This Youtube video from channel, The Checkout, is titled Gendered Marketing. The two women in the video, one dressed in blue, and one decked in pink, set out to explain how advertisers use gender to their advantage.
The two start by explaining children's toys. An accurate example provided is legos, which used to be advertised to all demographics. Although recently, lego released a product called lego friends, which consists of stylized lego dolls, complete with constructible teashops and dollhouses. This is an example of what is known as market segmentation. Advertisers appeal to specific groups in order to increase sales, where the only thing changing about the product between genders is the label. Products advertised to women include light colors, soft edges, and pretty flowers, while male packaging consists of dark colors hard, angular edges, and smart looking diagrams.The strange part is, often times one is more expensive than the other. For example, gillette shaving creme is 7% more expensive for women than men.
This strategy seems to be working. The popular soap brand Dove, took to this plan by creating Dove men+care, which racked up $150 million in sales. the ad campaign did a good job at reminding the potential customer how much of a man he is, and this isn't the first product to do this.
This kind of marketing is depressing to me, I hate seeing TV ads that reduce, at such a young age, the ambitions of a girl to just things that fit her gender. And for boys too! This advertising is not only enforcing gender roles, but creating them.
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