Special K,Activia and other products aimed at women that pisses you off!

panda100

I had a good laugh while reading this letter in The Rag magazine on Special K and it got me thinking about all the crappy food products that are aimed specifically at women in the hope they'll make us thin.

Dear RAG,

I freakin hate Kellogs! When I was a child kellogs cornflakes was a treat in out house and I'd savour every bite,but now one of their cereals ,Special K, has caused a level of disgust that no happy childhood memories can overcome.
Have you ever looked at the label on a box of Special K? I have. Its 30% sugar!! Even the normal special K tastes sugary. Their advertising of women being so virtuous by passing by a tray of biscuits makes me sick. F*ck that,eat the f*ckin biscuits. I hate their stupid swimsuit ads coming up to Summer, telling women their insecurities will fade away when the weight drops off from eating these sugary pieces of cardboard.
And not content with having the breakfast cereal market pretty much under their thumb they decide to go for the lunch market too!Pretending its healthy and nutritious to eat their products for two meals a day! That you will lose weight on their 'eat two bowls of kellogs and you'll drop a dress size' camapign. You'll get malnourished more like. F*ck you kellogs and your manipulating ways. Put down the box people ,eat something really good for you, some toast, muesli,porridge,make soup,eat salad,cook a big proper meal!

Chokin on my cornflake,
Friend of RAG

How comes we never see gorgeous men with amazing bodies denying themselves a muffin so they can fit into their summer speedo's? Can men not eat Special K too or is it just women who need to diet ? It really annoys me that the women Special K use in their ads already have these amazing figures which they got by hard sessions in the gym not munching on Special K all day!

The other ads that pisses me of is the bloody activia ads about discomfort and bloating. As far as im aware men and women dont have radically diferent digestive tracts so why is it always women basically having orgasms each time they put one of these skanky youghurts to their lips on tv ads?
Do men not eat yoghurt too?
http://current.com/items/88941392/target_women_yogurt_edition.htm

Does this type of advertising actually work on women? Any one actually buy these products in the hope they'll make them slim?
Any other gender specific advertising that people want to rant about??

LightningBolt

panda100 wrote: »

Does this type of advertising actually work on women? Any one actually buy these products in the hope they'll make them slim?

Amazingly yes. I'm pretty sure it's a multi billion euro industry.

li@mo

Fair play to Nestle::D:D:D

jigglywoo

How come all the ads on tv for diarrhea and constipation are aimed at women?? Are men magically immune to both?

panda100

I used to love Yorkie bars,used to get the nut and raisin one all the time. Now I purposefully dont buy it because I find 'its not for girls' quite offensive. I mean wtf does is that suggesting about us 'girls'? Il just go back to eating my activia that tastes like bland nothingness and my little bits of cardboard special k so!

Honey-ec

Not part of the thin industry, but that fcuking radio ad telling all women to take folic acid whether they're planning to get pregnant or not WRECKS MY HEAD.

Numpty 1: Why are you taking folic acid? Are you planning to get pregnant?

Numpty 2: No, but you know that 20% of all pregnancies are *chuckle* unplanned surprises!

So stop taking folic acid and start taking the pill, you insufferable gobsh!te!

The most nauseatingly patronising guff I have ever had the misfortune to hear.

LightningBolt

panda100 wrote: »

I used to love Yorkie bars,used to get the nut and raisin one all the time. Now I purposefully dont buy it because I find 'its not for girls' quite offensive. I mean wtf does is that suggesting about us 'girls'?

You're not able to handle manly bars. It's rather simple. Follow the advertising, it tells the truth.

cormie

I'll be starting a food business/brand soon, well it's kind of started already, I was actually thinking to use something like "healthier than a bowl of special K" as advertising :pac:

Jules

LightningBolt wrote: »

You're not able to handle manly bars. It's rather simple. Follow the advertising, it tells the truth.

Lightning bolt refrain from the smart remarks please, consider yourself warned.

