“Red time is me time” advertising, ambivalence, and women’s magazines

This study explores the concept of self for women in consumer culture, as it is played out in an experiential advertising campaign for a U.K. women’s magazine called Red. The study qualitatively explores the tensions and ambivalences experienced by female participants in response to a campaign using the notion of self-indulgence and “me time” as they experience it in the context of their everyday lives. It shows how women attempt to reconcile the mixed emotions that the Red campaign evokes in them.