Gendered Marketing Really Gets on My Tits

Posted on by Nat Guest

Update: A version of this post also appeared here in the Independent

As we all know, life as a women is spent mostly worrying about being bloated, and shoving endless tubs of yoghurt into our faces in an effort to remove said bloat. Women bloody love yoghurt. Other things women bloody love: salad, ryvita, muesli.  The only things that make our banal existence worthwhile are grabbing a glass of chardonnay with The Girls, and that secret bar of Galaxy chocolate we’ve got stashed away in our secret hiding place.  You know, the one we like to take out & felate from time to time.

Chocofelatio

But sometimes I think advertising marketed at men is even more patronising than advertising marketed at women.  Every single product consumed has to somehow be a tiresome test of your masculinity. CAN YOU EAT THIS THING EVEN THOUGH IT’S FUCKING MASSIVE?? CAN YOU LIFT THIS THING EVEN THOUGH IT’S IRRITATINGLY CUMBERSOME?? HOW MANY BLADES DOES YOUR RAZOR HAVE??? ONLY FOUR?! WHAT A WUSS, MINE HAS SEVENTEEN.

(I think my favourite product name for Gillette razors has to be the Gilette Fusion Power Phantom. It has five blades and probably roars. The female equivalent is the Gilette Venus Spa Breeze, which is apparently “infused with a white tea scent”. Hey, Gillette? Fuck off. If I want a cup of tea, I’ll have a cup of tea.)

The most hilariously over-the-top version of man-marketing is on products “traditionally” seen as appealing to women. No man wants to feel feminised and subjugated by a cleaning product, after all.  So whereas women shower to RELAX and INDULGE, men shower to be INVIGORATED and ENERGISED. Just the thing to set you up for a day of climbing rocks and punching other dudes!

Personally, I shower because it’s socially unacceptable for me to be mucky and smell weird, but I guess that’s a pretty radical stance.

REAL MEN DON’T SMELL OF BERRIES. REAL MEN SMELL OF FENNEL & BRICKS.

In the shower today I used an exfoliating scrub (not mine, I hasten to add) for men, which was called ROCKFACE. The Rockface brand is an impeccable example of patronising man-marketing.

Here’s the blurb for the exfoliating scrub:

Exfoliation is not just for girls!  When your face is exposed to the elements every day, your skin can get clogged up with dirt, pollution, dead cells and general grime.

EXFOLIATION IS NOT JUST FOR GIRLS. How dare you question my gender identity, face cream?! I AM MAN. HEAR ME SCRUB.

The website homepage has a scrolling marquee featuring pictures of (yes, really) a man rockclimbing, an EXTREME SPORTS MAN skydiving, an EXTREME SPORTS MAN windsurfing, and some blokes on a rugby pitch. Amazing.

It also features “The Man Blog”, which it describes as “A monthly man blog for men about manly things”.

A monthly man blog.

For men.

About manly things.

WHAT.

I think that probably the thing that I like best about this advertising campaign is… its subtlety?

Cereals are another biggun in the “PROVE YOUR MASCULINITY” stakes.

All Bran for women. Feeling bloated? Sluggish? All Bran can set you up for the day and give you the energy to do all those chores your bastard husband can’t be arsed to do. Why not try it with some yoghurt? Delish!

All Bran for men. MAN BRAN! MASSIVE CHUNKS OF BRAN SO HUGE YOU CAN BARELY FIT THEM IN YOUR GOB! THIS CEREAL TRULY IS A CHALLENGE! IT’LL RIP YOU UP ON THE WAY OUT!

These are not real blurbs, but I think what they tell us about advertising is true. If you would like to use them for your own cereal marketing campaign, please feel free to drop me an email. I daylight as a copywriter.

Here is an actual real thing that Jordan’s Cereal marketed in 2008:

MACHO MUESLI. None of your namby-pamby muesli here, thank you. Check out that manly font! REAL MEN USE CAPITAL LETTERS! It also looks a bit like a pot noodle, which is pretty canny of them; from a distance, none of your bros will realise you’re actually eating gay-ass muesli.

