Source: Amazon.com

In August of last year the Company Bic (a famous pen manufacturer) launched a new line of pens. This line was designed to engage and attract the female market towards buying more of their products.

As noted on a CBC article, the pens packaging includes taglines such as: “the pen essentially for women!”, and “a thin barrel designed to fit a women’s hand”. While these tag lines are an unfortunate marketing mistake it was not the tipping point for public criticism and negative attitudes towards the company. Bic in addition to launching the product through Amazon and Brick and Motor stores ran an ad campaign, the most noteworthy of which is this one.

When I first found out about this product my initial reaction was actually one of indifference. I saw nothing wrong with this product and in fact thought that it was interesting that Bic had never had a line of pen colors like this before. I noticed that my attitude towards these pens was heavily influenced by my experiences, the most impacting of which is the fact that I am a male.

As I learned more about the product and found out why Bic was running this marketing strategy and what was actually printed on the packaging, I realized that their target market was completely missed and was in fact against them.

Gender stereotyping was the tagline for this marketing mishap. The fact that Bic’s message was interpreted by their target demographic (women) as a pen made for women because they can’t handle a man’s pen was a gross oversight by Bic. Rather than targeting women in a way that makes them appear unequal to men, Bic should have found a way to market to the women demographic without pigeonholing them into a sex that loves pink, purple, and soft feeling things.

As I searched the internet for more info on this I stumbled onto this funny YouTube video about “Bic for Her”.