I worked in advertising and brand strategy for 20 years. I still only think in terms of marketing, as most of my friends would agree. It's fun, but I have always recognized the dark side of it. I worked on a new product that was truly barrier-shattering: a condom for men, targeted to women to help them protect their sexual health (bigger than pregnancy prevention and more powerful). It was a product idea from Trojan sprung from two insights: 50% of their target audience was the "recipient" of the product and could influence purchase and men don't want to use condoms (that's not the insight) but we phrased it this way in our meetings "if she gets it (the condom), he gets it (sex)" and men WOULD wear condoms if women simply asked them to, because they wanted sex vs. no sex. But women don't know much about condoms except that we've been told men don't like them. And since (another insight) "every man a women sleeps with has the 'potential' to be 'prince charming' -- in many cases -- women don't want to screw it up by asking men to do something that might be cause for rejection. I tell you -- this was so fascinating. The most interesting project I ever worked on. I analyzed loads of data and conducted focus groups all over the US. Did you know that in the South at that time (around 2005/6) focus group recruiters in the South wouldn't let us recruit for groups of women "unmarried, living with partners for x time". We had to phrase the screener as "engaged" or "seeing someone steadily for x time". Crazy. But I digress. There is so much more to this story that fits your writing. The creatives launching the product were inspired by Virginia Slims advertising. We wanted women to not be afraid of taking charge of their sexual health. We did a lot of work to get the line of products stocked in the femhy aisle, vs. the condom area perceived as full of leering men. We provided instructions. We did borrow packaging from perfume/cosmetics. But we had the first black packaging in the femhy aisle -- before Kotex did it. The product was called Alexa. (so much learning about chick name stereotypes in THAT process.) It died because, wait for it, Walmart refused to stock it because, again, in the South, it was perceived as "too promiscuous" or, as one sales director told me, "You're just asking for women to bend over and hike up their skirts." Seriously. To my face. The good news is that shortly after, Play brand of condoms and lubes was launched and Millennials took over and the marketing world and life evolved. But I still feel sorry for women who get divorced, especially at my age (60) and don't know how important it is to protect their sexual health. You can find the digital ad we created for Alexa on YouTube. :-)
Oh, and during this time, I also worked on FDS. A horrible product for women, "discovered" by a male CEO on his trip to France. The fragrances were HORRIBLE. Sickly-sweet, mostly floral if I recall. Adververtising is a great window into human behavior and commercial assumptions about it.
I LOVE the slogan "If she gets it, he gets it"--reminds me of those essays that point out that we could stop almost all abortions if only men would wear condoms. It is so depressing to think that we still have to battle these retrograde ideas about women and sex.
Not to mention that great ad in 19060s-70 for Playtex that simply showed a black and white photo of sexy man looking at the camera with the headline, paraphrasing: "Lingerie for men." At the time, I thought it was the height of creativity and sophistication and, well, I still think it's pretty good for what it is. You are a great writer, Mari. (Hope this comment makes up for liking that Playtex ad, LOL.)
For me, the most irritating and fascinating ideological weirdness are the amount of products that pretend to be my "fwiend"... "Hello mister i'm just a lil' ickle Innocent smoothie bottle let's pwetend I'm not owned by that bad ol' Coca-Cola corpowation!"
I loved "lolly" - then and now and giggled at your wonderfully tongue-in-cheek follow up. But what really struck me was your ability to recall - or find - wonderful examples from so many diverse sources. English teacher to the end! Bravo!!!
A pervasive ideology in our culture, not really very hidden, is the notion that children's lives are in some ways more important than adult lives. I find this is manifested through news and advertisement with the reminder that while you might not care so much about other people in general, or even your own personal well-being, remember to DO it for The Children! Of course people do care about their own children more than just about anything, that is desirable and often necessary. But when I see a newspaper headline "1.2 million children in the path of Hurricane Oswald!" I wonder what the writer is trying to tell me. I used to watch the Simpsons regularly, and there was a character, the wife of Reverend Lovejoy, who would stand at any random town meeting, be it a discussion of the new supermarket or a town monorail, would exclaim "But what about the children?!" Certainly breakfast cereals and insurance companies selling products to help your kids makes some logical sense. I think SNL did a spoof once of a gentle family lounging at a picnic, while the camers slowly zoomed in on the cute kids, and the logo LOCKHEED MARTAIN drifted across the screen.
OMG, that SNL parody ad! I agree that our culture talks about children's lives as being more valuable than adults', and the cries of "Think of the children!" are used too often to justify policies that are otherwise retrograde.
