‘Tooni Musing – Are Men Necessary?
(Recommended from my bookshelf: Is Sex Necessary? By James Thurber and E. B. White, first published in 1929, with illustrations by Thurber…oh now, stop that. This is THURBER.)
Don Draper: What do women want?
Roger: Who cares?
- Mad Men
…and so it goes (or went)…
This morning I riffed/ranted re marketing to us OLD women over at Lip-Sticking (MORE Is Less?)…and so I got into the thinking about the whole men versus women thang again (Age-old, ongoing, never resolved)…which reminded me of:
A couple of weeks ago a group of us “over 40″ (most over 50) women got together to go see Julie and Julia (Yes, a chick flick, but refreshingly NOT the standard rom-com that features Hugh Grant, Matthew McConaughey, or the boy du jour running to the airport to stop his newfound love from leaving FOREVER! Haven’t these people ever heard of phones, PDAs or email? Hey, you could even catch the next flight…;-).
The movie depicts two very happily married women…and even shows Julia and Paul Child in a sexual, fun relationship (gasp! Middle-aged people have sex!) Now, all of us in the movie group like – even love – men…but at dinner afterwards…not one word was said about them. We talked about the movie, food, politics, travel, real estate, gardening, more food, butter…books…but nothing about how to attract, get, keep or entice men. Hmmmm…
We marketers continue to kvetch, analyze, tweet, yadder, nadder and mope about why advertisers persist in chasing younger women and using size zero sex kittens in ads targeting women…when older women have more money, less patience with stupidity and have been there done that with the whole sex kitten thing (However, please note above re middle-aged sex.)
Well, Duh! I just had a mental newsflash (which has probably already been written about ad nauseum somewhere on the Web…everything else has.) The ad agencies and their clients are still largely run by men – and older white guys at that (Please, don’t jump on that; I love old white guys.) And, they’ve got the sneakin’ suspicion that – no – we women don’t think men are necessary. So, of course, they keep trying to put us back in the frilly pink little woman box. That didn’t work well even back in the Mad Men’s heyday. (I’m expecting blond princess Betty Draper to shoot something bigger than a pigeon any day now…)
More:
YouTube video of Betty and those pigeons (I also chuckle at the anti-pigeon Google ads inserted into the box…then there’s the link to “hunting in Uruguay”!?! Heh.)
Michele Miller on What Mad Men Teaches You About Marketing To Women
P.S. Do I think Don Draper (Jon Hamm) is necessary? ABSOLUTELY! 
…I’d even light those cigarettes for him…Dang, us women are sure hard to figure…Y’all have a good Friday.
View the Blog Roll
My suggestion for marketing to middle aged women:
Give me realistic solutions to my concerns as a ‘woman of a certain age’: I am beyond wanting to wear a bikini at this point, Ms Jenny Craig. But, I’d like to see some great ideas on how to dress appropriately and comfortably while I fight the Battle of the Bulge. I don’t need a car that will ‘turn me on’ but I’d like to know it will reliably turn on and get me where I need to go. I don’t need pink power tools but it would help if they were designed and built to fit my hands so I can fix the things around my house. I am no longer looking for my soul mate, Mr. Match.com. I am particularly not interested in meeting a man ‘who I can meet all his needs’ because I’m done with being maid, nurse, surrogate mother, cook or sex kitten at this point in my life. Or, expects me to give up my life long friends (male and female) just to spend time with him. Show me some vacation packages where me and my friends can have a great time, eat tasty food, learn something interesting and see beautiful things. Show me some things to spend my portion of the 80% of disposal income and spending decisions that makes my life more comfortable, interesting, or useful.
But it’s not a matter of who has money; it’s who spends money, whether they have it or not. I assume marketers aren’t talking to me because they know they aren’t selling anything I’m interested in buying, because I’m not interested in buying . . . well, anything, frankly. We spend the first half of our lives acquiring stuff, and the second half trying to get rid of it. I’m firmly in the getting-rid-of-it camp. I’m not insulted by marketing trends; I simply ignore them.
So there you have it, Companies of America. Don’t bother marketing to me, Janet or Jill. We wouldn’t buy it anyway.
As for the other 42,000,099 Baby Boomer women – well we’re nothing if not diverse.
But seriously folks, whatever age you’re marketing to – you shouldn’t make assumptions or patronize them. And, way too much of “marketing to women”is still stuck in 1950s/60s.
Seth Godin had an interesting take on this today: “Who gets to decide what you want?” Me. Me! But that wasn’t always the case. Like George W., when I was young and immature, I was young and immature. I wanted stuff! Mostly I wanted stuff other people told me I should want. Now, not so much. Actually, now, not at all — at least if it has to be dusted.