Although we had discussed the fact that women are the dominant consumers in most markets the numbers that Sameena presents in her blog post “The She-conomy” are higher than what I would have expected. I am left to wonder how males own the things they do when the purchasing of products by males are such lower percentages. However these numbers, as Sameena discusses, do explain why marketing is so fiercely set on reaching women. Alike Gillette’s campaign that Sameena introduces, in class we saw how old spice commercials of men’s deodorant is actually speaking directly to women, the advertisements being with the line “Hello Ladies”. Similar to old spice is competing deodorant brand AXE, which uses its ads to appeal to men through focusing greatly on women’s perception of the product. The AXE ads consist of women chasing after men that use the deodorant. While this may convince men to buy the product, from personal experience I believe it also intrigues women to find out if the product is in fact as special as it seems. This leads me to believe that many products are created for women to make purchasing decisions for their boyfriends, husbands, and friends, but also for the use of the product by the women. An example of this as told by cosmopolitan is that 30% of women use male razor blades as they are sometimes seen to be of better quality and more effective, and so are purchased by women not for their male partners but rather for their own use. Cosmo goes onto explain that another reason women purchase male razor blades are because of their look “sleek, shiny and silver”. This last point as well as the fact that males often seek the approval of females explains why marketers are so set on selling their products to the dominant female buyers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uy8jKGLhVt4
sources:
http://www.cosmopolitan.com/hairstyles-beauty/beauty-blog/women-use-mens-razor-venus-110311
images:
http://philosophia.uncg.edu/node/377
http://mehhappens.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/axe2.jpg