Gendered Marketing

[Cyclopea]

Post anything related to gendered marketing. Share your thoughts or interesting examples of gendered marketing, advertising and promotion.



I thought there was a thread on this topic but if there is i couldn't find it!

[Cyclopea]

http://www.heybabygame.com/info.php

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Hey Baby: A Violent Video Game Geared to Women
By MEGAN GIBSON Friday, Oct. 08, 2010
TIME.com

I'm a woman walking down the street alone. A man swaggers toward me and utters a sleazy come-on. I respond by leveling a gun in his direction and shooting him at close range. A gravestone pops up in his place, the epitaph inscribed with his last words: "I like your bounce, baby."

This is the world of Hey Baby, a computer game in which hordes of men call out pickup lines that range from fairly innocent ("Excuse me, do you have a boyfriend?") to pretty obscene ("I wanna lick you all over"). Players then choose whether to ignore the comment or shoot. The game's tagline: "It's payback time, boys."


Hey Baby, which was released in June and can be played for free at www.heybabygame.com, has raised some controversy on gaming blogs, as both men and women debate the validity of its public-service message about street harassment. Although some games are designed to provoke conversation and political action (Darfur is Dying comes to mind), Hey Baby differs in that it's designed strictly for women — a demographic that until recently wasn't thought to be particularly interested in game violence.

Hey Baby, which was created by a female designer and producer from New York City, doesn't really offer anything new in terms of the level of violence — we've seen far worse. What does surprise, however, is its reversal of the gender roles. With few exceptions (think Lara Croft from Tomb Raider or Samus Aran from the Metroid series), violent video games typically involve male heroes, and the action is largely male-on-male or, in some cases, male-on-female — such as in Grand Theft Auto, in which male characters can abuse and murder prostitutes, and in Rapelay, a Japanese game in which the male character's sole pursuit is to sexually assault women.

Female-on-male violence, however, isn't common, but new research indicates that a surprising number of women might be drawn to such games.

A study released this summer by a researcher at Belgium's Ghent University polled nearly 1,000 gamers ages 16 to 24 to determine the difference in gaming preferences between women and men. This is important information for marketers; in 2008 alone the combined sales of video and computer games was $11.7 billion. And a huge percentage of these sales are the result of female gamers, since women make up 40% of gamers and 42% of online gamers, according to the Entertainment Software Association. Clearly, what women want — in video games, at least — matters.


Of the 344 females polled, Lotte Vermeulen, the study's author, found that more than half said they didn't mind shoot-'em-up stuff. "Women are not afraid of violence in games," Vermeulen notes. "This violence, however, needs to have a humorous undertone as realistic battle scenes tend to put them off."

That's good news for the game's creator, Suyin Looui, who says she intended the over-the-top violence to be seen as a joke. Hey Baby gives women "the space to act out their ridiculous revenge fantasies," she says, "and have a laugh about it."

[Gemme]

I looked at the game and would play to let off some steam but I'm not a gamer at heart. I do, however, think it's high time that someone thought of women first in their marketing. Well, someone other than Johnson & Johnson that is.

[WheelieStrong]

i don't like the fact that product advertisers especially with kids stuff seem to tell parents they have to buy a certain product for there son and a different one for there daughter by plastering a little girl all over the advert and boxing of say a model kitchen.

What upsets me so much more is that parents and society in general seem to think that this is the way things have always been, should be now and shoud stay in future.

i don't think i'd be thinking too far out of the box to say that if products and society in general was less gender based, there could be a lot less trans folk because they could just be people and not be judged so much by what they expected to do and be like

[Cyclopea]

Originally Posted by WheelieStrong

i don't like the fact that product advertisers especially with kids stuff seem to tell parents they have to buy a certain product for there son and a different one for there daughter by plastering a little girl all over the advert and boxing of say a model kitchen.

