Last week, I wrote a pretty intense and hateful blog about Dr. Pepper's new ad campaign. I have deleted it so that future employers don't think I'm psycho, but I paraphrased it below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iuG1OpnHP8
This ad features a guy running through a jungle or something while shooting things and implying that women don't like movies like this. The ad pushes Dr. Pepper 10 and ends with the catchphrase, "It's not for women."Being home for the holidays, I literally had nothing better to do than get all riled up about an ad that played over and over again on Hulu. I could have been building my vocabulary and feeding people on FreeRice.com (org?) but instead I got all Single White Bitch over an e-mail with Dr. Pepper's Customer Relations about how offensive I found the ad to be.
The following response floored me with its calm, collected explanations and also schooled me about what it means to be a feminist:
Dear ______
We regret that you were unhappy with the advertisement.
I would like to start off by saying that I am a woman who loves and enjoys the full flavor of Dr Pepper TEN. Therefore, no one is going to tell me what I can eat or drink. When I first saw the tongue-in-cheek advertising campaign and the tagline, my reaction was, “I’ll be the judge of that.”
I'd like to go into more detail about our Dr Pepper TEN if you don't mind. When it comes to Dr Pepper TEN , we marketed to male consumers 25-34 who enjoy the taste of a regular carbonated soft drink & feel like diet carbonated soft drinks require them to compromise on taste & image. However, they are at a point in their lives where they want to make new choices about the food & beverages they consume on a daily basis for a healthier, happier lifestyle.
hope you, too, will come to see our advertising campaign for what it is, a humorous take on the many men who are worried about their waistlines but feel they are too “manly” to drink a diet soda.
Sincerely,
Consumer Relations
Isn't that badass??? I'm still not happy with how women are often portrayed in ads, such as for do-it-yourself meals and cologne. But I forget that feminism isn't about letting someone else categorize you. Feminism is all about choice.
I can choose to be offended by ads that are only there so that a small amount of people will buy their product, or I can recognize that all ads are sick stepping stones of capitalist propaganda. Or I can just turn the volume off and go back to my other first world problems until my show is off break.
I commend the woman who wrote to me from CR. Not that I'll be drinking soda anytime soon anyway, but she still SHOWED ME hardcore.
Raise a glass of fizzy brown liquid (I'm not endorsing anything here) to every man or woman who has shown "feminists" what's really what!