Jordan’s don’t actually sell this anymore, so the website for it (www.menandmuesli.co.uk) has disappeared, but you can still access it via the Wayback Machine (sidenote: I bloody love the Wayback Machine, it is amazing).

Once we started looking, there seemed to be few really healthy role models for real men, the sort of bloke you could meet for a pint in the pub, the sort of man like Mike Tindall. So we thought we should start a campaign to encourage men like you to eat better, to stop relying on your mum, girlfriend or wife to do the shopping and cooking for you and to get in shape.

BLOKES DRINK PINTS. WOMEN DO SHOPPING AND COOKING. I’m not sure who Mike Tindall is, but Google tells me he is some sort of rugby player, and thus exactly the type of person everyone hindered by a cock should aspire to be. He also has two criminal convictions for drink driving.

So that’s nice.

This sort of gendered marketing is doing no one any favours. It makes everyone, women and men, look like complete idiots. As a consumer – which I unfortunately must be, and cannot fail to be – I don’t particularly enjoy being pandered to and patronised, according to my gender. And it’s so insidiously ambient now that we barely notice it. And the thing is, you guys… the thing is, I don’t even LIKE yoghurt that much.

I’ll let Riley have the last word.

Published by Nat Guest

92 thoughts on “Gendered Marketing Really Gets on My Tits”

  1. This is absolutely brilliant! I have howled with laughter at some of the Gillette ads for men’s razors, they’re just ridiculous! Although as you rightly point out, the yoghurt/bran ads aimed at women aren’t much better in the silliness stakes.
    Gender-segregation of toys makes me very angry though, that’s a much less amusing topic.

  2. BECAUSE THE WEATHER HATES YOUR FACE!

    There’s also the phenomenon of Advert Dad- “Oh no! Dad’s outside trying to light the barbecue! When will he ever learn? Good job Mum bought Findus Crispy Fucksticks to keep the kids free from bloating and mintylicious” or whatever the fuck they do these days.

  4. Such is the inherent conflict of pacifism and the received wisdom that defines masculinity. I’m so sick of being told my worth is measured in how much I can DESTROY.

    Probably as much as you’re sick of having your worth measured in how capable you are of squeezing a child out of your vagina!

  9. I agree. Gendered marketing is absolutely patronising, infantile and perpetuates artificial gender divisions that have no other justification but to help selling new products. Fortunately, gendered marketing is not as blatant in Europe, but it does exist. Axe shower gel is a paradigmatic example: not only it is manly, it has the added value of attracting the opposite sex — featuring scents like chocolate, or other ‘manly’ scents.

  10. Eurgh ridiculous. A deliberately gendered take on adverts that pretends that adverts treating us like particularly stupid children has something to do with feminism. It doesn’t. Advertisers think you are an idiot, and will work on that basis. They are right some of the time, for all of us, that is why they are successful. Gender-stereotyped adverts annoying you is YOUR PROBLEM. Don’t let it bother you, and no problem exists. Complaining about that which is outside of your control is pissing in the wind. Let go.

    2. Sorry, but can you be any more of a fucking idiot?

      Gender-stereotyped adverts is a problem with the adverts, and with our cultured. People SHOULD be annoyed at them because they degrade people and force them into boxes. The media has a huge effect on upholding gender roles, racial stereotypes etc.

      Don’t like homophobic messages in the media? YOUR problem. Don’t like racist ones? YOUR problem. EVERYTHING should be on the individual, the minority to shift no matter how barmy the mainstream becomes because that’s how morally bankrupt social conservatives work.

      You have no argument here. Just “STFU whining”.

    3. Great advice: don’t let it bother you? That’s put Gandhi and Martin Luther King in their places. No wait, they’re men. Is this just for women, especially when they bang on about sexism? Come on, Bob, evolve.

