So here we go.
"Catchphrase!"
Go ahead and watch the commercial if you haven't seen it already. I'll wait.Ok, you watched it? Good. Now, I will give you a shiny new dollar if you can tell me whether they are making fun of themselves or being completely straight about it, because I cannot, for the life of me, figure it the hell out.
I can kind of understand their rationale. "The Old Spice and Axe ads are pretty funny. People like those. So, hey, let's make a soda just for men." NO, IT IS NOT JUST FOR MEN, IT IS A UNISEX BEVERAGE, YOU IDIOT. You know, they have a Facebook page that is only for men? They coded the page to check gender and explicitly exclude women. Who does that? What company in their right mind would exclude a consumer base from their product (y'know, other than snooty, rich people)? That's insane.
I would expect something like this from the 90's, but not in this day and age. When people are just now realizing that women have money and are a force to be reckoned with, you want to poke fun at them? "Are you enjoying the action movie? Of couse not! You don't like action! You're a woman! With girly parts! Now get back in the kitchen and get me a MANLY DR. P!" Speaking as someone who's fairly deep into the geek culture and can safely see how many girls and women like action movies, books, comics, TV and videogames, I can tell you this is flat-out insulting.
"Catchphrase!"
Y'know what that says? That says, "yes, these movies are STUPID, and guys are dumb for liking them, and we made a drink for their dumb heads." So thanks for that, Dr. Pepper. You managed to insult BOTH genders.
I'm just now deciding to voice an opinion on this because, when I watch Conan, their commercials are on every other break. Then they do a sponsored skit, which is funny, but when they brought up Dr. Pepper, I was so hoping they were going to rip into the ad instead of bending over and taking it. It's a huge letdown. I hope the money they stuffed down his pants was at least good enough to fund some more skits.
Of course, being only a guy, I don't have the right to say how or what women should be appalled at. Maybe I'm overreacting. Would any ladies care to weigh in as to how they see the ad?
Honestly I just find them stupid. I don't like Dr. Pepper to begin with, and I find their commercials for the new drink to be a poorly done rip off of the Old Spice commercials. What bugs me about this new vein of advertising is that they felt they needed to take a route that reminds me of being in elementary school, where girls had 'cooties' and guys were all immature idiots who tried to out-stupid each other. This advertising pitch basically does the same, separating the women and the men because apparently they can't like the same diet sodas. Personally, I hate all diet sodas, the taste doesn't appeal to me, so I had no intention of trying the new Dr. Pepper. I don't find the ad offensive, just immature and poorly done.
ReplyDeleteTheir next ad: "Dr. Pepper ten: It's cootie free!"
ReplyDelete