Dr. Pepper Ten: An Analysis Of Gender Stereotypes

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In 2011, the big name brand soft drink Company “Dr. Pepper Snapple Group” made a bold attempt in new advertising, geared toward men. The attempt was to get more men to drink a lower calorie diet soda. The new soda claimed to taste like a normal Dr. Pepper soft drink and was named Dr. Pepper Ten, for having only ten calories. The casing of the soda came in a non-original gunmetal grey casing with silver bullets on it, to make it appear less womanly. What made the soda different is that it was not like the diet soda, it still has calories and sugar in it, but it had less. As the commercial came out women began to get more aggravated, however. The Dr. Pepper ten commercial took place in the middle of a jungle, during the war scene of fictional…show more content…
Pepper ten commercial was aired, and its true message was revealed to the audience women could not help, but make comments back. Going back to the ABC News article Clarke (2011) illustrates the comments made by women in response to the ad and Facebook page as follows, “…several female posters expressing the sentiment that the campaign was sexist… and then continues with, “It’s wrong because it’s not only targeting males but is offensive to women. You can target males without insulting women…” and lastly “Not for women?’ Most moronic slogan. Ever. Which advertising idiot are you going to have to fire when you start losing record sales?”. These types of comments continue in other articles such as Jezebel in an exert written by Anna North (2011) which illustrates more negative comments as follows, “Just heard about this Dr. Pepper Ten; must've been too busy being barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen” and continues with “Rigid gender roles and rules are totally cool. Keep it classy, Dr. Pepper. It's a good thing you're here to tell us how to act and keep us all in our place”. Obviously there were plenty of women that have taken offense to this kind of advertising. I remember when the commercial actually aired and being a woman, myself and through own personal experiences I could not help, but be offended by this as well. I remember making these same types of comments, especially because I did not expect this type of advertising from such a company. Usually the…show more content…
Pepper Snapple Group is as follows, “…it is our vision to be the best beverage business in the Americas. Our brands have been synonymous with refreshment, fun and flavor for generations, and our sales are poised to keep growing in the future” as found on the company page. With a mission statement like this it is quite surprising that Dr. Pepper would have gone with such a risky ad as they did. It was non inclusive and quite frankly just offensive to opposite genders. Due to the negative feedback that came from women Dave Fleming the Marketing Director for DR. Pepper was asked some questions. Fleming claimed that discouraging women was not the intension, but that the message was solely supposed to be direct and fun. Clarke (2011) gives some insight to what Fleming had to say in terms of the developing of the ad, during an interview in February of 2011, “Did we have a conversation about how far we wanted to go with this message? Absolutely”. Fleming then goes on to say, “But we did the research, and it scored well with men and women”. Fleming offered no apologies though. Soon after the Executive Vice President of the company Jim Treblicock added that, “Women get the joke. ‘Is this really for men or really for women?’ is a way to start the conversation that can spread and get people engaged in the product”. Not much else was really said on the

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