Jules

These types of adverts make me lol, tbh, especially the like of the bodyform ads and don't know if you remember the add from the 90's with the woman rollerblading while she was having her period just cause she used tampax or whatever. Used the Song "its my life" by Dr Alban.. who wasn't even a bloody Doctor

robinph

I belive that Frosties actually have a lower sugar content in them than Special K.

GGGRRRRRR.

amacachi

Jules wrote: »

These types of adverts make me lol, tbh, especially the like of the bodyform ads and don't know if you remember the add from the 90's with the woman rollerblading while she was having her period just cause she used tampax or whatever. Used the Song "its my life" by Dr Alban.. who wasn't even a bloody Doctor

At the moment I'm trying to get my female friends to refer to their periods as "going skydiving".

Those ads get on my nerves too, especially the groundbreaking Special K ad that says if all you eat is one meal and two bowls of Special K everyday you'll lose weight. I'd love to be the scientist who made that discovery, he must be loaded.

Sammag

This thread is bringing back those God Awful (albeit now funny) memories which I think all girls have, where you got stuck for the first time on your own in the sitting-room at the age of 10 or 11, with your dad and brothers (although I didn't have any of the latter, so for me it must have been my male cousins over on a holiday from Manchester...) and a TAMPAX or sanitary towel ad would come blaring on the TV..

The sheer panic-ridden embarrassment of pure and utter "get me out of here now/why me?/why isn't the ground swallowing me up?!" despair.

And the deathly silence during and after...

coffee_cake

Feeling a bit blowwww-tehhhhhd??

Yeah those ads are annoying.

Joey the lips

i read in marketing books that women have been far more concerned with their appearence then men which is why most adverts are aimed at them

But it goes a little further than that and no this is not sexist!

Most stay at home people are women and most women watch soaps during the day and evening so thats why all the womens adverts come on at this time

Where as when a match comes on you see all the gilette and etc adverts aimed at men

Its a sad fact but the advertising is working as you are all clearly noticing the women message.

Test the theory as your o/h to call you at half time on a match and look at the amout of men adverts.

The special K thing - Men generally are not adverturous on cereal, cornflakes and weetabix so if you notice this is where they are aimed. Sim coco pops are aimed at kids and alpen at the elderly(Bowl movement stuff)

So special K is for young 18 - 30 year olds. (If you older dont worry you look great)

Again test the theory ask you oh if he would like special K or weetabix!

All that said: Stay away from the cereal bars they should be called sugar bars!

Puddleduck

Yep, these ads irritate me, but thats coz they come on every feckin 10 minutes. 'Hear that, your skipping breakfast to stay in shape...etc'. AAAAARG. Skip the crappy special K thatll leave you hungry in 20 minutes and grab some porridge or scrambled eggs or something.

These ads are marketed at women simply because its women that worry over there appearance more than men would. We all know at least one woman thats trying some kind of faddy diet. If you dont work you should see the amount of loan ads that are on tv, coz we all know, those that stay at home have no money, so why not make your situation worse by getting a loan??

Macha

I recommend Sarah Haskin's 'Target Women' videos on this subject. There are about 10 or so:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dyvtjf9BN1U

Wibbs

Its a huge industry and it does a lot of expensive research to see what works for the majority and it seems that guff does. Hell, they irritate me too. Especially the bog roll ad with the puppies. For a while there I was thinking of buying puppies and using them... The diet cereal that has more calories than the standard cereals is like others mentioned a good example that advertising works. Washing powder ads the same. Whiter whites than our previous offering. I mean how white can it bloody well get?

Joey the lips is on the money, it's very specifically targeted. Diet wise? I don't know one man on a diet. I know a couple of men who are eating healthily and hitting the gym, but on a magic special K "diet". Nope. I've actually never met one. On the other hand like puddleduck wrote a lot of women are. Most women I've known have tried some mad diet or other at least once in their lives.

So if you want to change the advertising, then it's a societal change that's needed. TBH I doubt it would get that far for either gender, except with some. Or would be incredibly difficult. The vast middle ground herd will do and buy what they're told will make them feel safe, included and "authentic"(I hate that word in advertising. Authentic jeans? Not unless you pulled them off the corpse of an 1890's miner).

