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04/09/14 | Videos

GoldieBlox is at it Again with New Princess Bashing PSA

On Equal Pay Day, GoldieBlox launches a “this is your brain on engineering” commercial to promote its girl-focused toys that inspire a future in STEM.

By Betsy Mikel (Editor, Women 2.0)

You may remember that GoldieBlox lit up the Internet last November with their video featuring rewritten Beastie Boys lyrics. Though the video was ultimately removed because the Beastie Boys weren’t cool with their song being used in a commercial, GoldieBlox still made plenty of waves. The video challenged everyone to think about how the pink and sparkly toys little girls receive don’t actually help them learn anything beyond how to bake cupcakes, how to dream about handsome princes or how to obsess over body image.

And thanks in part to that conversation, GoldieBlox even landed a $4 million Super Bowl commercial. The female-founded company received the most votes to win a 30-second spot as part of a competition for small businesses sponsored by Inuit.

With a mission to inspire the next generation of female engineers, GoldieBlox markets their building block kits to girls. They aim to disrupt the princess pink toy aisle with toys that promote a future in STEM.

GoldieBlox is back with yet another commercial (which was produced by a women-led creative team) that spotlights the difference between a young girl’s brain “on princess” vs. her brain “on STEM. The ad was launched on April 8, which is uncoincidentally also Equal Pay Day — how far into 2014 women would have had to worked to match what men earned in 2013.

The video cleverly highlights their products — awesome conveyer belts, ferris wheels and ramps built out of GoldieBlox pieces — alongside facts about girls and women in engineering.

  • At age 7, girls begin to lose confidence in math in science

  • At age 13, over half of all girls are unhappy with their bodies

  • Engineer jobs are growing faster than all other jobs in the U.S.

  • Female engineers earn 33% more than women in other fields

  • Only 13% of engineers are women

The message is not at all subliminal. Buy GoldieBlox toys to keep girls engaged in math and science so they will become top-earning engineers when they grow up.

Do you think GoldieBlox toys can help inspire girls to get more involved in math and science?

Betsy Mikel is a freelance copywriter and content strategist who helps brands, businesses and entrepreneurs tell their stories. A journalist at heart, her curiosity drives her to find something new to learn every single day. Follow her on Twitter at @betsym.

 

 

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