, trying to sort of deconstruct ideas of shame around menstruation, and obviously, shame about being like a girl. So all of that stuff is genuine progress. And there are lots of beauty brands, which features you say men as well as women, and just assume that men are wearing makeup in the same way that women or men are wearing makeup, and they don't make a big deal out of it. But we would say there are still too many brands who are in their efforts to appear femme powering or feminist or using feminism as a sort of method for selling are really just doing the same thing as the brands used to do in the past, which instead of saying be thin, they're saying Be brave, instead of saying be pretty, they're saying be the boss, it's all the same stuff, which is you're not good enough, change yourself, be better lean in, you know, you're just not good enough as you are. And that for us is really problematic. And of course, there's still a lot of build kind of reconstructed stuff out there as well. So you still have lots of brands out there telling women to be thinner, be blonder, be whiter, and you still have particularly through the unregulated channels like social media, highly sexualized representations of young women and often very young women, which is an actual regressive step in social media, like feminism, generally it comes in waves, doesn't it? And it can often be two steps forward one step back. Some of the developments like social media have been brilliant in one way, but they've also been terrible in another way.

Joelly Goodson : 14:04

Yeah. So should we say about younger generation? I think you're absolutely right. You know, the name escapes me right now. But there was a brilliant movie that came out. And I know it was very controversial. A lot of people talk to her. Do you know what I'm talking about? Where they had those young kids in France, these young this and it was this young girl specifically, and she wanted to be a part of this girl group. And it was very sexualized. Oh, yeah. There was so much about it. Yeah. All over the media. People were like complaining and quitting Netflix, which is kind of a shame because I watched the movie and it was a commentary on the exact exact thing and it actually was saying how bad it is and how younger girls these 12 year olds are being sexualized younger and yeah, and social media has a big impact on it. Do you know what it is? And it is I do know the movie. We're talking about one of those terrible dilemmas, isn't it? You know, because you say to a young woman who is in her words, I want to go around in a highly sexualized manner behaving It's my choice. But it's not really a choice, you know, because it's part of this superstructure isn't it, which says, and which has been telling girls and women for years and years that in order to secure approval and patronage, you have to be sexy and alluring to men, and that that's the way to achieve security. And then particular, I guess, in a more traditional context, achieve marriage and children that that's sort of deeply embedded in our culture. And quite often girls without understanding that sort of superstructure without understanding that big and broad context, can justifiably say, Well, I'm just doing what I want, why can't I do what I want? We were discussing Billy Eilish, you know, her Vogue cover, and I'm sure video artist is doing this and incredibly sort of knowing way, but at the end of the day, for women who have been sort of battling not to be imprisoned by these sort of perfectionist narratives, to see somebody, a young person who is so amazingly sort of confident, and has been so good at seeing off the pressure to be, you know, this sort of younger Britney Spears, it feels sad, it does feel like a regressive step somehow, not necessarily for her as an individual, but generally just does feel sad, you know, you think Well, that's a shame that that's the direction that's been decided on. Yeah, it's interesting at the pressure, and you wonder where it's coming from and talking about your book, what are some of the principles of your book?

Unknown: 16:24

The book is in three parts. The first part is about where marketing has come from, which talks about those sort of deeply embedded cultural norms, which suggests that women need to be a particular way in order to succeed in life. And the second part of the book is really a sort of data led analysis of where we are now. So we did a big study of 14,000 women across the world, we did a really big content analysis of ads in the US, the UK and in Australia. And what all of that suggests is that yes, things have changed. We have moved on, but we haven't moved on enough. And then we set out some principles in the third part of the book, which take us to what we hope will be a better place and a place where you know, marketing can be genuinely sexism free. We talk about brands like Bumble going into the dating app market, which felt very predatory, very undermining for women and doing something completely different and putting women back in charge and hugely successful as consequence. And obviously Whitney Wilf just kind of hit the NASDAQ and very impressive,

Joelly Goodson : 17:22

Do you know her story of why she started Bumble? Know what her story is?

