by Richard
If you dudes watch tv (and, would you be dudes did you not), you’ve no doubt noticed the following commercial screaming off your screens so many, many times.
After watching it the first time, I actually had to rewind the tv and watch it again. While, on the surface, I’m sure the folks who created the commercial like the sound of that, it wasn’t because it was so good. I just couldn’t believe any company could be so stupid as to run a commercial like that.
Here. Take a look and I’ll be right back to talk about it.
Yeah, so there’s that. I’m not even going to get started on the obvious misogyny of the whole thing, but let’s talk stereotypes. There’s so many in such a short period of time, I’m not even sure where to begin. Women only like romantic, smooshy movies. Men only like testosterone-fueled action movies. Really? No, not really.
The strangest thing I get out of the commercial is the implication that drinking a diet drink somehow makes you less of a man. As if there’s something wrong, something “limp” about drinking a coke with no calories. That’s bad, you see, but we put in 10 calories for our coke because we’re MEN! None of that wimpy healthy drink for us! We’re MEN! No one, no one at all, in the entire approval process thought this was a bad idea?
I get that this is supposed to be funny and ironic and all that. I get it. Really I do. But they’re wrong. The only thing I found myself laughing at was the poor people who actually came up with this ad.
Because, you see, here’s the big reason this ad is so wrong. In the majority of homes, women do the shopping. So a coke that advertises itself as not for 51 percent of the population has already lost a significant customer group. And if they don’t like it, they’re not going to buy it for the males in their households. So that’s a large portion of the remaining 49 percent gone as well. What? Dr. Pepper’s target demographic is the tiny section of men, aged 18-40, living alone? That’s a pretty small demographic.
Sure, predicating sales on a model of exclusivity can work, provided your business model is geared toward high prices selling at a lower total amount. But Dr. Pepper, like every other coke company in the world, has a business model geared toward selling large amounts of product. I just don’t see that happening.
So, really. What’s wrong with these dudes?
*or possibly fewer. Or maybe more. (Definitely fewer. A lot fewer.) I picked the title before I started writing. Bad habit. Sorry. I’ll try to get over that. And I’ll try to get over using all these *s. I understand they can be annoying. So. No more of those.
**Not you you. I was talking in general. And to the commercial. And, well, obviously I just blew the resolution not to use the * but I think it was understood that I was talking about not after this post. I mean that would be pretty silly of me to promise not to use something and then use it right after. I mean I’d have to be some sort of idiot dude to do something like that. And I’m not. Really.