  12. I don’t even want to let myself get started on the shite they think girls want – I want a shower gel that cleans me, energizing, invigorating, relaxing blah blah blah I just want to be clean and not smell like I just fell drunk into every. single. perfume stand in fucking debenhams.

    also, the fucks with the tampon adverts these days? where mother nature comes with the “monthly gift” in pink wrapping paper and a big daft bow? REALLY. And the model outsmarts her with a tampon. NO! that’s not outsmarting mother nature, that’s just dealing with the fact you’re menstruating you fool. Also, the fact that they think girls want tampons with “skirts”. Fuck You tampax. I don’t want a tampon with a skirt, I want a tampon that stops me from bleeding into my knickers. Tampons aren’t fashion, they’re little machines designed to soak up menstrual blood, so maybe don’t put them in a fancy flowery box since the contents will be soaking up blood at some point in the next 28 days. (sorry)

    1. Also what is it with always? ‘have a happy period’ my arse there is nothing happy about feeling sick, feeling fat, having chronic stomach cramps stiff legs and back and bleeding for 5 days straight. I want to find out who came up with that catch phrase and tie them to a chair whilst i repeatedly scratch my fingernails down a chalkboard!

      1. Their catch phrase should be something helpful like “put the curling iron down – you don’t have to do this”

    2. Don’t forget the adverts for the scented pantyliners, because not only is a little bit of discharge totally icky and repulsive to everyone else you might meet, but it makes you smell like a ripped-open horse and you’ll never be able to ride on the bus again.
      Instead, wedge this lump of bleached and perfumed cotton against your most delicate membranes, for instant thrushy goodness!

  14. I just got a telephone call from the seal and it turns out I didn’t give away all my cutlery. The seal had stolen it! This is a lesson to me – NEVER DRINK.

  16. This is soo true… and the gilette names have got to be the funniest… as Lee Evans once pointed out why is there a razor called stealth? Is it that every morning a man goes into his bathroom and can’t fing it because it’s camouflaged itself into the toothbrushes again or something. And as for toys… why are girls toys a) so pink and b) so simple. All I ever wanted as a kid was an RC car but I never asked for one as I felt that if I got one everyone would think I was a boy and as my name is Jaime and the kids at school already picked on me for having a ‘boys’ name I felt pretty insecure about it. Pretty wierd society we live in huh?

  17. The razor thing is some silly shit, especially since the best, and perhaps manliest, of shaves comes from a single blade, double sided old school safety razor (preferably with a badger brush and soap). Gimmicks and extra blades are for kids.

  18. I’m disappointed you didn’t know who Mike Tindall is…a World Cup winning, royal family marrying, dwarf tossing, broken nosed England Rugby captain. He’s was in the news loads last year, on frontpages and all…

    Still amusing article, congratuwelldone, see Dara O’Briain’s tand up for a good bit on Gillette marketing…

  19. This is so very evocative of gender marketing! I loved it! I laughed so hard I cried! My son has a wide array of stuffed animals that he loves and cares for. I play world of Warcraft and kill things; with glee, manfully! ( though I’m not a man ) I’m the best Lego builder in our house. I love hot wheels and trucks and can actually name dinosaurs by their proper names.
    Maybe if we stop allowing ourselves to be pandered to this type of stereotyping would cease. I dunno, if my sone wanted a process outfit, I wouldn’t care! Being able to identify with both genders is a handy tool in international espionage!

  20. Brilliant! Also, someone really should design a razor that roars with a chainsaw noise on the stroke. If they can put tiny speakers into greeting cards, they ought to be able to fit one in a razor for MAXIMUM MANLINESS!!1!

  21. Reblogged this on privatblog and commented:
    This shit cracked me up. I don’t get bothered by much in the way of adverts because I don’t watch TV (one of the many advantages of not doing so), but this was kind of hilarious.

  22. what a brilliant read. thoroughly enjoyed it. my favourites are the dulcolax and imodium type adverts. us men are often portrayed as big hairy hunters who eat gargantuan size meals and deink like a fish yet how come it’s inky ever women who get the runs or become constipated??

  25. How did you get through all that without mentioning the marketing campaign for Coke Zero, AKA diet Coke for cripplingly insecure, so-constantly-assertive-of-their-masculinity-they’re-surely-gay men? Presumably Jordans are thanking their lucky stars they didn’t ask Gareth Edwards to be the face of Manly Muesli.

    1. Ha! So true. What about the Pepsi Max adverts where the men are so definitely not gay for drinking a diet drink, they’ll club together to trick women into sleeping with them and celebrate with a dance and a Pepsi Max?