Actually if I was a woman there's something else that would irritate me more. Magazines. I was stuck in some airport or other a few years back and went to buy somthing to read on the plane. What struck me was the gender diff in the magazine racks. If a Martian landed in the morning and went into a newsagents he would assume that women tend to be attracted to garish colours and are only interested in diets(and confusingly food and cooking), fashion, soaps, celebrity and the cellulite on the arses of same. He would conclude that men are attracted to women and gadgets alright but have far more wide ranging interests on top of that, by the amount of specialist magazines that tend to read by far more men. Which would he wrongfully assume was the more intelligent gender? This crap runs deep.

Silverfish

Wibbs wrote: »

Actually if I was a woman there's something else that would irritate me more. Magazines. I was stuck in some airport or other a few years back and went to buy somthing to read on the plane. What struck me was the gender diff in the magazine racks. If a Martian landed in the morning and went into a newsagents he would assume that women tend to be attracted to garish colours and are only interested in diets(and confusingly food and cooking), fashion, soaps, celebrity and the cellulite on the arses of same. He would conclude that men are attracted to women and gadgets alright but have far more wide ranging interests on top of that, by the amount of specialist magazines that tend to read by far more men. Which would he wrongfully assume was the more intelligent gender? This crap runs deep.

Well, you can't tell which specialist hobby magazines are read by men only in fairness just by standing in a newsagent.

Having worked in a major newsagent, I can tell you its actually women that purchase 'Model Train weekly' and 'Painting little tiny soldier things gazette'.


Yes, the cheap and trashy women's mags will be aimed at women, and the cheap and trashy mens mags will be aimed at men, but the specialist hobby magazines are aimed at both - men just ASSUME its at men because it doesn't have bright colours and women and diets on the cover, so it must be a men's magazine.

So yeah, this crap DOES run deep.

Nevyn

Wibbs wrote: »

So if you want to change the advertising, then it's a societal change that's needed. TBH I doubt it would get that far for either gender, except with some. Or would be incredibly difficult. The vast middle ground herd will do and buy what they're told will make them feel safe, included and "authentic"(I hate that word in advertising. Authentic jeans? Not unless you pulled them off the corpse of an 1890's miner).

It's happening, seriously it is, with more people tuning out from ads be it the radio to their mp3 player,
the tv to online sites to watching box sets or getting shows from 'their American cousins', to people playing games, reading the new on rss feeds rather then the paper, the way advertisers can reach people is narrowing.

We are going to start seeing more gimmicks and desperate ad companies
trying to push limits and boundaries and getting it wrong, so very wrong
and in these days of easy conductibility we can send them an email
telling them that their adds suck donkey's balls and why.

Wibbs wrote: »

Actually if I was a woman there's something else that would irritate me more. Magazines. I was stuck in some airport or other a few years back and went to buy somthing to read on the plane. What struck me was the gender diff in the magazine racks. If a Martian landed in the morning and went into a newsagents he would assume that women tend to be attracted to garish colours and are only interested in diets(and confusingly food and cooking), fashion, soaps, celebrity and the cellulite on the arses of same. He would conclude that men are attracted to women and gadgets alright but have far more wide ranging interests on top of that, by the amount of specialist magazines that tend to read by far more men. Which would he wrongfully assume was the more intelligent gender? This crap runs deep.

Don't start me on that one, got offered my pick in the hair dressers on
Saturday and opted for the scifi book in my bag much to the bafflement
of the junior and the stylist.

MeMyself&I

I feel bloated

Luckily i have an Activa i my bag, because that is going to solve everything!!

MeMyself&I

And its a pity Lorraine Kelly wouldnt try Adios!!!

Wibbs

Silverfish wrote: »

Yes, the cheap and trashy women's mags will be aimed at women, and the cheap and trashy mens mags will be aimed at men, but the specialist hobby magazines are aimed at both - men just ASSUME its at men because it doesn't have bright colours and women and diets on the cover, so it must be a men's magazine.

