Example Of Sexism In Advertising

Sexism is apparent in all different types of media in today’s culture. From time to time, it is a specific product that should be marketed toward a certain gender. For example, a product like tampons should not be advertised to men simply because men do not use tampons. Dr. Pepper decided to try and take a new approach marketing their drink Dr. Pepper TEN by marketing it specifically to men. The ad campaign is blatantly misogynistic claiming that it is, “not for women.” Dr. Pepper’s advertising of a soft drink solely to men is degrading and offensive.
The commercial is portrayed to be just like every stereotypical action film ever made stuffed into a thirty second advertisement. This would really be quite an impressive advertisement

for Dr. Pepper if the dialogue is not taken into account. The first words out of the actor’s mouth are “Hey, ladies, enjoying the film? Of course not. ” Making the assumption that women cannot possible enjoy an action packed movie and that the only types of movies women enjoy are romance movies is asinine. The dialogue even goes as far as saying “so you can keep the romantic comedies and lady drinks.” The actor also claims that “this is our movie…” meaning that it is for the men because it is in fact an action movie and no woman could ever possibly enjoy that. Followed by, “and this is our soda” which is obvious because of all the other man being thrown in the viewer’s face, why would this drink be appropriate for women. The commercial then finally comes to a close stating “Dr. Pepper TEN: It’s not for women.”
The idea that sparked this ad campaign was that men tend to shy away from diet sodas because they feel emasculated by purchasing diet drinks. Dr. Pepper TEN is a low calorie drink without that diet label. With people moving to be healthier in recent years, soda sales have dropped significantly because the male demographic is not purchasing diet drinks. Dr. Pepper’s solution to this was Dr. Pepper TEN. While it is similar to Coke Zero and Pepsi Max as it is a healthier option that is not a diet option, Dr. Pepper TEN had the only outright sexist and offensive ad campaign.
Dr. Pepper’s marketing department really should have put more thought into who might be offended by their advertisements. If they had considered the viewers on the other end of the commercial, they could have realized how hurtful it comes off. By completely singling out an entire gender, they put off so many people in their market. Dr. Pepper could have run the same ad, but by simply altering the dialogue, they could have taken a lot of the heat off of themselves. By going on with this campaign the people working for Dr. Pepper really shot themselves in the foot.
However, Dr. Pepper did not think they were in the wrong at all running the commercials for Dr. Pepper TEN. Dr. Pepper’s executive vice president of marketing believes that “women get the joke.” There is not exactly an underlying joke to the ad campaign though. The higher ups of this campaign truly believe that their controversial advertisements are nothing more than an interesting conversation starter. Nevertheless, countless people were truly taken aback by this commercial and Dr. Pepper did lose many customers.
Regardless of the good fun Dr. Pepper’s marketing department thought they were having, the way they went about this ad campaign was done all wrong. A few modest alterations in various aspects of the ad campaign could have drastically improved its overbearingly chauvinist approach. There was absolutely no need for the exclusion of females in their advertisements when they could have still marketed it as macho without going to such extremes. Arguments can still be made four years after the ad campaign launched on the morality of the commercial; as the world is becoming more and more progressive and accepting it is even more offensive and unbelievable years after the original release.