What do CHEWING GUM and ENGINE OIL have in common?
I attended a conference this past week. I had time to observe the action around me. The conference was aimed mainly at the male audience as it was a national petroleum conference.Many of the products were being marketed in a similar manner. Given away by girls in skimpy outfits. Was there a lot of attention and interest in the product? Well I did observe much attention? Will you pick up that same product when you are in store?……. Is this kind of marketing still relevant for the future?……
Marketing is explained in business school text books about meeting needs and wants. In” Marketing for Dummies” it states that we need to think of creative ways to rethink the underlying needs that a product addresses.Have most products on shelf been reduced to this level and as” SEX “is the underlying need it is used to sell the most amazing range of products.
This made me wonder if in a Connection Economy ,where it will matter more about who you are than what you sell, this will change at all? My thoughts were that this was a complete waste of budget and that it is in fact to entertain and selling more of that product is far from the mind of the person in charge of the campaign. If I was in charge of this campaign what would I have done instead?
This company claims to want to make a difference in their communities in the future. Maybe marketing this kind of campaign will be more appropiate for the future? We all have a human need within us to make a difference. So can marketers of the future use this ? Absolutely. We are already starting to see the adverts and articles that tug at heart strings and bring deep emotion to the surface?
I would love the comments about my thoughts? Would a male in a connection economy disagree with me? Will reputation of your organisation and what you stand for be well communicated with what I observed this week?
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Perhaps it’s just a case of doing what you’ve always done with little thought to the issues you’ve raised. I’m sure that their public campaigns do not emply the same strategy of scantily clad women?
Perhaps it’s also an industry (marketing) struggling to renew itself in an environment in which they are under increasing pressure.
This is such an interesting issue! As a women I
often wonder what I should think when I see products being
promoted by scantily clad ladies. Should I be insulted? Should I feel
that women are being “objectified”. Probably. But really it doesn’t bother
me that much to be honest. It’s hardly going to persuade me to buy the
product in future. It’s like window dressing – or packaging – it’s
superficial.
On the flip side of the coin – in a FMCG market where you have such a vast
array of products to choose from – how do you make yours stand out?
Beauty has always been such a powerful selling point for mankind. As
humans we are attracted to “good looking” – whether that be in the form of
colour, art or even women.
I’m getting more and more irritated with ads which insult my intelligence – and there’s rather a lot of them around (which says more about the standard of the ads, or my intelligence?!?). These ads talk down to their viewers – for whatever reason – and it bugs me that they’ve decided their target audience must be brainless and have a really slow grasp on things. I’ll take note of the ones which annoy me most and I’ll post them here…
Btw, the “It’s all good” ad for Good Hope FM is one which should come up for debate. I think they’ve isolated any prospective audience – except for those males for whom being stranded on a tug boat with a lot of scantily-clad models is a great idea (ok, let’s be honest – that’s a lot of guys – including me!). But so what? The ad is almost completely inconsequential because I really can’t see any connection between the advert and what they’re supposed to be advertising…and it does rather demean women – deliberately done, to be sure – but I’m not sure why. What is a woman’s perspective on this?
At a Tom Peters seminar held in London last year he revealed the following data collected in the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK.
The following are the percentages of purchases influenced by women
Home Furnishings 94%
Financial 89%
Electronics 61%
DIY 80%
Cars 60%
Vacations 92%
Houses 91%
Consumables 83%
Healthcare 80%
Adventure travel & services 80%
In international economic terms, the three largest economies globally are:
The 3 largest economy in the world = USA men
2nd Largest = The entire Japanese population
The largest economy in the world = USA Women
If women make up such a large proportion of the market – why are companies using sex targeted at the male population to sell their products.
Maybe I am missing something here. I live in a county where there is hardly a product that is not sold using sex (UK). Even fabric softener is sold using sex. Are marketers ignoring their customer in a naïve and ignorant belief that women have less influence in the choice of purchases or have marketers given up on understanding the female purchasing drivers and are targeting men in an arrogant belief that sex really is their overriding driver for them (or is it an arrogant belief)?
Personally, as a women I find some of the ads offensive, more so when no stretching of my imagination can find a reasonable association between sex and the product. I think it is demeaning and undermines women. David Ogilvy is famous for saying “your customer is your wife�. When talking to women, treat them with the respect you would expect others to give to your wife or partner.
That said, the use of sex in adverts and marketing campaigns wont stop me purchasing a product unless it has overly offended me, mostly because my purchasing influences are usually more economically driven and possibly because I cant remember what products the sex was attempting to sell.
However, if marketing campaigns were to start using some sexy male butts or six packs that may change………..