I think it would be lovely if cleaning-product companies started diversifying their ads a bit. I mean, how many guys do you know who both purchase and (insert gasp here) use bathroom, kitchen and other household cleaning products?
Lots.
And yet the marketing is almost ALL geared to show the little woman cleaning up the bathroom. I’m not saying that the target market isn’t predominantly (sadly) female, but it would still be nice to see a dude scrubbing the toilet now and again.
For the record, it also wouldn’t hurt companies to show women mowing the lawn or tackling those pesky weeds in the sidewalk cracks.
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
In the UK there’s a famous cleaning product called Flash Multi Purpose Cleaner, and for YEARS their ads have shown a man, the same one I think, as he struggles with the OMG GREASE IN THE OVEN fiasco taht has been knwon to ruin lives.
The problem is that now the ads have degenerated into befuddled husband having his life transformed by an oven cleaner with his wife looking on rather smugly in the background and making quips about his manhood for cheap laughs.
In all truth, if the gender roles were ever reversed in the Flash commercials as they stand today, there’d be OUTRAGE. No one deserves to have their cleaning abilty lauded over by a smug nitpicker – neither man nor woman.
It’s a shame they changed the woman’s role from sympathiser ["Oh yes those grease stains are a nightmare"], to a smarmy self-absorbed arse ["Seeing as you're so good with the oven, here's a hamper of laundry, oh and watch the kids, I'mma going out THIS MINUTE, dont wait up!"]. It’s embarrassing.
Eve(Quote) (Reply)
Sounds like it, and you bet your buttons I’d be pretty mad if the roles were reversed.
sbg(Quote) (Reply)
I wonder why they did this. Was it to appeal to the White Male Fear that women have them all “whipped”? If so, I can’t see how that would sell to men. Or is it to appeal to women viewers, whom the advertisers believe to be smug snots who loathe their wimpy husbands? It’s insulting to both genders.
The earlier version sounds just great. Yet another example of deconstruction. I just don’t get why, though.
Jennifer Kesler(Quote) (Reply)