Jane Cunningham: 17:27

Uh, no,

Joelly Goodson : 17:27

It's great. And it ties in perfectly with what we're talking about. So she worked at, I want to say like, either match.com, or plenty of fish, or one of the other ones. And something happened with one of her bosses, and don't quote me on this, anyone is listening. But read her story, you know, she was quite young, she was working there, and she was sexually harassed. And so and she couldn't, I think it was like someone in a very leadership role, who had a lot of power over her. And so she said, Screw this, and she went out and became her own entity. And you're right, and now she's hugely successful.

Jane Cunningham: 17:58

So often, these female run brands and founded brands do come from a personal experience. So we talk a lot about female made brands and had their experiences often within their categories have led them to develop newer and better ways of talking to women, we talk a lot about the need for masculinity to move on. And that it's very difficult for femininity or femaleness or female marketing to move unless the masculine can do the same. And that if you look at marketing, the targets men, which is most often sort of, I guess, it comes out of all the old typically sort of macho masculine paradigms that have been there for years, it's about being powerful, it's about being strong. It's about being separate from people, it's about not having feelings or emotions, if it's about being in charge, it's about better, faster, stronger, you know, there is this sort of very narrow and limited palette of communication styles and approaches which target men to and of course, the more that marketing cements those ideas of masculinity, the harder it is for femininity or femaleness to move and to broaden and to be more diverse that continues in that sort of binary way, which is pretty unhelpful for men, but particularly unhelpful for women.

Joelly Goodson : 19:08

I think and I can only speak for myself, I guess, you know, when I get dressed in the morning, and I put makeup on and I put on a nice dress, I do it for myself. Yeah, that that earlier about the branding, as far as before women, like you said to feel more accepted by men or by other people, they would want to look their best for them. Whereas now I like what you said about it's doing it for me, because when I go shopping, or I do my hair, my makeup, it's for myself to make myself feel better.

Jane Cunningham: 19:35

Yeah, that's it's so true. God, I mean, and when we talk to women, you know, it's not that they're saying, we reject the idea of makeup, we reject the idea of fashion and clothing. In fact, it's a creative process. And it's something that women really enjoy doing and there's a lot of play value in it. But why does it have to be so fraught you know, if you look at advertising or marketing around fashion and RAM beauty, I would think it's the most serious stuff. In the world, and that it's a subject that women agonize over, you know, look at my crow's feet, oh my God, I've got a gray hair. This isn't the way women feel about the way that they look. Or if they do, it's only because marketing is telling them that that's how they should feel. And in fact, what does he say what women enjoy doing is getting out their makeup, and it is about play. And it is about self expression. And it's about creativity. And there's nothing wrong with that there's nothing harmful or diminishing about that.

Joelly Goodson : 20:25

Right? And one about touching on the feminine aspect of it too. Do you think women can still be feminine and express their femininity, whether it's through flowery clothing or whatever, and still be strong and powerful? Do you have to be a woman pretending to be a man in a man's world to be successful? Or can you just be a feminine woman and wear high heels and still be empowered and strong and successful?

Jane Cunningham: 20:49

What exactly I'm gonna think the biggest problem with this sort of leaning model, and this idea that it's about being powerful and strong, which are really sort of masculine words, I guess, you know, are traditionally very masculine words is that quite often, most of the stuff that gets labeled as femme powering is really about saying to women be more like men, what it's not saying is all kinds of ways of being are valid and have something to contribute, and matter and are important. And you can choose from that whole palette, which you want to be whether you're a man or woman, the problem is that the default again, as we talked about, right at the top of the conversation, the default is the masculine, that's what's important. That's what matters. That's what's serious. That's what counts. And therefore, if you want to be taken seriously, and you want to be important, you need to mirror all of that sort of classic sort of masculine way of being. And so yes, women can be feminine. Of course they can. And so can men wear a flower dress? Right? Yeah. And that's what

Joelly Goodson : 21:53

I was gonna say. And it goes the other way around, too, right? Well, yeah, want to do that that shouldn't reflect who you are, and how, yeah,

Jane Cunningham: 21:59

where your skills are? And why should men be limited? And in fact, their palette is even more limited, isn't it? You know, because the sort of inherent in the notions of masculinity are unchanging, this being sure being Rocksteady, never changing your mind be knowing exactly what you're doing all the time. It's very difficult for men to be able to change, you know, there's got to be some loosening of those ropes.

