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From the Guardian......
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'Match your car to your nail varnish?' Stop patronising us, Citroen
The car manufacturer's latest advert is just another example of the automotive industry's dismissive attitude towards women, says Belinda Parmar
A group of ad men are stumped. Ashtrays are filling up, bottles of bourbon have run dry, tempers are flaring and they still haven't come up with an idea.
How the hell are they going to advertise a car to ladies, when everybody knows that ladies just don't care about cars? The usual buzzwords of "miles-per-gallon" and "horsepower" just don't seem to test well with these crazy broads.
"She has about as much interest in cars as I do in nail varnish" quips one.
"I know," pipes up the youngest of the creatives. "The dames dig cosmetics, so let's make it look like a manicure!"
And so the latest advert for the Citroen DS3 is born, the car splattered by a giant bottle of pink nail-varnish.
If this meeting seems too prehistoric even for Mad Men, why is it that I've seen this advertising cliché a hundred times? We've had the Nokia phone smeared with lip-gloss and the Sky box draped in designer gloves, now it's the turn of the "ladies variation" of the Citroen DS3.
This preposterous juxtaposition is intended to imbue the vehicle with an essence of fashion. The advert is inviting us to freely associate these two objects, forever linking the £20k Citroen DS3 with the glamour of a £2.99 cosmetic from Superdrug. It's an approach based on a colossal misunderstanding of the role of cosmetics in women's lives, and it almost never works.
This whole marketing mentality goes along the "pink it and shrink it" approach. Take a product aimed at men and paint it pink, or some other dainty colour. Then somehow link it to a notion of beauty and hope that it sells.
It's easy to blame ad men for this approach, but it's not entirely their fault. They're trying to sell to an audience they don't understand, and there are often no women in the room to guide them. Fewer than five percent of advertising creative directors are female, while in the automotive industry, just 16 percent of senior management are women.
I wish that solving this problem was as simple as getting more women into advertising boardrooms and creative departments. The fact is that the problem is rooted in the car industry, which, despite showing off it's latest wares at conferences like CES, boasts values that are ten years behind the rest of the technology sector. The car showroom is still a boys club, an old-school sales experience designed to appeal exclusively to male shoppers. When this is your first experience of the automotive industry as a teenager, why would you choose to pursue it as a career?
While it can be tempting to blame the unenlightened showroom staff, sadly these attitudes pervade the entire industry. When I spoke to the vice president of European sales and marketing for a leading German car maker, he boasted that they were doing particularly well with women. The reason? Ten percent of his website traffic was female. The fact that he was able to tell me this with a straight face sums up the attitude of the industry, and demonstrates a relationship with female customers that is founded on low expectations.
Despite this, there is considerable evidence to suggest that if vendors had more women involved in the decision-making process, more women would buy their cars. Car manufacturers who have developed products and retail programmes with women in mind have reaped benefits.
Volvo's XC90, one of the few car designs that women were involved in from the start, is the most popular among female owners. This female insight has added helpful touches like the integrated child booster seat, play table and even (in the executive version) a fridge.
These are thoughtful additions that are truly beneficial for the family driver. Volvo could have painted it shades of pastel and added a handbag-hook, but the approach they did take was more substantial. Family women buy it because it's a well-designed family car, not because it's 'girly'.
If you don't invite more women to take part in the creative process, then you aren't likely to get more than a token 10 percent viewing your product. Women may not always share men's passion about horsepower, torque or 0-60 splits, but the manufacturers and ad men are making a mistake if they think women don't care about cars. Their engagement with the product is simply less spec-oriented and more intuitive. It is about what the car can do for me and how can it enhance my life.
And it has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with nail-varnish.
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Well I don't know where to start.
For one this is BS:
This preposterous juxtaposition is intended to imbue the vehicle with an essence of fashion.
It is a French car, from France, one of the most famous cities for fashion and art.... It's also (I think) a statement about yourself.
The advert is inviting us to freely associate these two objects, forever linking the £20k Citroen DS3 with the glamour of a £2.99 cosmetic from Superdrug.
One thing I got from the Market research group was that people thought owners of the DS3 would be quite fashion conscious , trendy etc and would have items to match their car. I have a white phone that matches my car, so I guess this is partly true. But there is no 'forever link' between my phone and my car other than I like things to match. Plus if anything it just shows how you can have your car match your likes! I love the colour pink, and considered a pink theme for my car before I got the red seats. One of the hooks is how customisable the DS3 is to suit an individual, which is what the advert portrays.
Also. No one buys £2.99 nail vanish from Superdug
It's an approach based on a colossal misunderstanding of the role of cosmetics in women's lives, and it almost never works.
She really missed the point on this one didn't she?
As a girl, who likes the colour pink and the DS3, seeing the advert I wouldn't think 'Oh snap, my life is complete! I can have a pink roofed car to match my cheap nail vanish from superdrug!'
Just, well thats cool, I like pink, I can have a pink themed car.
I know us girls are pretty much like magpies when it comes to new expensive things. Even me With pink in my hair, with matching items to my car, who co owns two car forums I am baffled by this article.
I have said that Citroen have seemed to latch onto the market of first time female car owners, but is that a bad thing? Especially when more and more girls do know what BHP means, that attend car shows, that watch Top Gear, Read PFC mag, want the best from their pride and joy and spend more time detailing their car in a day than they do collectively doing their make up in a week.
I don't know, I could pick holes in her drivel of crap all day. But please, feel free.......