  26. […] @Unfortunatalie: Gendered Marketing Really Gets on My Tits Posted on Apr 26, 2012 by Claire Broadley Related posts:Your favourite non-English wordsSocial media words in technical authoring Tags: content marketing, copywriting techniques, freelance copywriters, gender marketing, language, tone in copywriting [+] Share & Bookmark • Twitter • StumbleUpon • Digg • Delicious • Facebook /* […]

  27. Haha. I remember writing a thing a while ago about Gillette trying to get men to shave different bits of themselves… ah yes, here it is…its in a thing about girls loving pink. Watch the video at the bottom on men shaving their pubic area because “Trees look taller when there’s no underbrush”
    http://www.vaginadentatablog.net/archives/46

  28. This article is really great for picking up on how unfair marketing is on men. And I love the video from Riley aware at such a young age that @girls are tricked into buying all the pink stuff,” out of the mouths of babes eh?

    Thing is, I don’t know many straight men who are that savvy on picking out facial products but as a beautician I often have to point out to men that if their skin turns bright red because the “manly” “FOR MEN!” products in Boots don’t suit them, they are actually ALLOWED to purchase ones for sensitive skin from the so-called “women’s” aisles instead. They always look shocked at this, like women’s products would literally make them grow tits or flowers on their face – and this is TOTALLY the fault of awful advertisers like Proctor and Gamble (who own all the branded products in the UK anyway) – INCLUDING the “uber” manly Gillette range and the “mother nature” faux pas of Tampax Pearl. Hmmm….have we found our main culprit folks, methinks so. Not very stealthy of them eh?

    @John, yes the Coke Zero adverts were especially bad! Even more so when you compare them to the silly girl “Coke (!) puppets” now aimed at women. I remember loads of guys being insulted by them and when I saw it I felt like Coke Zero actually wanted me to hate all men, not chase them with complimentary bottles of Cola saying “why haven’t you called me?!” Call me fickle…

    1. Exactly. Why isn’t there a balding man washing his hair under a waterfall, with a beatific smile all over his mush? Double standards, plain and simple.

  32. A few years back, marketeers had computers and other electrical goods specifically geared towards the female demographic.

    They were just like normal electrical goods. Only they were bright pink. That particular fad seems to have faded out now.

  33. Well you are of course completely entitled to your view. However I find it very interesting that from the public sector and other people who do not depend directly on customers we get one view of a politically correct mishmash of gender roles, and it is very hard to keep up with too. One minute it is sexist to suggest that women should stay at home and bring up their children and the next minute they are entitled to paid maternity leave as time with the children is a good thing and anyone who says otherwise is a monster. On the other hand, from people who make a living by working out what people actually want, we get a quite different view of gender roles. It is similar to the way at school today no one is allowed to lose or take risks, but advertising stresses living on the edge, being adventurous and competitive. So whose views of human wants and needs are you going to rely on? a load of public servants, academics and other salary earners, or people who actually stand or fall by getting public wants right?

    1. Thank you SO MUCH for sharing that link, it’s truly amazing. Just when you see the colours are called things like “GASOLINE” and, er, “COCAINE” and think it can’t get any worse you get to the section where they mention THE GAME and Pick-Up Artists (PUAs) as if they’re A Good Thing. This is priceless, I doubt even the people who wrote this crap really believe it.

  35. 1. Yoghurt is overrated.
    2. All-Bran also has the advantage of enabling boys to “have a massive shit with the sports section – an ideal start to the day !” More free copy.
    3. Advertisers make ads like this because people watch them and buy more stuff (sometimes)
    4. I wish tampons were not advertised on men’s TV
    5. Enjoyed the post….

    BWs
    James

  36. I’m consistently annoyed that when I dare to buy Dr Who merchandise from Argos, everything will have a sticker on it reading ‘boys toys’. I’ve been a who fan since 1988. I do not have to stand for this. Now I go elsewhere >:/
    (Not advertising related but slightly relevant)

  39. yes Gendered marketing is patronising, infantile and perpetuates artificial gender divisions but the bigger piont is it works, marketing companies spend millions on research and it works. we are suckers for it. i am a man and i am not going to buy shower gel just because the bottle was EXTREME but why would i want to non extreme shower gel.

    as every companies are amoral and we suck it up like goons

  40. This is exactly what I love about blogging. Fast and fizzy wiritng making a kickass righteous point that powwers up your bullshit detector for when you go back into mainstream-medialand. Thankyou.