Joelly Goodson : 22:22

What do you think brands need to do to change that

Unknown: 22:24

There are a number of things and I think the first thing we would say is look at those brands that women have invented, and see what they're doing, and see that you can have huge success by showing women as they are not as you want them to be. When we did research, you know, quite often people would say, I don't want to steal these models and advertising and clients would say, but they always say that, as if always saying it was a good reason not to listen, you know, really very, very perverse sort of response to women saying things, but it was inconvenient to believe that because they had lots of evidence that suggested what had worked, but they hadn't tried the alternative. So we would say listen very carefully to women. And really listen, don't just ask questions, which are, would you like Product A with this type of jargon in it? Or product B with that kind of jargon? And why not ask Do you want any products with jargon in it? Or would you like something else altogether? So ask the questions differently kind of property, listen to women, there's lots to be learned from looking at what's happening in culture more broadly, and what it is that women are watching. So they're watching working moms and motherland. They're not watching programs, which set at that kind of perfect mom ideal. And younger women are watching Moxie, they're not watching films, which are setting them out to be these sort of perfect little good girls. So taking inspiration from culture more generally, we think is important.

Joelly Goodson : 23:49

That's very powerful. And I think you're right on the money, I think it has to be done. Otherwise, how are brands going to stay relevant, right? Because women ultimately are becoming more and more the consumers. And probably when you think about it, women probably wore consumers all along. But now they're having more of a voice versus being told what to do. Now they're sort of making their choice and saying, Okay, well, we want to align ourselves with this brand. I mean, we talk a lot about branding and about connecting with your audience. People want to buy and do business and connect with brands that align with their belief. So if a brand is not going to give you the opportunity to feel strong and empowered, then you're not going to align yourself with them ultimately buy your products from them. Right. So I think brands need to step up more. So I see it happening. I mean, I definitely see it in advertising. I see it on social media, but I agree with you, I think now more than ever, there's been such a shift. That's why your book really appealed to me because I think there's gonna be a lot more changes coming. Would you agree with that? Oh, yeah, definitely. I mean, it feels like there is a genuine sort of tipping point in play now. And I think COVID Even though it has been terrible for a lot of women in terms of the impact on their jobs and their lifestyles, and you know, having to suddenly take on Lots of responsibilities back in the domestic space that they hadn't had to for years. But it's demonstrated that actually the roots are very shallow in terms of progress. And I think women are feeling quite angry about that, you know, in their properties, sort of, certainly in the research that we do angry about the fact that so little has been done on their behalf to ensure that they can contribute in the way that they want to. And now that there's a genie is out of the bottle, and social media has allowed that genie to get out of the bottle, there's no putting it back in already. So brands are going to have to respond. And the brands that we talked about this female made brands have an indirect impact as well, it's not just the direct impact on sales in the market, the indirect impact is that they make those other brands look really old fashioned. So you have brands like third love coming into the market, you know, and saying, look, it's all about comfort, and we're going to have half cup sizes. Why do you have to only full cup sizes? That's ridiculous, because women's breasts are like that. And then you know, Victoria's Secret is a massive bit of free food, because it's so I mean, disastrously sort of male lens, and so out of step with where women are, and then obviously doing this sort of pretend for empowerment thing now, sort of at the last minute, while at the same time, selling all that sort of scratchy nylon, sort of soft pornography So you're not a big fan of Victoria's Secret?

Jane Cunningham: 26:18

You know, there's a market for Victoria's Secret. At the end of the day. You know what, I don't think there's anything wrong with lingerie again, it's Bo yo sexy, and you want to wear it for yourself. I don't think anything wrong with it. But but I know it's crazy. What's going on with Victoria's Secret. Now they're trying desperately to get out of it. So no, well, you know, Victoria's Secret, if you think about that catwalk model was a catwalk show, and is the most brilliant encapsulation of the good girl narrative. All these women prior to the show, making themselves thinner, their bodies harder, trying to look more and more beautiful. They get to the show, they're trotting up and down in the lingerie looking fabulous. And then the best and they're called Angels, good girls. I mean, could there be any other way than that? They've got wings. And then what happens at the end of the show, the best angel gets to wear the wedding lingerie. You know, I mean, it couldn't be more. It couldn't be more sort of explicit what it's doing. But women are rejecting it. You know, they're rejecting it. Because of that. It's just out of date.