What upsets me so much more is that parents and society in general seem to think that this is the way things have always been, should be now and shoud stay in future.

i don't think i'd be thinking too far out of the box to say that if products and society in general was less gender based, there could be a lot less trans folk because they could just be people and not be judged so much by what they expected to do and be like

Your post reminded me that it was only ten years ago (2000) that Toys R Us decided to separate their stores down the middle into a blue "boys" side and a pink "girls" side.
When I was a kid the toys were grouped by type, not gender. My sister shopped for her Barbies a few feet away from me as I shopped for my GI Joes. I liked the GI Joes because they had articulated limbs which allowed them to move more realistically than barbie who could not even bend her legs. All the figures with bendable limbs were male.
What's even more alarming about the recent gender division is that all the "gender neutral" toys I loved so much (erector sets, etc) and the science/tech toys (microscopes, chemistry sets) are now in the boy section!

What you said about marketing reminded me of a lawsuit a few years ago where someone in Sweden sued Toys R Us (successfully) for gender discrimination over their catalog because all the pictures of boys were in active poses and all the pics of girls were of them standing or sitting inactively. Lol maybe the girls legs didn't bend...

[betenoire]

I smoke and am still offended at Camel's obvious ploy to get teenage girls to smoke. Even the foil paper inside of the pack and the little camel on the filter are hot pink.

So. Fucked. Up.





I would like to play that video game that you mentioned, though. As a teenager I spent a lot of time at the arcade playing Street Fighter II. I'm sure this is a lot less complicated (like, I bet it's point and click v actually having to use button combination to do the moves) because it's a pc game (and possibly because it's for the ladies and we are too stupid to operate a game controller?) but it could be fun.

[Cyclopea]

Originally Posted by betenoire

I smoke and am still offended at Camel's obvious ploy to get teenage girls to smoke. Even the foil paper inside of the pack and the little camel on the filter are hot pink.

So. Fucked. Up.





I would like to play that video game that you mentioned, though. As a teenager I spent a lot of time at the arcade playing Street Fighter II. I'm sure this is a lot less complicated (like, I bet it's point and click v actually having to use button combination to do the moves) because it's a pc game (and possibly because it's for the ladies and we are too stupid to operate a game controller?) but it could be fun.

The "hey baby" game is pretty rudimentary- you can just click on the link above to play it, it's free. Yay Street Fighter! Tekken is good- I just got one of the newer ones for my PS2. The murderous schoolgirl characters are my fave, natch. (Did I just say "natch"?)

And OMG about the cigs !!!!!!! Holy shit.

[MsDemeanor]

Is there much of anything out there that isn't gender marketed, if not directly then indirectly by virtue of ad placement, ie, a gender-based assumption of who will be reading/watching/hearing the ad?

[betenoire]

Oh, and I forgot to mention the (discontinued) Camel Exotic Blends. Not necessarily marketed specifically to Women, but it FELT like that's what they were driving at.

They came in flavours like "champaign" "mint chocolate" "citrus" and were in collectible tins. I liked the tins so I used to buy a pack or two every time I was in the US.

I actually think that Camel is part of the axis of evil because of their habit of such obvious marketing to young people and females.

http://users.ap.net/~burntofferings/...melexotic.html

[WheelieStrong]

i was suprised to be told a few years ago that most erotica aimed at gay/bi males is written by women lol

i wonder if sales figures would change significantly if more of the men reading the books knew this

[Cyclopea]

Originally Posted by MsDemeanor

Is there much of anything out there that isn't gender marketed, if not directly then indirectly by virtue of ad placement, ie, a gender-based assumption of who will be reading/watching/hearing the ad?

It's true all advertisers study demographics of their customers.

[Cyclopea]

Originally Posted by betenoire

Oh, and I forgot to mention the (discontinued) Camel Exotic Blends. Not necessarily marketed specifically to Women, but it FELT like that's what they were driving at.

They came in flavours like "champaign" "mint chocolate" "citrus" and were in collectible tins. I liked the tins so I used to buy a pack or two every time I was in the US.

I actually think that Camel is part of the axis of evil because of their habit of such obvious marketing to young people and females.

Camel (Phillip Morris I think?) is EVIL!
Wasn't Joe Camel banned along with all cartoon character cigarette ads?
I know those flavored cigarettes were banned by the FDA.
What will they think of next? Free Justin Beiber downloads in every pack? Disney tie-ins???

