While shopping around for a new laptop, I stumbled upon Della, a site pitching Dell's new mini netbooks to women. I was not surprised to see Dell targeting women (after all, these tiny computers seem perfectly sized for my delicate lady-hands!), but all the overt stereotypes had me rolling my eyes: use your netbook to look up recipes and diet tips and to go shopping! After some negative coverage on blogs like Liliputing and Feministing, the site has been edited, but it still raises some interesting questions about the nature of marketing.
Marketing inherently relies on stereotypes by targeting demographics. Cleaning products are aimed at moms (who all live in the suburbs and have doofy husbands who are always making such a mess! *shakes head and laughs*) and video games are aimed at men, and only men (unless of course, the game involves shopping or kittens).
I get annoyed because marketing to women seems so lazy and laughable. It's insulting. This past week, the feminist blogosphere has been buzzing about Fling, a new low-calorie chocolate bar from Mars that invites women to be "naughty, but not that naughty" and "pleasure yourself." The chocolate even SHIMMERS. Women, like cats, are known to be attracted to shiny things. Earlier in the year, we were all up in arms about Lay's ongoing "Only in a Woman's World" campaign, which attempts to sell potato chips to women using cartoon sassy girlfriends who complain about their weight and bathing suit season (omg, so true to life! Amiright?). And don't even get me started on gendered marketing to little girls--I'll save that rant for another post.
I don't know how to completely change this particularly powerful tool of the patriarchy, but here is one potential solution: we need more feminist marketers! We talk a lot about the need for feminists in the halls of Congress and the highest reaches of our government, but the truth is that feminists can make a difference in every field--art, science, medicine, law, entertainment, and BUSINESS. If in the development of these campaigns someone were to say "hey, not every woman is attracted to pink like a magnet" or "gee, maybe we should use some non-white models" or "umm women are NOT AS DUMB AS YOU THINK WE ARE," maybe there would be some real changes.
Until then, enjoy your sparkly chocolate bars and looking up recipes on your adorable little computer.
P.S. For a much funnier take on all this, check out Target: Women over at Current.
4 comments:
Feminist marketing major right here! Stand up b-school, stand up. :)
You're right. We need more smart women in marketing and advertising. We specifically need them as creative directors. But most women I know drop off the treadmill long before they hit that level. The result? In U.S. advertising agencies, 97% of the creative directors are men. Think about that for a second. That means men decide what gets presented and produced. And here's the ugly truth - if those male creative directors decide an idea won't impress the awards show judges at Cannes (who are overwhelmingly male), that idea will never get out the door to the client. In general, the ads that women WOULD ACTUALLY LIKE (or at least not be offended by) rarely make it to client, much less to our fav TV stations. I just posted about this
Advertising and biasis between the sexes always reminds me of Jean Kilbourne and her documentarys, Killing Us Softly. Women represented in the media and when women are the subject of advertisements, they always seem so ridiculous. I enjoyed your response to this.
97% is a scary figure for male dominance of creative directors but helps to understand the insulting Sponge Bob ad that recently showed up.
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