Not for girls

They say rules are meant to be broken. Why do we go against what we are told not to do? It is in our nature to counteract what we are told; this applying to our purchasing behaviour as well. Remember your childhood when your friends would say: "Bet you won't do it". You took the risk and did it. Marketers subtly put you in the same position and make you feel as a child again, daring and reacting in the same manner.

I remember the first time I saw Yorkie when I moved to England: “It's not for girls”. First thing I did: pick it up and buy it. I didn't even think. Is it as easy as this? May be. I could’ve picked any other chocolate on offer, however I still went for the Yorkie. No special ingredients whatsoever, yet I was still intrigued to know how it was different. I don’t think I need to go into detail on the gustatory experience. It is just like your average chocolate, yet I still find myself buying it occasionally. It’s all in the logo as well… oh that logo!

Dr Pepper recently (October 2011) launched its new diet version “Ten”, targeted at males. Their tagline is: “It’s not for women”. Their research conducted showed that men shy away from soft drinks labelled as “diet” or “light” as they are not manly enough for them. This piece of research may be new to them; however it has been claimed by other companies as well. We are obviously surrounded by different environments; however I have never seen a male friend shy away from purchasing a diet beverage. 40% of the people who tried Dr Pepper Ten so far were women. I think that proves a point.

This all makes me wonder… If they were to start advertising briefs with taglines such as “for real men only”; what would you do? Hypothetically speaking I would probably buy a pair, because I am told not to. Who can stop me? What am I trying to prove though?

Igniting feminism with the means of mildly discriminative advertising makes us want to prove ourselves to the world in our era, as we subconsciously are aware that 50 years ago an advertisement as such would have been taken seriously. We are not trying to be rebels; we are trying to be cool. Of course, there is the whole category of people who take this seriously (discussed later).

Are these really targeted at men or women? Taking the simple example of Yorkie, a man would not think twice whether to buy something or not, for instance if he is craving chocolate. I stand by the same view as well with diet soft drinks.

These catchy contradictory taglines prove how you can attract wider audiences despite them having subtle discriminative natures. Either a witty slogan or trying to revamp your brand, if you take the risk in being creative and unique ("Bet you won't do it")... chances are you will differentiate yourself and become the "cool" kid on the block.

Our pensive receptivity is exactly what the marketers demand. You can search for all these brands and find people arguing whether this is sexist, unfair, rude… the list goes on. I mean, there has already been a women’s rights petition against the “sexist” Dr Pepper ad campaign. C’mon, you’re giving them free advertisement! My favourite comment amongst them all was: “most of the evidence I see suggests that women against sexism are the minority”. I’m PRETTY sure the people working for Dr Pepper are not a bunch of “chauvinistic pigs” spending their days trying to ruin the image of women. But hey, I may be wrong. What worries me the most is that they can’t assume a woman came up with this campaign. So who is being sexist here?

They can call it sexist, but I call it genius.