The other night I was watching football (I believe it was the Stanford-USC game — an excellent game, but beside the point) when an ad for Dr Pepper Ten @@checked@@came on the air. The ad opens with a super manly man running through a jungle and shooting a laser gun (good start). He stops momentarily, turns to the camera and punches a snake in the face, saying: “Hello, ladies. Enjoying the film? Of course not. Because this is our movie!”
He proceeds to jump over a rolling boulder and spring into an awaiting off-road buggy. He then sloppily pours a Dr Pepper Ten into a glass while his male accomplice maneuvers the vehicle between lasers. Our manly man then proclaims, “And Dr Pepper Ten is our soda. It’s only 10 manly calories, but with all 23 flavors of Dr Pepper. It’s what guys want! So you can keep the romantic comedies and lady drinks. We’re good.”
The ad ends with a reedy male voice shouting, “Dr Pepper Ten. It’s not for women!”
At the end of the commercial, I was left befuddled. (Remember: I’m a woman, so this befuddlement is probably because of my small brain.) First of all, not all romantic comedies suck — only most of them do. I could watch “Notting Hill”@@http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0125439/@@ all damn day if I had to. Second, if by “lady drink” you mean mimosas and Sex on the Beach (Sexes on the Beach?), then I will keep those, too, because they’re delicious. And third, why would a company like Dr Pepper that — let’s face it, is the Rob Kardashian to Coke@@http://en.terra.com/celebrity-gossip/news/rob_kardashian_reportedly_attends_cocainefilled_party/oci48007@@ and Pepsi’s Kim — want to alienate half of its potential clients in one fell swoop?
I decided to investigate. I called up my dad, who is a director of client and development at R2C Group,@@http://www.r2cgroup.com/@@ an ad agency in Portland, and also a man, so you know he knows what he’s talking about. So, what the hell?
“Attention. They need to grow the brand and sell more products,” he said. “They are kinda being sexist but it’s in a tongue-in-cheek way. They’re not disparaging anybody, they’re just saying it’s not for women.”
Interesting. So it’s all just for attention, like that time I pretended to fall off my scooter and scrape my knee. Oh wait, THAT WAS REAL! And it really hurt, Dad! I still have the scar!@@lol@@
“It got my attention,” my dad said. “I know of it, I noticed it and went, ‘Oh, really?’ It’s kind of fun to talk about it and get people’s reaction to it. All right dawg, well, good luck with it, and I hope that helps.”
Thanks, Dad. It did.
Dr Pepper makes a big deal about the fact that the soda has 10 “manly” calories (I assume the distinction is that these calories make you better at math) because men are apparently turned off by diet drinks. Well those 10 extra calories didn’t scare me off. My journalistic integrity required that I taste-test the drink in question, so I went out and bought a two-liter bottle. (They still accepted my money, even though I was a woman.)@@Oh, man. Line of the term so far — Frank@@ I searched through my house to find the manliest drinking vessel I could and settled on a KWVA pint glass I’d stolen from my roommate — it was a real struggle not to use my ironic “baby on the way” wine glass.@@how is this ironic?@@
I had high hopes that my first sip of Dr Pepper Ten would make me instantly stronger, hairier and better at understanding chemistry. Unfortunately, my femininity remained intact — I even looked at some food blogs and pictures of kittens afterward. So what was the deal with these commercials?
This comment on the ad’s YouTube page really helped me see the light: “I loved these commercials!! I don’t get why so many women are being such whining bitches abt it!!! Get a life!!! Its a commercial for crying out loud!! Ppl like u are y this country is falling into perdition!” nanda12 is right, people.@@quote checked@@ Come on.
Seriously ladies, quit being such whining bitches. We really have had it pretty cushy when it comes to advertisements. All those commercials for laundry detergents, Mr. Clean Magic Erasers and paper towels have all been geared toward us! We’re so lucky that companies these days know that we’re the ones doing the housework — they don’t even bother to waste time advertising to men! Remember those Secret deodorant ads with the tagline “Strong enough for a man, but made for a woman”? This is basically the same thing, except instead of complimenting us, they’re forbidding us from trying it!
The Dr Pepper campaign reminded me of a couple other man-centric campaigns of the last few years: The Most Interesting Man In The World@@http://www.themostinterestingmanintheworld.net/@@ (hereafter referred to as TMIMITW, because it’s just too hard to type) and the Old Spice Guy. These two were super awesome and masculine, too, but there was one thing that separated them from the Dr Pepper guys: You knew they were getting laid. TMIMITW and the Old Spice Guy may be over-the-top masculine, but it was always geared toward the ladies. We just couldn’t help ourselves around them.
See, gentlemen, we don’t mind the uber-masculine act every once in a while, but do it all the time, and we’ll start to get annoyed. So go ahead, crush those beer cans with those mighty fists. Shoot lasers and fart, if you must. But manly men, please don’t forget about one thing: us ladiez.
Because your manly world may be pretty awesome, but a world without women would just plain suck.@@true dat@@