media: marketing

Stephen W. sent in a photograph of a public relations notice at a gas station in Kansas City.  The notice, from BP, explains that the owner of the BP gas station is a member of the community:

The notice is clearly an effort to smooth over the negative publicity BP has recieved as a result of the oil spill in the gulf.  On the one hand, it seems obvious that it’s disingenuous for BP to claim that they are “part of the community.”  And, if one wants to boycott BP, one would not want to buy at a BP station.

On the other hand, BP is right.  According to the National Association for Convenience Stores, 80% of the gas in the U.S. is bought at convenience stores and in only 2% of cases are these owned by major oil companies (the remainder is largely sold through superstores like Costco and Sam’s Club).  57% of the time, these stores are owned by a person for whom it is a small business and it is the only convenience store they own.

So it is true that, in almost all cases, attempting to police or punish BP by refusing to buy their gas is also hurting a small business owner who has zero control over BP and its policies.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Lauren S. sent us a fun illustration of the social construction of chocolate. She writes:

Dove Promises, as it happens, contain a printed message beneath their individual foil wrappings—a message which, according to the cloying copy on the back of the package, “is filled with thoughts of joy and strength, along with positive reflections that will inspire you each day”. Fair enough. Mine was some tripe about rainbows. My boyfriend’s, on the other hand, was an amusing bit of gender assumption:

So in case the name “Dove Promises,” the cursive writing, and the heart shapes didn’t give it away, Dove brand chocolate is FOR GIRLS ONLY. Notice also that Dove is commandeering pseudo-feminist notions of girl power.

Lauren also observes the interesting marketing effort in the second phrase, “You deserve this!”

I immediately thought of Jean Kilbourne’s Can’t Buy My Love… and its emphasis upon the seductive marketing of indulgent food specifically to women… the “inspiring” message was a tired re-tread of that same old idea in which food advertisers so often seem to engage: these are “women’s” foods, and the “joy and strength” you’re missing in your life can be found right here in this bit of dark, rich chocolate, so go ahead, girl, indulge. You can always throw your money at the diet industry afterward.

Thanks Lauren!

For more on the social construction of chocolate: a gender-reversed vintage ad, a contemporary gender-“reversal” in Japan, cupcakes for men, and chocolates in the tampon aisle.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

El sent in a really interesting example of the re-fashioning of a real body into one believed to be more appealing to consumers. In the video below, real footage of gymnast Shawn Johnson is shown alongside the video game designed to allow Wii players to “play” her. El notes:

…the video Shawn is significantly thinner and long-limbed whereas the real Shawn has a short muscular body. The real Shawn’s leotards are red and blue, while the video image is wearing a pink leotard. In addition, the hair of the video version is blonder.

There has been a clear effort here to feminize the image of Shawn and to make her body conform to less athletic ideals… While Shawn’s name and fame is used to sell the video (presumably primarily to little girls), the video sends the message that Shawn herself must be altered, even though I would guess most people buying the game are fans of Shawn, know what she look like, and admire her as she is.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Kate L. sent us a link to a post by Esquire’s Abram Sauer, who took a measuring tape to the “36 inch waist” men’s pants at seven chain stores to see if the purported 36-inches was accurate (story).  He discovered, indeed, that all of the companies were engaging in at least some “vanity sizing,” the labeling of larger clothes with smaller sizes (the fashion equivalent of grade inflation).  Flowing Data made an easy-to-read figure (all pant sizes are marked “36 inches):

For more psychology of marketing, see our posts on the meaningless discount, the location of outlet malls, and Pabst Blue Ribbon.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

In the TED video below, Lisa Margonelli of the New America Foundation Energy Policy Initiative gives a fascinating 17-minute talk on the political psychology and the political economy of oil… and how the former distracts us from the latter.

Among other revelations, she tells us that:

1.  Oil pumps are purposefully designed to look like ATMs to make us feel better about using them.

2.  Having a car that runs predicts employment more than a GED.

3.  Oil production reform has amounted, largely, to exporting the risk to other countries, and…

4. We pay for our oil dependence not only at the pump, but with our taxes.

Watch:

Via BoingBoing.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Please accept this newest edition of violence is sexy, courtesy of Lisa R.  The promo below, designed to advertise two shows about female murderers (Deadly Women and Wicked Attraction), sexualizes murder. The narration goes:

In the heat of summer, temperatures rise, passions erupt, and sometimes, things… turn… deadly.