[Cyclopea]

Originally Posted by WheelieStrong

i was suprised to be told a few years ago that most erotica aimed at gay/bi males is written by women lol

i wonder if sales figures would change significantly if more of the men reading the books knew this

I met a woman who used to do that! She was paid by the word to churn them out. She was a conservative middle aged dyke. They were like erotic romance novels for gay men.

[I'mOneToo]

This thread is intriguing to me because I've got a little background in advertising. No, I wasn't one of those "Mad Men" types, but worked in advertising graphics production. When I discovered how ads were built, I became immune to the lure of advertising.

One of the more glaring examples of blatant gender-biased advertising is Virginia Slims Cigarettes. The ads for it, and the packaging designed by Walter Landor, were aimed directly toward female smokers. It was ironic that something as deadly as cigarettes became synonymous with women's tennis during the 70's and 80's. Yet, if Slims had not sponsored the Women's Tennis Association, it may have taken much longer to level the playing field (i.e. pay) between women's and men's tennis.

Their print and TV ads (when tv ads for smoking were still legal) said, "You've Come A Long Way, Baby" and showed a woman of the 1920's as if to equate emancipation of women with the desire for smoking, and to have "their own cigarette". They were the cigarette of the "women's liberation movement", or maybe I'd call it the Betty Friedan (NOW, ERA) cigarette. Their first competitor was the Eve cigarette, which I might call the "barefoot and pregnant" cigarette, or the Phyllis Schlafly (STOP THE ERA) cigarette.


http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4k...-cigarette_ads - circa 1967


you've got your own cigarette now, baby
you've come a long, long way

Statistically, since the 1960's, women have also caught up with men in the incidence of diseases caused by smoking. Like the disparities in salaries women have not achieved equality but are gaining ground, if you can call it that.

A more recent experience of gender bias in marketing was while buying a happy meal for a kid, at the drive-through. The voice on the speaker asked if the meal was for a boy or a girl. She said, "we have toys for girls and toys for boys." I asked the child which they would prefer. The response was "A girl toy!" Inside the happy meal was a Hello Kitty watch, with a pink band. I'll leave it up to your imagination as to whether the recipient was a boy or a girl, and whether the toy made them happy or not.

[dixie]

Originally Posted by Cyclopea

The "hey baby" game is pretty rudimentary- you can just click on the link above to play it, it's free. Yay Street Fighter! Tekken is good- I just got one of the newer ones for my PS2. The murderous schoolgirl characters are my fave, natch. (Did I just say "natch"?)

And OMG about the cigs !!!!!!! Holy shit.

I *heart* Tekken. It's my all-time fav game (well, other than Resident Evil...lol)

[dixie]

Originally Posted by I'mOneToo

A more recent experience of gender bias in marketing was while buying a happy meal for a kid, at the drive-through. The voice on the speaker asked if the meal was for a boy or a girl. She said, "we have toys for girls and toys for boys." I asked the child which they would prefer. The response was "A girl toy!" Inside the happy meal was a Hello Kitty watch, with a pink band. I'll leave it up to your imagination as to whether the recipient was a boy or a girl, and whether the toy made them happy or not.

I'm not a big fan of the girl toys vs boy toys advertising either. My son always checked out the toy in the Happy Meal before ordering. He's never believed he had to have just "boy" toys. He's always been given the choice of playing with whatever he wants.

He also sometimes orders the girl toy Happy Meal just cause he thinks I'll like the toy. I now have 3 of the Hello Kitty watches...LOL (I have a great kid. )

[dixie]

Originally Posted by betenoire

Oh, and I forgot to mention the (discontinued) Camel Exotic Blends. Not necessarily marketed specifically to Women, but it FELT like that's what they were driving at.

They came in flavours like "champaign" "mint chocolate" "citrus" and were in collectible tins. I liked the tins so I used to buy a pack or two every time I was in the US.

I actually think that Camel is part of the axis of evil because of their habit of such obvious marketing to young people and females.

http://users.ap.net/~burntofferings/...melexotic.html

I loved the mint chocolate and the vanilla... I just wasn't a fan of their shady advertising tricks.