The social aspect of consumerism and how relations and interactions with others affect how we want to be perceived by using what we consume as a method of defining what type of people we are (or at least who we want to be). Marketing has taken advantage of this fact and through advertising, has created effective ways of selling products, merchandise, and paraphernalia by strategic advertising. These industries have also taken an extra step to gendered marketing. A type of marketing that is targeted towards women has been loosely labeled as “pink marketing” where in an interview Kristina Couzyn (MD Brand Activation) explains how marketers “tend to see female shoppers in two roles…either as a care-[giver] or as a career woman.” Although this strategy can be seen as outdated now, evidence shows how women and men were targeted differently according to social values and beliefs of what either category of gender and sexuality would be interested in.
Technology has played a major part in facilitating this gendered marketing. It seems as though technology has plagued our minds to the point where it is less used to facilitate and increase our quality of life and more utilized to parade our worth or method of self-expression, and being a man or woman means different weaknesses to marketing. Marketing strategies constantly try to find what consumers need or what they will eventually persuade them to think they need. Marketing to females as well as males was a method used in the early 20th century, especially with the boom in radio and the Jazz Age. Before discussing the rage in radio’s popularity, it is important to note the precursor to this new invention. Regina Lee Blaszczyk’s book, American Consumer Society, 1865-2005, shows evidence of such marketing when she explains how the phonograph introduced musical options into the home. The Victrola phonograph soon became a household piece of furniture that went past the outdated look into a sleeker version, which then allowed women to coordinate their furniture according to their own tastes. Women were in charge of phonographs because they were a piece of furniture and “women dominated the lively market for phonograph records” once the Victrola was introduced as an item of beauty for the home in 1906. (Blaszczyk, 142)
Fast forwarding a bit to the Jazz Age, music became a hobby and a pastime that men were able to appreciate. Blaszczyk notes that “Jazz played an especially important role in turning music listening into a male hobby” (151). The melody and style of Jazz was seen as a masculine purview that “stood in contrast to the safe, staid conventions of feminine parlor music” (151). But, lo and behold, women began embracing musical options as well once the American radio had the first romantic matinee idol for women to swoon over. The radio industry gift-wrapped singer Rudy Vallee and “as broadcasting’s answer to Hollywood’s Rudolph Valentino, Vallee attracted the attention of millions of women who swooned over his commercially sponsored radio show” (Blaszczyk , 151). In this sense, it should be noted that there is a disparity to how marketing will approach men and women, especially during the technological boom of the early 20th century.
Extra Link: George Carlin on Consumption
Section 01
Yes, marketing has profiled consumers for many years as evidenced by our readings. According to the website "She-Economy", women born between the years of 1946 and 1964 represents a huge affluent segment of the buying public. This site also asserts that women represent the majority of the online market. Women account for 85% of all consumer purchases including everythin from autos to health care. You can see this trend in advertisements and other marketing- it is geared to appeal to the women. Thomas Walsh 01
ReplyDeleteI found the Kristina Couzyn interview posted to be very interesting. I wasn't aware that Dell tried to market a computer to women, hilariously assuming a pink website with posted recipes would entice females to buy it. I also found it amusing that one of the commentators was ignored at a car dealership (presumably due to the stereotype that women have no knowledge of automobiles). Although females already constitute a large part of the consumer market, people should drop their biases about what women are purchasing. For example, I never thought about women buying deodorant for their husbands or boyfriends but they definitely do. Props for the George Carlin video as well.
ReplyDeleteMelissa Garaffa section 80
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ReplyDeleteThe development of the marketing paradigm has, from its inception in the late 19th to early 20th centuries, sought to take advantage of all corners of the market, from general to specific. So I agree with this post in part, because the direct marketing by “Mr. Advertiser” toward “Mrs. Consumer” is noteworthy in terms of women as a significant market force and as an example of consumer manipulation.
ReplyDeleteStarting with the latter of the two points, consumer manipulation is a tactic that makes free choice an outmoded ideal. Looking back into the fourth chapter of American Consumer Society, Blaszczyk writes, “The agency that understood human psychology could manipulate the innate emotions-fear, hate, love-that motivated consumers to buy. (124)” This is of particular importance because advertising is often based on fear exploitation. We as consumers are regularly made to feel less than or inadequate because we are without some product or another. Blaszczyk goes on to write, “Campaigns for [beauty products] targeted the feminine fear of social inadequacy and promised to make women beautiful. (125)” I see these fear based advertising campaigns as a mistreatment of consumers in general and specifically women in this case.
Don’t get me wrong, I agree that technological advances and their distribution on the open market have benefitted America. The bicycle, phonograph, radio and automobile have helped us connect to nature, culture and bridge great distances. Advances in these industries and current technologies are due in part to the research done by marketing firms. Gathering of gender, demographic and socio-economic data, as well as direct feedback from consumers helped make many products safer and more useful. I still find the trend in advertising to make the consumer, regardless of gender, ethnicity, socio-economic status feel incomplete without the newest “widget” on the market problematic. I also thought the George Carlin link was on point!
Product commercials always seem to be targeted for one specific gender. You would see a man driving a very expensive car; then you see a woman cleaning up a table after her kids were done making a mess. It seems to me that women are stuck buying items to either clean the house or take care of her family (if she has one). Then, there are the ads that make women help make them look more attractive to their man. The commercial is telling them “Buy this and your husband (or boyfriend) will never leave you”. In our world, beauty and sex appeal reign supreme. Nice job on the blog.
ReplyDeleteAndrew Rizzo section 80
There’s no mistaking the gendered consumerism around “selling the radio” to both men and women. Melissa notes jazz’s masculinity and Rudy Vallee’s romance, and the disparity between marketing strategies for men and women is blatantly obvious; both advertisers and radio show promoters knew their audiences and catered to them. But a key factor that allowed all this to happen was the idea of radio as escapism. Radio jazz shows and romantic matinees may have been “gender marketed,” but the idea that “consumers took pleasure from sitting back, closing their eyes, and imagining that the voice coming through the ether was talking or singing directly to them,” shouldn’t be ignored, and neither should we forget that “radio was a strangely empowering, personal force in an increasingly impersonal age” (p152). The idea of the family sitting around the radio at night and listening to weekly shows also became a huge marketing trend.
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