Christine the Lioness up'n wrote this

Leave it to Christopher to ruin a perfectly well-thought out post with an insulting comment aimed at women. I don’t know what happened to make that boy hate the female gender so much, but I promise that quality was already well-developed when we met.

But back to the issue…
Christopher makes some good points: it’s okay to like guy stuff… it’s okay to like sports as long as they don’t take over your life. It’s okay to like women, as long as you have enough self-control and respect for your woman to not be unfaithful. It’s okay to wear a pink shirt… well, actually, no it’s not.

Here’s where Christopher’s argument falls apart… when you look at the purpose of advertising, you’ll see it’s to sell products to a specific group of people. For example, a commercial that depicts a guy staring at a couple of hot, bikini-clad girl on a beach and drinking a Heineken, is obviously directed to men. That commercial appeals to male fantasy, and doesn’t appeal to women. That’s fine. Why? Because that commercial is intended to get men to buy Heineken. I could sit here and whine about how not all women look like super models or have time to like around half-naked on the beach, or would even give that loser the time of day, let alone share their beer with him, but I won’t. Why? Because it doesn’t matter what I think of that commercial. It wasn’t created for me. But that’s not to say that some commercials aren’t. The commercials that are intended for a female target market, are designed to appeal to women. One ad that comes to mind in particular is a print ad for diet Pepsi of two really attractive, classy women (one white, one black) having lunch. A loser-looking guy stands at their table watching the white girl write on a napkin. The white girl gives a wink to the black girl who suppresses a laugh. The caption says, “Facts: Calories: 0, Carbs: 0, Sugar: 0, Chance she’s giving him her real number: 0″. I laughed out loud… why? Because it was funny and I could relate to it, because we’ve all given annoying guys fake phone numbers, and we’ve all exchanged that look with our girlfriends that guys are oblivious to. Now, are all guys losers like that one? No… but apparently enough are that we ladies can relate or the ad campaign wouldn’t be effective. So when Christopher complains that advertising has lumped men into two categories: understanding metrosexuals, or beer-guzzling oafs, there’s a reason for it. If that’s happening in ads directed at women, it’s because women are finding those depictions relatable and the ads are working because the women then buy the products advertised. For the most part, I think those ads are directed at women. From what I’ve observed, the ads directed at men usually depict an everyday joe or a successful, attractive, suit and tie business type guy like in the Carl’s Jr commercials where all the business guys are pressed against the conference room window watching a super model eat a messy cheeseburger across the street.

So my point is, if you’re upset that men are depicted as oafs, it’s because a lot of them are, and women can relate to knowing men like that. If you’re upset that men are depicted as understanding, pink-shirted (which means a guy is so comfortable with his masculinity, he doesn’t have to worry about wearing pink) metrosexuals, it’s because that’s what women like. And those depictions are working because if the ads weren’t selling products, believe me, they’d find a new ad campaign. So take heed, boys. You can learn a lot from advertising.

July 8th, 2005

Christine the Lioness stated

Or we just laugh at the ads depicting exactly that… I would have bought the diet soda anyway.

August 1st, 2005