But in other ways I think that our country values children less than adults. For example, thanks to Social Security, poverty among seniors is much rarer now than it was a few generations ago. And that is a good thing! But we seem totally incapable of making any permanent changes that would lessen child poverty, whether it's a child tax credit (note: before Casey moved back to the US, we got this tax credit in Switzerland; child tax credits are totally normal throughout Europe), affordable childcare, more generous financial and/or food aid to struggling young families, etc. It's as though we love to talk about how much we value children, but when it comes to spending money to make their lives better? Not so much.
Thanks for the comment and for the laugh. "1.2 million children in the path of Hurricane Oswald": it's like a parody!
Basically, for more than 30 years now, scents sell. The industry of perfumes/scents/flavorings is one of the most profitable there is nowadays. Try and think of anything today that is NOT scented. Honestly, WHY do we have to add scents to freshly washed clothing??? Soap/detergent ain't good enough anymore, eh? NOT to speak of all the room sprays, oils, diffusers etc. I am allergic to most of those, they provoke a hay fever reaction with me, so I'm definitely not a fan. (scented candles are OK, though). As far as scented bath products go, I do remember a hazelnut-scented bubble bath from years ago that smelled so good I could've drunk it (!!) And I will not start with all of the artificial flavorings etc. Decades ago, I wondered why all US shopping malls smell pervasively of cinnamon. I think they spray the stuff around to make us hungry. Stores use scents, and now, even some art museums are having perfumers create scents for specific displays and/or rooms to give visitors that feel of that particular time in history. See:
How to use scent in events: Odette Toilette's guide for museums
Thanks for the link! You are right, btw: malls quite openly waft out those cinnamon smells to make consumers want to buy more food. And I agree about scented detergents: I'd much rather smell the fresh air of line-dried clothing than the overbearing perfumes of many detergents. And I'm not even allergic!
I worked in advertising and brand strategy for 20 years. I still only think in terms of marketing, as most of my friends would agree. It's fun, but I have always recognized the dark side of it. I worked on a new product that was truly barrier-shattering: a condom for men, targeted to women to help them protect their sexual health (bigger than pregnancy prevention and more powerful). It was a product idea from Trojan sprung from two insights: 50% of their target audience was the "recipient" of the product and could influence purchase and men don't want to use condoms (that's not the insight) but we phrased it this way in our meetings "if she gets it (the condom), he gets it (sex)" and men WOULD wear condoms if women simply asked them to, because they wanted sex vs. no sex. But women don't know much about condoms except that we've been told men don't like them. And since (another insight) "every man a women sleeps with has the 'potential' to be 'prince charming' -- in many cases -- women don't want to screw it up by asking men to do something that might be cause for rejection. I tell you -- this was so fascinating. The most interesting project I ever worked on. I analyzed loads of data and conducted focus groups all over the US. Did you know that in the South at that time (around 2005/6) focus group recruiters in the South wouldn't let us recruit for groups of women "unmarried, living with partners for x time". We had to phrase the screener as "engaged" or "seeing someone steadily for x time". Crazy. But I digress. There is so much more to this story that fits your writing. The creatives launching the product were inspired by Virginia Slims advertising. We wanted women to not be afraid of taking charge of their sexual health. We did a lot of work to get the line of products stocked in the femhy aisle, vs. the condom area perceived as full of leering men. We provided instructions. We did borrow packaging from perfume/cosmetics. But we had the first black packaging in the femhy aisle -- before Kotex did it. The product was called Alexa. (so much learning about chick name stereotypes in THAT process.) It died because, wait for it, Walmart refused to stock it because, again, in the South, it was perceived as "too promiscuous" or, as one sales director told me, "You're just asking for women to bend over and hike up their skirts." Seriously. To my face. The good news is that shortly after, Play brand of condoms and lubes was launched and Millennials took over and the marketing world and life evolved. But I still feel sorry for women who get divorced, especially at my age (60) and don't know how important it is to protect their sexual health. You can find the digital ad we created for Alexa on YouTube. :-)
Oh, and during this time, I also worked on FDS. A horrible product for women, "discovered" by a male CEO on his trip to France. The fragrances were HORRIBLE. Sickly-sweet, mostly floral if I recall. Adververtising is a great window into human behavior and commercial assumptions about it.
And I LOVE your writing. Keep going.
If I recall correctly, those products are really bad for us too--they can cause skin problems and infections, and talc can cause cancer. No thank you!
I LOVE the slogan "If she gets it, he gets it"--reminds me of those essays that point out that we could stop almost all abortions if only men would wear condoms. It is so depressing to think that we still have to battle these retrograde ideas about women and sex.
Mom, I hate to break it to you.... citrus is also a food
Ha! Good point!
Not to mention that great ad in 19060s-70 for Playtex that simply showed a black and white photo of sexy man looking at the camera with the headline, paraphrasing: "Lingerie for men." At the time, I thought it was the height of creativity and sophistication and, well, I still think it's pretty good for what it is. You are a great writer, Mari. (Hope this comment makes up for liking that Playtex ad, LOL.)
