I can understand companies wanting women to spend, but as Whoopi points out, they should gear their advertising to those who have it to spend.

Why limit advertising to those who can afford it?  That is setting us back mentally. Even if it is something I can afford and know they have that backward mind set I would not buy.  We as women have come too far to take two steps backward. The solution is to market products everyone can afford and enjoy. I personally pay no attention to most advertisements.  The company’s with major advertisement campaign on a product 9 times out of 10 know it is an inferior product.  Once their warehouse is almost empty the advertisement stops and limited production follows.  

A lot of the products on the market aim at a specific group.

 

Sex sells even in family settings: Sex sells, even if it’s geared towards your daughters, sons and husbands. Again if you don’t agree watch the T-mobile commercials-Dad is taken with another woman, daughter wants the older boy, Dad is told someone’s Grandma likes him; he asks, “What she looks like?”

 

Key words and phrases sell; You have to have this!-  affordable-everyone-smart-   the main subliminal  message; “everyone will like you if you buy their product.”

 

Watch a child as they stare at commercials around the holidays. Now, do you think the ads are working?

 

“Should advertisers be acting differently in light of the latest figures on marketing to women?”

 

My answer:

 Most women are buying for their family members. Those women will ask, “What do you want?”  The answer she gets  back, will depend on how well that commercial was aimed at them, not her.

I think this is crap!  If we had an economy that worked, all of us would have SOME money to spend.  So let’s make people who are struggling right now feel worse… yea that’s a good choice.

My take on this one is that Whoopi is saying if women are spending the money then, duh, yes the advertising should be geared to women.  Not that advertising should be geared toward the economic sector that has the money. 

I think that Whoopi’s right but there is the element of advertising to demographics.  It seems more of that is going on than gender advertising.  And therefore we come around to Whoppi’s answer.  Usually demographics are the baseline for advertising because admen think that’s where the money is. Surprisingly, to me, the demographics now are young people from about 18 to 35.  I would have thought that baby boomers would have been the target - at least before the bottom dropped out of the market.

I agree, sort of. I refuse to purchase goods from advertisers to radical left wing outfits like MSNBC, the View, CNN. You get the picture.

After all, they hate rich republicans, why should I buy their stuff?

Number 1: I hate commercials and when they show the same one 6 times in a program I definitely won’t buy their product. Number2: does every guy out there have Erectile Dysfunction? I remember when they couldn’t air a feminine hygiene product. Now I have my grandkids asking me "what’s ED?" Personally if my guy came at me with a 4 hour erection, I’d have to shoot the poor bastard. I just don’t have the time or energy anymore.

The purpose of marketing/advertising is to separate people from their money.  They don’t care what people (or what money), so long as they get the money.  They do it by convincing people they absolutely MUST have whatever piece of useless garbage they are pushing at the moment.  I am relieved I am no longer the target demographic anymore.  As it is I have cut off access to most advertising.  I hardly watch live TV anymore, I don’t buy a newspaper or any magazines, I hang up if anyone tries to sell me anything over the phone, I moved out into the country where there are no door to door salesmen, I block ads on web pages, throw out catalogs from my physical mailbox and my email junk scanner cleans out tons of sex drug enhancement ads, and I lie outrageously on marketing surveys to deliberately skew their statistics.  I write checks directly to my sons PTA and to volunteer fire departments and refuse to participate in fund raisers (the charity in question at best makes 20 cents on a dollar, and often makes quite a bit less).  If I do consider buying anything, the first thing I ask myself is How am I going to clean it?.  How am I going to store it?  Is it just going to sit there and collect dust? Do I really need it? etc  and most times I reason myself away from my first buying impulse.  If people would recognize advertising/marketing is not your friend and view it as a deceptive enemy, they’d be a lot better off.

Advertising is geared to people who have not yet made up their minds. It is geared to younger people, they are so easily manipulated and swayed and susceptible to the phony claims. That’s why I don’t "get it" when these obscure, obnoxious, insulting and overly loud ads are on TV, cuz I’m just too old (56) and I am not their target. I know what products I need and can read the labels. In fact, advertising works the opposite on me, the truly insulting and annoying ads make me definitely not buy the product.  The one most notable exception of skewed-to-a-younger-audience would be the "ED" products and we can just figure that the admen think of old guys as so easily malleable that they would do anything to get laid again. A pill for everything.