Review
Version 1
Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed
Problems Associated with Marketing Food and Drink Specifically at Women
Version 1
: Received: 1 July 2019 / Approved: 2 July 2019 / Online: 2 July 2019 (08:27:16 CEST)
How to cite: Spence, C. Problems Associated with Marketing Food and Drink Specifically at Women. Preprints 2019, 2019070034. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints201907.0034.v1 Spence, C. Problems Associated with Marketing Food and Drink Specifically at Women. Preprints 2019, 2019070034. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints201907.0034.v1
Abstract
In recent years, several brands have received much negative press coverage when trying to market their food and drink products specifically at women. This is, in part, because the taste preferences/sensitivities of men and women are actually quite similar. In fact, perhaps the one and only area where consumers are willing to accept (or should that be swallow) ingested products explicitly targeted at women or men is in the case of nutritional foods/supplements. Such products are not really sold on the basis of their taste/flavour anyway. Many consumers are also sensitive to the so-called pink tax, when near-identical products cost more when sold to women rather than to men (e.g., as in the case of female razors). As the four recent examples discussed in this review make clear, it can be difficult to roll-out a new food or beverage product, or else extend a pre-existing product line, that is especially for women without coming across as sexist/condescending. As such, marketers need to tread carefully, otherwise they may end-up generating unwanted negative publicity. Ultimately, therefore, adopting an implicit approach to gender-based marketing, should that be the direction that a brand wants to take, will likely have more chance of avoiding negative publicity than the explicit targeting of food/beverage-related products in what is undoubtedly a highly-politicized area.
Keywords
food marketing; sex/gender; advertising; nutrition
Subject
Business, Economics and Management, Marketing
Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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