For this blog post about stereotypes, I thought it would be interesting to explore the concept of food stereotypes in the media. I feel that there are many instances of this, particularly in food product advertising and marketing, but the first example that I wanted to highlight was an advertising campaign for a soft drink that began in 2011.
As Emily Schwartz of The ASU State Press wrote in 2011, “while advertisers may subtlety cater to a certain gender, Dr. Pepperâs recent ad campaign brings targeted gender marketing to a new level. The company, marketing their new diet soda, created exclusive advertisements. The slogan reads: ‘Dr. Pepper 10. Itâs not for women.’ This video from CBS News explores the concept of “macho food marketing” and points out that in marketing that is designed in this fashion aimed for the male population will omit the word “diet” from their soft drinks, is in the cases of Dr. Pepper 10 and Pepsi Max (which is heavily marketed as having zero calories). Men are featured prominently throughout each of the advertisements and definitely reflect an instance of blatant “macho food marketing.” As Schwartz stated, “I couldnât believe that a major company would be so blatant in its sexism as to claim that its soda wasnât for half of the population.”
On the other side of the unhealthier marketing corner lies further problems. The food that is most often marketed towards a male population seems to pose some harm. As David Sax of The New York Magazine wrote, “manly food ads present a cleverly crafted challenge to our manhood: are you man enough to eat this shit? And shit it is. Manly food, as opposed to equally patronizing âlady foodâ (diet sodas, low-calorie cereals, herbal teas), are pretty much universally unhealthy. Huge quantities of processed, salty meats, wrapped in refined carbohydrates, saturated in chemical cheese goos, and fortified with colored sugar water.”
It is not a far stretch to say that these kinds of targeted advertisements can have a direct link to poor health and dietary choices. As Sax continued, “the consequences of this kind of marketing are real. Men suffer from heart attacks and fatal coronary heart disease at twice the levels women do, and obesity rates tend to be considerably higher for men as well.” As further explored on Media Smarts, “Like other effects of stereotypes, this is caused not just by a desire to seem masculine but to avoid seeming feminine, as men feel that ordering healthful food might make them seem unmanly.”
I also wanted to explore some harmful stereotypes that are marketed towards women in the media. In a troubling and interesting statistic presented by The New York Times, it is stated that “between 1980 and 2010, women in commercials were shown in workplace settings only 4 percent of the time; frequently they were shown in kitchens, waxing poetic about the products they were selling.” As written by the American Marketing Association, “marketing to a personâs gender not only risks alienating other potential consumersâones who donât conform to traditional gender roles or interestsâbut it also shows a failure by the company to mine for deeper insights about its audience.”
This type of marketing leaves out many different perspectives of everyday individuals in the world. When interacting with these types of media messages it is important to remember some key NAMLE questions an individual should ask to analyze these messages, including who is the target audience, and what ideas/ values/ information and/or points of view are overt and/ or implied? These questions are an important step in deciphering the true meaning of these stereotypical and often harmful messages.