So yeah, this crap DOES run deep.

I never said they didn't read specialist magazines. I said a Martian would also assume they didn't. By the design, the writers, the general demographic it appears aimed at. The overwhelmingly successful magazines aimed at and bought by women are the "trashy" ones. The only male "trashy" one(and that's a stretch) that makes it into the top ten is FHM.

Don't start me on that one, got offered my pick in the hair dressers on
Saturday and opted for the scifi book in my bag much to the bafflement
of the junior and the stylist.

Yep because it was considered too specialist for a woman. My contention stands.

Dragan

panda100 wrote: »

How comes we never see gorgeous men with amazing bodies denying themselves a muffin so they can fit into their summer speedo's? Can men not eat Special K too or is it just women who need to diet ? It really annoys me that the women Special K use in their ads already have these amazing figures which they got by hard sessions in the gym not munching on Special K all day!

Marketing to male and female audiences is completely different. The reason you don't see those ads aimed at men is because they wouldn't work, plain and simple.

Back in the very early days of circulatory media, when it was all done on a printing press, advertising was a different beast and so was the world. Ads for women were normally about house work related items/food/shopping etc. Ads for men were about cigars and whiskey etc. Funnily enough, if you were poor enough there were NO applicable ads to you. Even if you could sum up the money for the item, there is a good chance the business wouldn't want it. Brand was everything, even moreso then that it is now because class divides were so huge.

It has basically lead on since then, as stereotypes between males and females get worse and worse and as people are more willing to buy into a prepackaged and sold image rather than finding themselves it will continue.

Advertising traditional plays on our weaknesses and gulabilites. "Girls" are supposed to worry about their skin, their hair and their weight. "Boys" are supposed to worry about football and getting girls.

Believe me, the image of "people" portrayed in mass advertising is inaccurate at best and insulting at worst.

The other ads that pisses me of is the bloody activia ads about discomfort and bloating. As far as im aware men and women dont have radically diferent digestive tracts so why is it always women basically having orgasms each time they put one of these skanky youghurts to their lips on tv ads?
Do men not eat yoghurt too?
http://current.com/items/88941392/target_women_yogurt_edition.htm

To move this product you only need to advertise it to women. Their market is relatively limited, the highest percentage of buyers are married women who are buying for the families.

Does this type of advertising actually work on women? Any one actually buy these products in the hope they'll make them slim?
Any other gender specific advertising that people want to rant about??

Yes, it does. This type of advertising is HIGHLY successful in that it will normally generate a pretty massive return for the money invested.

t-ha

jigglywoo wrote: »

How come all the ads on tv for diarrhea and constipation are aimed at women?? Are men magically immune to both?

Not immune - we just don't eat so much Special K and Activia. :pac:

OP, good work - I hate those ads too, almost as much as I hate the people who fall for them.

At least the guys are getting some attention from moronic ad execs with the new, quite frankly dangerous, advert promoting Panadol for curing over-training pains "for guys who would rather cause themselves injury than let their team-mates down". I know plenty of people who do it - just never expected to see an ad condoning it...

Silverfish

Wibbs wrote: »

I never said they didn't read specialist magazines. I said a Martian would also assume they didn't. By the design, the writers, the general demographic it appears aimed at. .

Erm, my point was, that maybe its male mental conditioning to assume women WON'T read these because they're not bright and flashy and covered in photoshopped women. If you actually flick through these magazines, they're aimed at enthusiasts and hobbyists of both genders, very much so.

I'm arguing that maybe a martian will go 'These magazines are aimed at women. These magazines are aimed at men. THESE magazines are aimed at BOTH'.

Dragan

Thaedydal wrote: »

It's happening, seriously it is, with more people tuning out from ads be it the radio to their mp3 player,
the tv to online sites to watching box sets or getting shows from 'their American cousins', to people playing games, reading the new on rss feeds rather then the paper, the way advertisers can reach people is narrowing.

