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Friday, March 16, 2012

Dr. Pepper 10: It's Not For Anyone

CE Jenkins
             
             Apparently Dr. Pepper has returned to their age-old marketing strategy of doing everything in their power to make me hate their soda. I admit I'm already biased: it tastes like cough syrup, is in cunningly disguised packaging that is easily mistaken for Coke, and… yeah, that's pretty much it. But now the top creative minds at Dr. P have taken it to a whole new level with the return of an advertisement that was offensive the first time around if not to my feminist values than at least to my intelligence.

Here is said ad:


                        US Population: 51% female.

                        Dr Pepper: “It’s not for women!”

              I can only infer that the conversation that took place at Dr Pepper headquarters when the idea for this commercial was pitched when something like this:


                         [DP’s Ad Department]: Hey guys, here’s an idea! Let’s alienate over half                          of our potential consumer base!

                         [DP’s Voice of Reason]: …Or we could… not?

                         [DP’s Ad Department]: …Get the fuck out of here.
                         
                         Exit DP's Voice of Reason.    


               I’m not a business major, but I’m going to go ahead and say that when you’re paying money to make people not want to buy your product, it’s less than a good thing. Let's take a quick look at why.

               Firstly, at the movie portrayed: I am certifiably a woman, and that movie looks fantastic. I mean, come on? Lasers, jumping off cliffs, punching animatronic snakes in the face? Who wouldn’t want to watch that twice? Yet Dr Pepper is telling me that it’s not okay, because it’s a guy thing and I’ll pollute it with my girly-ness. And I don’t know about anyone else, but I don’t appreciate being told what I can and cannot do by a sleazy GI Joe impersonator, OR the soda company he represents.

                Not only is the ad sexist against women, it manages the impressive feat of being sexist against EVERYONE. Hear that, people of the male persuasion? It implies that if you aren’t running around a jungle and spilling half a can of soda on your crotch while riding in a bumpy off-road vehicle, you are not a MANLY man.

                 And I could have just rolled my eyes and laughed this off as merely a terrible marketing strategy, until vice-president of Dr. Pepper Jim Trebilcock did the one thing I hate most: claimed that it was a joke. It’s the perfect defense: You can say whatever the fuck you want, and anyone who speaks up about it is just a debby downer without a sense of humor. But newsflash, buddy: if people don’t “get the joke”, it’s a failing on your behalf, not your audience. So, say, if people interpret your Dr. Pepper ad as a sexist slander on both fronts, it’s probably not because literally everyone else is dumber than you are. Especially if you’re Jim Trebilcock.

                  Not to mention the fact that their facebook app bans anyone with a female profile page from entering. That’s good marketing, right? Also, one of the games on the app literally involves SHOOTING everything that has to do with women: last time I checked, encouraging femicide was not cool. Hold on, let me look again; yep, still not cool.

                 Then again, I’m just a dumb broad with an internet connection raining on their manly, manly parade. 

Next time leave gender commentary in the media to those who can pull it off.


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