  41. I couldn’t agree more, and that’s one of the main reasons I despise advertising and intentionally avoid products that do as such, like Yorkie’s big chunky chocolate ‘only for men’ campaign, that was just awful. God I hate marketing and everything it stands for: BIll Hicks on Marketing – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDW_Hj2K0wo

  42. My current favourite gendered advert is the one for Whiskas’ new EXTRA MEATY and therefore EXTRA MANLY cat food. The voiceover MAN may as well be saying: “Bring out the HUNTER in your cat as he searches for the MEATY pieces, and in doing so convince yourself that cats aren’t just for gays and spinsters and realise you can stop feeling insecure about your choice of pet because you know you are actually a 100% raging hetero manny manny mansize MAN”.

    It’s beautifully shot, mind. Nrrrrrggghh.

    1. “It’s so meaty meaty meaty that your manly cat will be looking for a BBQ to roast it on, with its man cat friends!”

  43. I’m good with words but I actually lack the vocabulary to describe how TRUE and how HILARIOUS this post is!!!! Way to go!!

    Oh, that wasn’t manly enough? Right …
    WAY TO GO!!

    1. Nice bit of homophobia there where they suggest they’re too manly for Gok Wan to shop with them. Urgh.

      1. Good point chaps, or should I say “people”. The cheeky Gok Wan reference is intended to highlight the fact that BRANDiD isn’t for fashionistas. It’s not designed to convey that BRANDiD isn’t for homosexuals. That’s not the case. I can see now that it’s obviously ambiguous so we’ll have a think about a heterosexual fashionista we can mock-reference instead to address such sensitivities. Tx.

  49. Brilliant! LOVE this post. Don’t forget about advertising aimed at mums. KFCs ‘Mum’s night off’ meal deals and Kinders ‘Made for kids, approved by mums’. Apparently dads don’t give a shit.

    1. They’re particularly grating not only because of the reason you espouse but also the fact that Mum is shoving recycled chicken feet lovingly bathed in ammonia to their kids. Modern society is depressing if you’re in anyway perceptive.

  52. Great post!
    BTW, has anyone else noticed how all constipation/diarrhea/incontinence adverts always use women? I mean, Tena Lady is obviously aimed at women but why do we never see the male equivalent advertised even though it exists?

    Just putting it out there.

  53. […] avec les stéréotypes de genre: le marketing genré En anglais, un article très drôle sur le “marketing genré”, qui exploite les stéréotypes de genre (décidément) en guise de stratégie marketing. Vous […]

  54. I agree with the fact that advertising is heavily patronising towards gender, and especially that male products are always some endless test of how big your balls are, and I hate it with a passion, but that doesn’t detract from the fact that there are a lot of brainwashed LADs who are concerned about such things. To extinguish this kind of advertising, it would be necessary to extinguish the macho bullshit culture that it targets (somewhat effectively too. You can see how popular LYNX is among men)
    Conversely, if you want to extinguish the habit of adverts treating women like fluffy delicate chocolate-eating cosmo-reading dolls, it would be necessary to extinguish that kind of culture among women. Don’t see it happening any time soon though. Many seem to be perfectly happy in their fluffiness.

  58. Oh arse I fail at image coding, lemme try html if that fails i give up, I am after all a woman *snark*
    I once ate some ‘man crisps’ by accident (they should really be more stringent, if they are indeed ‘man crisps’ after all I was able to by them whilst in possession of breasts and was not once asked for my ‘man id’ or to recite the off side rule or some other test of supposed ‘manliness’, I might have even been wearing a skirt and make up). I am still,as far as I can tell, a woman. Though as I have never laughed in orgasmic joy whilst eating salad alone so I cannot be entirely sure of this fact.

  60. Man Muesli.
    MAN MUESLI.
    A MAN blog for manly things.

    Be right back, brain just went splodey.

    This is worse than the whole Pens For Women thing I wrote about. Because apparently, us “wimminz” need specially colored pens. We can’t write if it’s not pink! Argh!

