There has been a recent surge in products that are targeting women, whether it’s Honda cars, Bic pens, or European beers.
Honda is producing a pink car with pink lining on the seats, and UV prevention glass (along with skin-healthy air conditioning). Bic recently ran an ad-campaign for their new pink pens that involved a young girl giving the Bic-man a kiss for giving her the pens, and the European beers have been trying to reduce images of men dominating women in their advertising.
The problem it seems with these campaigns is that they are announcing that they are for women. While there have been a great many controversy over products like Barbie and how they perpetuate stereotypes, one must ask; if these companies didn’t so blatantly market towards women and didn’t make so many assumptions on the average female, would they be so in the wrong?
Take a look at a recently soaring industry – laptop and phone covers. Personally I’ve seen hundreds of different covers, all hoping to make their standard iPhone or MacBook a bit more personal. A lot of the women I’ve seen have done so via feminine decorations – pink cases for their lap tops or cute, bunny-covered iPhones. But these products don’t directly advertise to women – they’re just feminine like products. Imagine if Honda didn’t so blatantly market this new car as ‘hers’. If they simply tried to reduce the amount of UV radiation and provide healthier air conditioning, and they just so happened to sell a lot more of these cars in pink, would the debate ever come up?
I think the key to marketing towards women or minorities is not to belligerently target them. The key is to introduce features that anyone could potentially enjoy, but your target demographic might enjoy more. Don’t advertise these products as the target enjoying them, advertise as everyone enjoying them. While I don’t understand marketing incredibly in depth, I think a lot of the fumbles these advertisements are making could be reduced to less controversy.