Joelly Goodson : 27:18

Yeah, definitely. Okay, I know you have to go. But I have one more thing I want to talk to you about because I love talking about this is how do you feel about the filters and lenses that are now all over social media? Because I think there's dim to teen putting on makeup and doing your hair getting ready in the morning. But now you might even see real people on social media because of filters that people are doing to make themselves you know, it's the modern day Photoshop where everybody's doing it. I know, know what your take is on that?

Jane Cunningham: 27:47

Well, I think it's really quite frightening, particularly for very young girls and women kind of 1011 12 year olds, altering their appearance, you know, really high proportion of young girls are altering their appearance, because they don't feel that the way that they actually look is good enough, because of what they see on social media because of what they see on social media. Yeah, a horrible sort of vicious circle where what they're seeing is some sort of perfection, then they feel that they've got to look like that. But that perfection they're looking at is huge. These sort of photoshopped, and so while TV and print advertising has changed in those regulated spaces, they have to say where they Photoshopped, that isn't the case on social media, and they've got to be regulated, because it's profoundly harmful because those young girls are looking at that stuff. And consuming that stuff, day in day out hour after hour after hour. And it's an altered reality. These people don't exist that they're saying. So when they look in the mirror, and they see themselves as they are, they think they're ugly, you know, and they're not they just look like people.

Joelly Goodson : 28:50

It's really something now I think everything you see on Instagram are most everything you see on Instagram and then tick tock as well. I see women my age. I'm like, she looks like she's 24 Oh, no. No easy. So anyway, well, yeah, Daisy, this is such an interesting topic. Jane, if people want to learn more about you, and about what you're doing and about brand splaining I'm assuming you're on social media, what's the best way for them to reach out to you?

Jane Cunningham: 29:16

We are we're on Instagram, we're not on Twitter, because it's not the best place to be if you're us, but we're on Instagram at PLH research and you know, we have a website, which is PLH research.com. So you can go on there. And so either of those places are good places to find us and I'm on LinkedIn.

Joelly Goodson : 29:33

Okay, great. And just quickly, we didn't touch on this, but so PLH is the company that you started. So can you tell us what that's about?

Jane Cunningham: 29:40

Well PLH stands for pretty little head because our first book was called inside her pretty little head which was a sort of heavily ironic title, which is about understanding what goes on when women are buying things basically. And so we've we actually shortened it down to PLH. Partly because TJ and convenient having websites are having email addresses with pretty little head. I UK, but also because some people don't get the irony think that we're, we're being sort of disparaging in some way which is which of course we weren't. It certainly wasn't the intention. So yep, that's it. That's about it. We often work with brands, which are targeting men and want to target women don't want to understand how to do it without turning men off. And then we have brands who feel like they're maybe a little outmoded, they're a bit out of date, they've been doing stuff in a very traditional way. They want to understand how to update what it is that they do. So we do consultancy projects around that kind of thing, too.

Joelly Goodson : 30:35

Oh, interesting. And do you work with brands all over the world? Are you specific to the UK? Where's your we do most of our work is with the UK in the US. But a lot of those brands or clients are but a lot of those brands, you know, will sell products in other countries to Australia and we've done quite a bit of work in France. Yeah, thank you. Well, we're living in a world right now where right the digital world that we're living in, look at you and I are talking and we're raising, you know what I have listeners all over. It's been great. It's growing up listeners in the UK, Australia, the place you just said Canada, the US.

Jane Cunningham: 31:07

So, ya know, congratulations, your podcast is such a great success.

Joelly Goodson : 31:13

Yeah, thank you. It's been so exciting. And I'm excited for what's to come. So I'm very, very thrilled that you agreed to be a guest in mind. So thank you so much.

Jane Cunningham: 31:21

It's a pleasure. Thanks so much, Joelly.

Joelly Goodson : 31:29

And there you have it. I hope you enjoyed the conversation and maybe learned a few things to help you with your branding. But most of all, I hope you had some fun. This show is a work in progress. So please remember to rate and review on whatever platform you listen to podcasts. And if you want to learn more about me and what I do to help my clients with their branding, feel free to reach out to me on any of the social channels under you guessed it, branding, bad branding matters was produced, edited and hosted by Joelly. Goodson also me so thanks again and until next time, here's to all you badass is out there