Can Brands Target Young Men Without Alienating Young Women?
Posted by anastasia on 10-13-2009
Yesterday two stories caught our eye having to do with marketing to young men. First was the blowback against Amp/Pepsi’s app designed to help guys “score with women,” which culminated with Pepsi Tweeting a half-hearted apology that included the #Pepsifail hashtag. The second was FOX and Burger King teaming up to make fun of Jessica Simpson’s weight. It’s not as if Pepsi, Burger King, Carls Jr., Axe or many other brands haven’t created campaigns designed to appeal to young men while also objectifying women or employing the age old “sex sells” advertising strategy. What’s different is how quickly negative reaction can spread across multiple social media platforms.
The question this raises is whether it matters. If the target audience (young men) don’t seem to care or like the marketing/download the app., then mission accomplished, right? Maybe in the past…but if enough influential bloggers, Twitterers, Facebookers, etc. start bashing your brand for alienating half the U.S. population, is it worth the risk? And if your brand is doing this sort of marketing through an app, it seems even more likely to be targeted for criticism via social media. That said, activists have tried to make the connection between Dove and Axe having the same parent company (Unilever) for awhile now, and while some people might be outraged, most of what I’ve seen is people separating the two initiatives and still applauding Dove’s efforts (Axe’s strategy hasn’t shifted as a result).
What do Ypulsers think about the risk vs. reward of these types of campaigns in the age of instant feedback across multiple platforms?
Sorta Related: The always witty Sarah Haskins with her Target Women segment “How to get hot chicks.”
For more coverage of youth marketing, go to the Ypulse Youth Marketing Channel sponsored by Youth Marketing Connection.
Categorized under: Youth Marketing
October 15th, 2009 at 12:00 pm
I’m not a Gen Y consumer, but I found the ap in very bad taste and much more likely to offend than gain consumers. Gen Y women won’t like it if their boyfriends, colleagues or others buy Pepsi as a result of the ill-conceived ap. In today’s world, it is easy to appeal to your target market, even young men, in a way that most everyone else doesn’t find offensive.
I’m very disappointed in Pepsi and their agency.
November 11th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
[...] ready to bring those same ideals to the working world where they can be applied to those staid marketing tactics and long-held industry-wide mental blocks we repeatedly find ourselves questioning. Although their [...]