ADVERTISEMENT
Once upon a time, Roland Barthes wrote extensively and poetically on the seemingly mundane subject of advertisement for detergents and soaps: "These products have been in the last few years the object of such massive advertising that they now belong to a region of French daily life which the various types of psycho-analysis would do well to pay some attention to if they wish to keep up to date." And, while such things might not seem ripe for academic dissection, Barthes' Mythologies is proof that the language and imagery of advertising is both worthy of analysis and imbibed with a lot of meaning and insight into our desires as a culture, and as humans.
When it comes to selling a product, we all know there's a lot more that goes into it than your basic supply-and-demand, quality versus quantity arguments. Entire marketing departments and advertising teams work tirelessly to decide just how to get you to spend your money on any particular item — and that often means pandering to and keying into the most basic stereotypes of social groups. That phenomenon was perhaps best exemplified by the ridiculous pink BIC for Her pens targeted to ladies, because goodness knows we can't write our love letters and blueberry pie recipes with a normal pen! But, the truth is, the same philosophy that led to that PR disaster is leading to great success in the world of beauty products. It's not just smart advertising, it's par for the course.
Further to that point, the teams that come up with product packaging and advertising campaigns aren't stupid. In many cases, they're working off data from real world sales and focus groups, and simply creating what people respond to. It's a bit of a chicken-or-the-egg situation when it comes to the question of who, exactly, is responsible for the standardized, traditional gender presentation manifested in the products that line the drugstore aisle.
We, for one, have no shame in admitting that we like a girly-girl spin on things from time to time, but we've also enjoyed plenty of products aimed at dudes (some of us even swear by Old Spice instead of Secret). As long as we can all feel comfortable in our own skin, there's not necessarily a problem with packaging things in gender-specific ways. But it is a truly fascinating look at how marketing teams perceive the American public, and how we as a society view gender differences as a whole. Here are eight examples that, while they're not nearly as conspicuous as BIC for Her, prove that when we shop for our favorite products, we're engaging in a lot of the same assumptions in a not-so-subtle way.
ADVERTISEMENT