Monday, August 16, 2010

Why is this product gendered?

I wanted a scrub to help get rid of the gross rough skin on my heels, so I ended up choosing Dr. Scholl's Pumice Scrub.

I didn't do any research or anything, just looked around the drugstore. I chose this particular product because: a) it's in the foot care section with the athlete's foot cream and the wart remover rather than in the beauty products section with the Oil of Olay, and b) it contains pumice, which is what pumice stones are made of, and pumice stones are used for removing rough skin by brute force. Therefore, I concluded, this was serious foot scrub for serious rough skin!

But today I noticed the packaging and branding are gender specific. This is women's foot scrub. Of course, that got me wondering what men's foot scrub would be like, so I went back to the foot care section of the drugstore. But there was no men's foot scrub. There was no gender-neutral foot scrub. There was just women's.

I wonder what's behind that decision? The vast majority of men wouldn't even consider buying a women's product. They'd see "For Her" as "not for me". However, both men and women would buy a gender-neutral product. I know that in general more women than men are concerned about the smoothness of their feet, but there must be some men who want to get rid of their gross foot skin. I wonder why they chose to exclude that potential market?

Also, women who want a dainty feminine foot product aren't going to buy this one, they're going to buy something by Oil of Olay or Nivea over in the beauty product section. The audience for this product has already left the beauty section and deliberately made their way over to the foot product section. They already consider their feet A Problem and are looking next to the products that their father used on his disgusting foot fungus. Using the regular blue and yellow Dr. Scholl's brand rather than the purple flowered For Her sub-brand isn't going to put them off at this point.

I know marketing people do think about these things. You don't just not notice that you've excluded half your prospective audience. I'd love to know what they were thinking here.

3 comments:

Ollie Ollie said...

Lady products are for when they want to slap an extra 20% on the price. Checkout men's versus women's anti-perspirants.

laura k said...

Ollie Hicks is right, but it works the other way too. Marketing skin care products to men is very big right now, and the products are very expensive, no doubt ordinary moisturizer wrapped in masculine colours and manly fonts.

impudent strumpet said...

So it would seem the logical approach here would be to start with a gender-neutral product, then add a women's product at a bit of a mark-up, then add a men's product at a bit more of a mark-up.