It takes a lot for an advertisement to get real emotion out of their audience– a smile, a laugh, maybe even a tear or two. I can honestly say that over the past couple years, I’ve run into some very inspiring ads for female empowerment. These ads have made me proud of the companies standing behind them and their mission to change the way that females view themselves, and are viewed by others, and encourage me to make a positive impact on others’ lives as well. This advertising basis known as “femvertising” portray women as powerful, strong, and beautiful, and I’m excited to see what brands have in store to keep inspiring.These female-empowering ads have been making waves for a few years now, but the campaign that Dove released yesterday (“Choose Beautiful”) really inspired me to share a few of them.

Watching this ad, rooting for women to pick the door labelled “beautiful,” it made me sad to see this was not the case for many of them. When faced with this public choice to label yourself with one word or the other, it’s completely understandable to take the route you see as humble and honest, and that’s what makes this ad relatable to me. Yet as I continued watching the realizations of the women that they should have picked the other door, and they should recognize their own beauty, it put a smile on my face. By making the choice publicly at a definitive point in time, Dove empowered women to see the flaw in their thinking.

In the past, I’ve also enjoyed Dove’s “Real Beauty Sketches” video. Similar to the “Choose Beautiful” campaign, it gives women tangible evidence that what they see in the mirror is a distorted view of the beauty that they really have.

Back in June of 2014, I was inspired by Always’s “Like a Girl” campaign. They took a phrase that most of us hear fairly frequently, and made us think about what it really means to do something “like a girl.” Since watching that video, I have never used that phrase.

Under Armor’s commercial featuring Misty Copeland, “I Will What I Want”, shows the true power that is in the female body and often overlooked.

And finally, even Verizon created an inspiring commercial that calls into question the lack of female engineers in the world. When did it become so wrong for girls to be interested in science?

These are just a few of the popular “femvertising” trend that has hit commercials and digital shorts lately, but I truly believe it is slowly changing the way that people perceive women and is attracting great attention for these brands. Each of these videos have millions of views, hundreds of thousands of shares, and people talking about them all across the world. It has proven to be effective and popular with the audience.