Equality In Gender Stereotypes: Marketing Wine to Men
This just in. Gallo is announcing a new male-oriented red wine for the U.K. market. It is targeted toward 35 – 65 year old men. The marketing pitch uses an outdoor emphasis and the brand will tie into hiking, fishing and camping type pursuits in some way.
Let’s take a quick transparent marketing (as in Don’t Think Pink) look at this approach: Did this segment of men ask for this sort of product? When the consumer research was done, was their feedback to the effect that they really connected wine-drinking with such outdoor activities? Are there any gender assumptions going on here?
Hmmmm. It’s the male-market focused version of pink thinking (I’d say “blue thinking,” but that has so many other connotations…)
It is possible that things are different in the U.K. – and please comment to let me know, if so – but this seems like a not so well thought out product line and marketing effort. My advice: learn from marketing to women and form a customer advisory board of these guys. Then get a feel for how they really live (lugging wine in their backpacks?) and where/how wine fits into that equation.