They “erupt.” Get it? Get it!?

The thing is, these are stories about real women who actually murdered people. Lisa writes:

…the crimes they’re talking about on these shows are not all sex-related, and I’m just going to go out on a limb and say none of them are sexy, either. The only reason I can even fathom for a promo like this is just the notion that women are sex personified, like the green M&M. Even committing horrible, gruesome murders can’t change that.

In other words, if women are involved, best to sexify. If a man murders a man, it’s just violence. But if a man murders a woman or a woman murders a man, it’s sexy, sexy violence. If a woman murders a woman, will the murder be sexualized? I bet it would.

This calls into question the idea that we sexualize violence against women because we find pleasure in harming her. Instead, maybe we sexualize violence against women simply because we sexualize women.

Also in random, bizarre things sold with sex, see our post on using sex to sell the most unlikely things.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Rachel O., writing from New Zealand, sent in an interesting example of gendered energy drinks.  Other than their being gendered, I thought there were two things worth noting.

First, the only difference between the male and female version of the drink (other than the marketing, which is downright diametrical) is the number of calories.  The female version, Angel, is low calorie; the male version, Demon, is not.  So dieting, an imperative towards thinness, and femininity (not to mention innocence) are all lumped together in the marketing of the product.

Demon (don’t click… loud, scary music):

Angel (safe to click):

The second thing I thought was interesting about these two drinks was that it took a lot of digging to find evidence that they were made by the same company (though I finally found it here).  As far as I can tell, neither website admits the existence of the other.  This is a really strong separation of the two products, as if femininity and masculinity threaten to spoil each other, it’s best to keep them as far away from one another as possible.  God forbid we know that the makers of the aggressive Demon drink sissy it up to also make the sweet, low cal Angel drink.  Best to keep our masculinity and femininity pure.

This reminds me of the fact that Dove and Axe are owned by the same company.  The two products are sold with divergent marketing campaigns — the former claims to empower women, the latter produces some of the most sexist advertising on TV — but they are both part of Unilever.  Only our ignorance of this fact makes Dove’s marketing strategy seem earnest.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

The Daily Kos highlighted an ad for Summer’s Eve in this month’s Woman’s Day magazine.  Women’s magazines are peppered with douching advertisements, so why did this one prompt nine people — Tony S., Pharmacopaeia, Frank B., Jason W., Tom M., Jesse W., Sarah P., Ilysse W., and Philippa von Z. — to send it to us?  Take a look:

What makes this a remarkable instead of a regular douche ad is the suggestion that Summer’s Eve is interested in women’s empowerment.

This is odd because douching is well understood to be bad for healthy women’s bodies.  The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, for example, explains:

Most doctors and the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) recommend that women don’t douche. Douching can change the delicate balance of vaginal flora (organisms that live in the vagina) and acidity in a healthy vagina. One way to look at it is in a healthy vagina there are both good and bad bacteria. The balance of the good and bad bacteria help maintain an acidic environment. Any changes can cause an over growth of bad bacteria which can lead to a yeast infection or bacterial vaginosis. Plus, if you have a vaginal infection, douching can push the bacteria causing the infection up into the uterus, fallopian tubes, and ovaries.

Douching is bad for you, ladies.  So the fact that the C.B. Fleet Co., the company that owns Summer’s Eve, tries to convince all women that they need to regularly douche is not only manipulative, it’s harmful.  If it wants to maximize its profit, however, the company needs healthy women to feel that their vaginas are disgusting.  And so they tell us that it is over and over again.

You see, C.B. Fleet ‘n friends doesn’t give a shit about you.  They don’t care if you get that raise; and they certainly don’t care if their product is unnecessary and potentially harmful in most cases.  They just want to make money.  And if using a feminist-sounding you-go-girl ad will do that, then they’ll slap on a smile and laugh all the way to the bank.

In our more fledgling days we highlighted quite a few examples of marketing that co-opted feminist messages.  See our other examples of ads for bras, cleaning products and contraceptives (see here and here), botox (here and here), diamond rings, moisturizer, makeup, cars, cigarettes, and credit cards, Whirlpool, Philip Morris, Virginia Slims (here and here), and the new Disney princesses.  And none of this is new, see this example of a woman’s magazine marketing to suffragettes in 1910.

See also our collection of vintage douche ads.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.