Actually, this is not true. Sure, there is a small percentage of the population that is disengaging themselves from the "regular media" and advertising routes but, by and large, these people are still being advertised to and still open to prodding in consumer directions.

Add in the fact that a lot of this population will be connected in the line of interests, activities etc etc and you are not losing that much market at all. New markets are created everyday as people go from too young to work to working themselves, parents then have more money to spend on themselves etc etc etc, if you saw some predictive market renewal models it would actually scare you how much larger the population that CAN be reached by mass marketing and advertising is.

It is growing all the time, and while the population of 1st and to a degree, 2nd, world countries is on the increase it always will.

Mary D

I hate that Barry's tea ad with the girl with the wonky fringe, Jesus I want to kill her with her studid voice "I texted him and he texted me back". It really boils my blood. I also hate that ad for baby food (don't know which one it is) there are loads of babies laughing but the last baby sounds pure evil, he's like chucky... scary. What happened to all the funny ads, we haven't had one in ages.

allabouteve

''One in four women over fifty is prone to bladder weakness...''
Cue attractive over 50's woman leaping down off a camels back (or something like that) with a look of relief that Tena is taking care of the stress incontinence... Jesus.

Thats what you get for not doing your pelvic floors, sister.

In my experience, if a joke is funny enough, lots of women of all ages are prone to a little ''Tena moment''.

Nevyn

allabouteve wrote: »

''One in four women over fifty is prone to bladder weakness...''
Cue attractive over 50's woman leaping down off a camels back (or something like that) with a look of relief that Tena is taking care of the stress incontinence... Jesus.

Thats what you get for not doing your pelvic floors, sister.

In my experience, if a joke is funny enough, lots of women of all ages are prone to a little ''Tena moment''.

In fairness those 1 in 4 are most likely mother's who had their bladder nicked or some other damage done due to a sloppy procedure in the maternity delivery ward, thankfully most of those proceedures are not done any more and if there is an issue women will go back and get it sorted rather then putting up with it as part of their 'lot in life'.

Wibbs

Silverfish wrote: »

Erm, my point was, that maybe its male mental conditioning to assume women WON'T read these because they're not bright and flashy and covered in photoshopped women. If you actually flick through these magazines, they're aimed at enthusiasts and hobbyists of both genders, very much so.

I'm arguing that maybe a martian will go 'These magazines are aimed at women. These magazines are aimed at men. THESE magazines are aimed at BOTH'.

Oh I agree they might, but it's not just male mental conditioning at play. What are the biggest selling magazines out there that are gender specific? Womens magazines. The majority of which are the trashy types. Now look at the magazines aimed specifically at men. Yes they have the trashy angle and no mistake, but not nearly to the same degree and they seem much freer to cover more wide ranging subjects. The old joke about "I read playboy for the articles". That's not male conditioning on my part either.. Just have a read of them. Then look at the specialist magazines. Ok you say they could be perceived as aimed at both. Now look at the general advertising non specific to the hobby and interest in those same magazines. It's mostly aimed at men. I'll concede your point when I see a feminine hygiene ad in Trout and Salmon(and I know quite a few women anglers) or model train fetish monthly etc. Lots of ads about mens watches and cars though in magazines like that. Same goes for the science magazines, even film and music mags. The advertisers may be martians too as they aim the general ads much more at men than women. So the advertisers and the layout designers for the covers etc are also assuming that more men read these magazines. I have no doubt many women read these specialist magazines, but its no way equal across the board.

Dragan wrote:

Actually, this is not true. Sure, there is a small percentage of the population that is disengaging themselves from the "regular media" and advertising routes but, by and large, these people are still being advertised to and still open to prodding in consumer directions.

I would agree. If you're someone who is disengaging from that, its natural to assume more are doing so, but it's surprisingly few. The money goes where the money is, so follow where it goes in advertising. It's not aiming at the disengaged for the most part. Understandably as they're a small group and I suspect always will be.