------------------------------------
'Match your car to your nail varnish?' Stop patronising us, Citroen
The car manufacturer's latest advert is just another example of the automotive industry's dismissive attitude towards women, says Belinda Parmar
A group of ad men are stumped. Ashtrays are filling up, bottles of bourbon have run dry, tempers are flaring and they still haven't come up with an idea.
How the hell are they going to advertise a car to ladies, when everybody knows that ladies just don't care about cars? The usual buzzwords of "miles-per-gallon" and "horsepower" just don't seem to test well with these crazy broads.
"She has about as much interest in cars as I do in nail varnish" quips one.
"I know," pipes up the youngest of the creatives. "The dames dig cosmetics, so let's make it look like a manicure!"
And so the latest advert for the Citroen DS3 is born, the car splattered by a giant bottle of pink nail-varnish.
If this meeting seems too prehistoric even for Mad Men, why is it that I've seen this advertising cliché a hundred times? We've had the Nokia phone smeared with lip-gloss and the Sky box draped in designer gloves, now it's the turn of the "ladies variation" of the Citroen DS3.
This preposterous juxtaposition is intended to imbue the vehicle with an essence of fashion. The advert is inviting us to freely associate these two objects, forever linking the £20k Citroen DS3 with the glamour of a £2.99 cosmetic from Superdrug. It's an approach based on a colossal misunderstanding of the role of cosmetics in women's lives, and it almost never works.
This whole marketing mentality goes along the "pink it and shrink it" approach. Take a product aimed at men and paint it pink, or some other dainty colour. Then somehow link it to a notion of beauty and hope that it sells.
It's easy to blame ad men for this approach, but it's not entirely their fault. They're trying to sell to an audience they don't understand, and there are often no women in the room to guide them. Fewer than five percent of advertising creative directors are female, while in the automotive industry, just 16 percent of senior management are women.
I wish that solving this problem was as simple as getting more women into advertising boardrooms and creative departments. The fact is that the problem is rooted in the car industry, which, despite showing off it's latest wares at conferences like CES, boasts values that are ten years behind the rest of the technology sector. The car showroom is still a boys club, an old-school sales experience designed to appeal exclusively to male shoppers. When this is your first experience of the automotive industry as a teenager, why would you choose to pursue it as a career?
While it can be tempting to blame the unenlightened showroom staff, sadly these attitudes pervade the entire industry. When I spoke to the vice president of European sales and marketing for a leading German car maker, he boasted that they were doing particularly well with women. The reason? Ten percent of his website traffic was female. The fact that he was able to tell me this with a straight face sums up the attitude of the industry, and demonstrates a relationship with female customers that is founded on low expectations.
Despite this, there is considerable evidence to suggest that if vendors had more women involved in the decision-making process, more women would buy their cars. Car manufacturers who have developed products and retail programmes with women in mind have reaped benefits.
Volvo's XC90, one of the few car designs that women were involved in from the start, is the most popular among female owners. This female insight has added helpful touches like the integrated child booster seat, play table and even (in the executive version) a fridge.
These are thoughtful additions that are truly beneficial for the family driver. Volvo could have painted it shades of pastel and added a handbag-hook, but the approach they did take was more substantial. Family women buy it because it's a well-designed family car, not because it's 'girly'.
If you don't invite more women to take part in the creative process, then you aren't likely to get more than a token 10 percent viewing your product. Women may not always share men's passion about horsepower, torque or 0-60 splits, but the manufacturers and ad men are making a mistake if they think women don't care about cars. Their engagement with the product is simply less spec-oriented and more intuitive. It is about what the car can do for me and how can it enhance my life.
And it has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with nail-varnish.
------------------------------------------------------
Well I don't know where to start.
For one this is BS:
This preposterous juxtaposition is intended to imbue the vehicle with an essence of fashion.
It is a French car, from France, one of the most famous cities for fashion and art.... It's also (I think) a statement about yourself.
The advert is inviting us to freely associate these two objects, forever linking the £20k Citroen DS3 with the glamour of a £2.99 cosmetic from Superdrug.
One thing I got from the Market research group was that people thought owners of the DS3 would be quite fashion conscious , trendy etc and would have items to match their car. I have a white phone that matches my car, so I guess this is partly true. But there is no 'forever link' between my phone and my car other than I like things to match. Plus if anything it just shows how you can have your car match your likes! I love the colour pink, and considered a pink theme for my car before I got the red seats. One of the hooks is how customisable the DS3 is to suit an individual, which is what the advert portrays.
Also. No one buys £2.99 nail vanish from Superdug
It's an approach based on a colossal misunderstanding of the role of cosmetics in women's lives, and it almost never works.
She really missed the point on this one didn't she?
As a girl, who likes the colour pink and the DS3, seeing the advert I wouldn't think 'Oh snap, my life is complete! I can have a pink roofed car to match my cheap nail vanish from superdrug!'
Just, well thats cool, I like pink, I can have a pink themed car.
I know us girls are pretty much like magpies when it comes to new expensive things. Even me With pink in my hair, with matching items to my car, who co owns two car forums I am baffled by this article.
I have said that Citroen have seemed to latch onto the market of first time female car owners, but is that a bad thing? Especially when more and more girls do know what BHP means, that attend car shows, that watch Top Gear, Read PFC mag, want the best from their pride and joy and spend more time detailing their car in a day than they do collectively doing their make up in a week.
I don't know, I could pick holes in her drivel of crap all day. But please, feel free.......
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