Ha! I think most women would agree that lingerie--especially the sexy, lacy, scratchy kind--is indeed for men! Thanks for the kind words, too!
For me, the most irritating and fascinating ideological weirdness are the amount of products that pretend to be my "fwiend"... "Hello mister i'm just a lil' ickle Innocent smoothie bottle let's pwetend I'm not owned by that bad ol' Coca-Cola corpowation!"
Good observation. I’m not a fan of how corporations try to co-opt friendships either.
I loved "lolly" - then and now and giggled at your wonderfully tongue-in-cheek follow up. But what really struck me was your ability to recall - or find - wonderful examples from so many diverse sources. English teacher to the end! Bravo!!!
Thanks! For some reason I just started noticing them in several books I was reading earlier this year, so I wrote them down.
This...blew my mind. And having been a chicken owner I can attest to Chaplin's skill at imitating one.
Yeah—isn’t it amazing? I have seen the movie a few times before and only noticed it when I rewatched the clip.
A pervasive ideology in our culture, not really very hidden, is the notion that children's lives are in some ways more important than adult lives. I find this is manifested through news and advertisement with the reminder that while you might not care so much about other people in general, or even your own personal well-being, remember to DO it for The Children! Of course people do care about their own children more than just about anything, that is desirable and often necessary. But when I see a newspaper headline "1.2 million children in the path of Hurricane Oswald!" I wonder what the writer is trying to tell me. I used to watch the Simpsons regularly, and there was a character, the wife of Reverend Lovejoy, who would stand at any random town meeting, be it a discussion of the new supermarket or a town monorail, would exclaim "But what about the children?!" Certainly breakfast cereals and insurance companies selling products to help your kids makes some logical sense. I think SNL did a spoof once of a gentle family lounging at a picnic, while the camers slowly zoomed in on the cute kids, and the logo LOCKHEED MARTAIN drifted across the screen.
OMG, that SNL parody ad! I agree that our culture talks about children's lives as being more valuable than adults', and the cries of "Think of the children!" are used too often to justify policies that are otherwise retrograde.
But in other ways I think that our country values children less than adults. For example, thanks to Social Security, poverty among seniors is much rarer now than it was a few generations ago. And that is a good thing! But we seem totally incapable of making any permanent changes that would lessen child poverty, whether it's a child tax credit (note: before Casey moved back to the US, we got this tax credit in Switzerland; child tax credits are totally normal throughout Europe), affordable childcare, more generous financial and/or food aid to struggling young families, etc. It's as though we love to talk about how much we value children, but when it comes to spending money to make their lives better? Not so much.
Thanks for the comment and for the laugh. "1.2 million children in the path of Hurricane Oswald": it's like a parody!
I like unscented things
Me too--especially detergents for pillowcases and pajamas. I don't like having all that perfume next to my face when I'm sleeping.
Basically, for more than 30 years now, scents sell. The industry of perfumes/scents/flavorings is one of the most profitable there is nowadays. Try and think of anything today that is NOT scented. Honestly, WHY do we have to add scents to freshly washed clothing??? Soap/detergent ain't good enough anymore, eh? NOT to speak of all the room sprays, oils, diffusers etc. I am allergic to most of those, they provoke a hay fever reaction with me, so I'm definitely not a fan. (scented candles are OK, though). As far as scented bath products go, I do remember a hazelnut-scented bubble bath from years ago that smelled so good I could've drunk it (!!) And I will not start with all of the artificial flavorings etc. Decades ago, I wondered why all US shopping malls smell pervasively of cinnamon. I think they spray the stuff around to make us hungry. Stores use scents, and now, even some art museums are having perfumers create scents for specific displays and/or rooms to give visitors that feel of that particular time in history. See:
How to use scent in events: Odette Toilette's guide for museums
https://museumsatnight.org.uk › Ambient Scent Marketing Systems For Museum Environments
Thanks for the link! You are right, btw: malls quite openly waft out those cinnamon smells to make consumers want to buy more food. And I agree about scented detergents: I'd much rather smell the fresh air of line-dried clothing than the overbearing perfumes of many detergents. And I'm not even allergic!
Hi Mari
I was once at a course for 2 weeks in France (many years ago); there was a laundry room
we could use for our laundry and one of the participants said I could
add mine to hers. Unfortunately, she used those “keep the clothes smelling fresh”
pellets, the shirts stank horrendously and so I had to rewash them when I got
back home. ugh!
aside from overbearing scents, detergents, but mainly other additives and
helpers such as those filter paper drying sheets contain pork fat and other
such salubrious ingredients.
happy sunny weekend!
Henriette