The new advertising campaign for Dr. Pepper Ten prompts some serious questions. For instance:
- Did Dr. Pepper Ten’s market research suggest that it really needed shoring up in the sexist douchebag demographic?
- How the hell can a calorie be manly?
- What planet is Dr. Pepper Ten’s advertising team on?
- What awful women have they met that none of them like action movies?
- Who is against pictures of cute animals?
- Who thought this marketing campaign was a good idea?
However, it does not prompt the question I believe they were going for, which is:
- Where can I buy this soda, because it looks awesome?
I will present Dr. Pepper Ten’s advertising without commentary, because I feel commentary would make it way less amusing.
The Facebook page of Dr. Pepper Ten includes special male-only content, including a “man quiz” about hunting and fishing and a shooting gallery where you shoot high heels and lipstick. It also features The Ten Man’ments, which are as follows:
- THOU SHALT NOT OMG. If it’s not exploding, it’s not exciting.
- THOU SHALT NOT PUCKER UP. Kissy faces are never manly.
- THOU SHALT NOT POST PICS OF YOUR OUTFIT. Unless it’s battle armor and you have a gigantic sword and/or small bazooka.
- THOU SHALT NOT POST FURRY ANIMAL VIDEOS. Exceptions made for beasts fighting to the death and bears destroying idyllic picnic scenes.
- THOU SHALT NOT MAKE A “MAN-GAGEMENT” ALBUM. That is all.
- THOU SHALT NOT SHARE YOUR HOROSCOPE. Daily.
- THOU SHALT NOT INSTAGRAM YOUR LUNCH. Real men eat lunch not tweet it.
- THOU SHALT NOT UNTAG UNFLATTERING PICS. We know you were there.
- THOU SHALT NOT END A COMMENT WITH A =)
- THOU SHALT NOT MAKE A FACEBOOK PROFILE FOR YOUR PET, baby and/or imaginary friend.
Hmm, the idea of advertising is to be noticed, shock value is very important in that. To get you to take notice of the product advertisers will do anything they can get away with – absolutely anything no matter how tasteless or supposedly offensive. This post and all these comments say one thing. You noticed. Advertising Win. Who Failed?
It’s just a IFHIIMBAGT(*) exploit.
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(*) If Feminists Hate It, It Must Be A Good Thing
Actually I thought it was quite a funny advert.
Very similar to the much liked Yorkie “Not for girls” ads from a few years ago.
It’s a blatant parody sending up the Coke Zero and Pepsi Max style ads of “sexy guys doing cool stuff”
Does no-one get satire any more? Someone call Chris Morris, we need some new Brass Eye, stat!
I’ll let ye who art learned in masculist critique handle the male side of things, but this ad absolutely REEKS of enlightened sexism (the idea that feminism’s job is done, so it’s A-OK to resurrect mysogynistic stereotypes, which, all in all, is just another form of sexism). The CEO says that “women will get the joke.” I’m not getting it.
What I meant was that the format (talking directly to the camera while crazy things happen) comes from the Old Spice commercial. I didn’t mean to imply that the Old Spice Guy is supposed to be sexist.
The old spice commercials (which I’ve only seen on youtube) were fun because they were absurd, and not in the “can you believe how stupid and offensive this is?” way.
The article makes an interesting point; It was probably meant to be a takeoff on the Old Spice Commercials. Of course, the different is that the Old Spice Guy is a smooth lover man rather than a He Man Woman Hater.
@Monkey the charm of the Old Spice commercials, at least for me, was the hilarious non sequiturs xD so if what they got from the success of those ads was “rawr manly no girls allowed!”, for me at the very least, they srsly missed the mark xD
And it seems the campaign isn’t working….
http://blogs.smartmoney.com/paydirt/2011/10/21/angry-women-is-not-what-dr-pepper-ordered/
Apparently if you attempt to ‘Like’ the Facebook page while being registered as female, it rejects you.
@pocketjacks: Jones Green Apple would have been great, but since I didn’t feel like biking across town to get some I settled for Hansen’s.
Easy mistake though, given past history around here and also given that it is not hard to mistake this for some feminist sex-negative discourse if you have a reading comprehension problem. Whatever that young mother calls herself, I can’t see anything remotely feminist about her actions and what it really felt like instead was classic parochial Catholic misandry (it settles in real comfortably alongside of catholic misogyny.) There might be a post in expanding on what that one feminist commenter said – her reaction was the opposite of feminism. It was plain old traditionalist bigotry and it won’t stand up… Read more »
Serious reading comprehension problem. Feminism is the remedy for this woman’s shit. That was one of the reasons for pointing that article out.
You know what, you’re right. It’s still a massive derail, but it wasn’t really an example of anti-feminist Moby Dicking. I apologize for mischaracterizing the nature of the derail; at the time, I’d had two hours of sleep in an uncomfortable chair in a hospital room, and was apparently a bit too hasty to jump to conclusions. My mistake.
“A thread about a dumb soda commercial becomes a thread about how a feminist is a pedophile enabler, ”
Serious reading comprehension problem. Feminism is the remedy for this woman’s shit. That was one of the reasons for pointing that article out.
Well, I’m not going to give their “edgy campaign” any publicity or call any more attention to it (as that is obviously what they are going for)…but I’m also going to stop buying Diet Dr. Pepper or whatever they are naming it now for myself and my partner (and we drink a lot of diet pop). I’m voting with my dollars and I’m not supporting any asshatted gendered ad campaign. Bah.
@Pocketjacks: I’m annoyed with Jones since they stopped making grape. It was the best grape soda: far less sweet than other brands.
I don’t recall saying anything about feminism.
@Ashley Pariseau: From an outsider’s perspective, it certainly seems that way. I realize that SATC (the TV show anyway) was largely a product of gay men, but it still seemed to me to suggest that the entire focus of women is to shop for shoes and have Cosmos.
I have a friend who is probably the least like that stereotype and she was dragged to both movies. She didn’t mind the first one but she said that watching the second one was practically hellish.
@Improbably Joe: You sand “and/or.” And I’ve struggled with both. So yeah, not cool.
@noah: While being severely OT, no one here called the author of that weird article a feminist; instead, it was pointed out that it was a feminist who called her out on her bullshit.
I just thought of something. Do you think Dr. Pepper made this ad with the “not for women” sentiment knowing full well it would piss women off, leading them to decide to drink it out of defiance? I’ll bet there’s already more than a few vids up on youtube of women drinking it as a sort of “fuck you” to Dr. Pepper. But if they’re doing that then someone had to buy the soda they are defiantly drinking…
Here you go, Dorkboy! 😀
http://www.jonessoda.com/
Watching the ad made me crave some all-natural hipster soda.
My statistically significant other thought it was from The Onion.
@Argyle: Of course mileages vary, people are absolutely different. I do believe though it is hard to pin point weight loss & gain on a single product. There are so many factors, including age, hormones and what not, which always makes me suspicious of articles finding such a corelation. I do believe that one thing is true though, diet products don’t help you a bit when it comes to lose weight. @Jay Generally: Possible…. @Noah Brand: Judging by the posts I can see, I wonder if you are overreacting a bit as noone has blamed a feminist for anything. And… Read more »
My wife was wondering if this ad campaign was all supposed to be reverse psychology.
A thread about a dumb soda commercial becomes a thread about how a feminist is a pedophile enabler, because what some people like to do is dig through archives of any link they can find, until they find a way to be upset at a feminist. Once they find that, the search is complete and they’re back on their favorite topic.
We instituted the Open Threads partly as a containment measure for this singular obsession, people. Steer the Pequod that way if you absolutely must.