    Again, great post.

    xJillian

  61. “But sometimes I think advertising marketed at men is even more patronising than advertising marketed at women. Every single product consumed has to somehow be a tiresome test of your masculinity. CAN YOU EAT THIS THING EVEN THOUGH IT’S FUCKING MASSIVE?? CAN YOU LIFT THIS THING EVEN THOUGH IT’S IRRITATINGLY CUMBERSOME?? HOW MANY BLADES DOES YOUR RAZOR HAVE??? ONLY FOUR?! WHAT A WUSS, MINE HAS SEVENTEEN.”

    Honestly, this article was one of the best written (and funny) articles I’ve read on this topic, ever.

  62. I know this is old as hell now, but I just read it. It’s hilarious, and I really enjoyed it. I would share some thoughts with you if I may?

    While the gender-based patronising you highlight is obviously a problem, is it not just a symptom of a larger predicament? Marketing is distgustinly cynical throughout, gender is only a single arrow in the advertisers’ quiver. The entire industry subsists on deplorable insults to public intelligence. For instance, I clearly recall a shampoo commercial that boasted that its product contained “light-reflecting technology” (without which of course, your hair would be darker than the depths of interstellar space and would heat up so readily that you would pass out after five minutes in the sun). This appeal to scientific authority is made as if a single scientist in the world wouldn’t vomit in his or her mouth a little at the audacious vacuity of it. Statements like this are bundled into commercials for all sorts of products (advertisers of yoghurts being another particularly flagrant bunch) in order to lend some perceived scientific dazzle to a product that couldn’t possibly warrant it. We have understood how to make yoghurt ever since somebody accidently left some milk in a bucket for too long, while I will concede that there have since been some important technological developments (like when someone first smushed some strawberries in with it), the basic idea is pretty much nailed now. I don’t think anybody is expecting or hoping for real scientific innovation in the lively field of yoghurt research, but these claims are still made for every product that could possibly appeal to technological innovation of any kind, in the apparent attempt to make us throw out our still-half-full tubes of Colgate and uneaten Activias and rush to the shops to queue for a chance to experience the joys of the lastest gift from the scientists.

    What troubles me is that there can only be two explanations of this kind of behaviour on the part of the Marketeers: 1, they are so completely ignorant that they genuinnely think that such overtly vacuous, pseudo-scientific statements might really mean something, or 2. That they are so utterly cynical that they assume this ignorance of their public. However distasteful and superlative the second option may be, I find it absolutely more plausible than the first. The same fatuity with gender then is inevitable. It is merely a consequence of the utter disdain and contempt with which consumers are treated daily by those in advertising, and while everything you pointed out was absurd and awful, perhaps is it more aposite to address the problem at it’s cause. Finally, in your article, perhaps the old addage is coming into play: “When you’re a hammer, all your problems look like nails”.

    Respectfully,
    Dominic.

  63. Haha like it.

    There’s a grain of truth in Scott Adams’ comment too years ago that …

    “Most Advertising aimed at men implies this product will help you date Bikini models. Most Advertising aimed at women, implies this product will help you become a bikini model”

    Sadly – far too many adverts conform to the above stereotypes.

  66. Fantastic piece! I don’t really have anything to add, but I wanted you to know how much I liked this, especially “Every single product consumed has to somehow be a tiresome test of your masculinity.” I write about this on my blog sometimes, too, so I love others’ takes on it.

  68. I don’t know if anyone has every considered whether girls are socially conditioned to be disatisfied with how they look before they reach womanhood? When I first saw adverts for men’s skin cleanser, I thought they mean Swarfega but it seems there’s a new generation of young men being prepared by advertisers to feel inadequate just as you were, because only half of the market has reached saturation point. There’s a bunch of lads taking dangerous black-market steroids because their ‘guns’ aren’t big enough and you know what, I bet women don’t even care, just as I don’t think I’ve EVER noticed the thickness of anyone’s eyelashes. I am a bit weird though; I’m not even obsessed about big boobs.

    Nelson wanted The Boy under the age of five and he’d give you The Man. Maybe that would even work for girls. De-pinking matters.

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