My International Women's Day brand email subject lines, ranked

Hello, International Women! Welcome to our Day! Here are some promotional emails I got today, ranked from worst to best:

10. it’s International Women’s Day 💙

This looks like a text you’d get from the worst girl you know. So much passive aggression in one heart!

9. Celebrating International Women’s Day

Boring, vague. Doesn’t specify who is celebrating the International Women.

8. Celebrate Women’s History Month

Still boring, but I like the imperative— I am being ordered to celebrate Women’s History Month. Also, it’s a history month now instead of an international day.

7. 📣 Celebrating International Women’s Day with Our Female Founders ✨

Emojis + soft social justice = peak millennial marketing. Points off because the sparkle emoji has threatening “hey bestie” energy.

6. Need Ideas?? Mothers Day Gift Guide Coming at You!

Stressful punctuation. Wrong Women’s Day.

5. Earth Month Stories? Indie clean beauty brand’s packaging, recycling program honor Mother Earth

All of these holidays are made up, but “Earth Month” seems especially spurious. On the other hand, though, is Earth not the ultimate International Woman?

4. Free $38 - Happy International Women’s Day

Exciting that it leads with free money; confusing that it’s exactly $38.

3. did someone say spicy cucumber salad?

This one was written by an intern two months ago and has been languishing in the socials calendar ever since. I love it.

2. Women’s History Month / International Women’s Day: Products, Charity Initiatives and Boss Babes!

This is how a corporate email pretending to be your friend should be. It’s a lot of gesturing with no specificity, despite being one of the longest subjects in this list, and the overall tone is weirdly clinical (that “Boss Babes!” at the end is expected to perform a lot of casual-fun-vibe heavy lifting). I also like the phrasing of “Women’s History Month / International Women’s Day,” like they know these concepts are fake and interchangeable and they don’t even care enough to give us a conjunction.

1. Wander Beauty partners with Visible Women NFT this Women’s Day

What the fuck is this. It’s perfect. Imagine reading this to a medieval peasant. This subject line actually made me read the email (marketing win!)— according to the release, a makeup company aims to “advance financial and gender equality ‘in all universes’” by offering “a [sic?] NFT (non-fungible token) portrait of Co-Founders Divya Gugnani and Lindsay Ellingson” with all purchases for the month of March. To break that down: they’re fighting for justice by sending consumers a digital photo of themselves. Do they… expect this portrait to increase in value? How does this benefit women? It’s unclear, but it’s a beautiful mess. Happy International Women’s Day!