The Problem with Pink
Posted on | February 6, 2008 | 1 Comment
By Christine Ryder (nee Schmidt)
This rant has been in the works for weeks and after reading Fara Warner’s post, I knew it was time to finish it.
As a girl, I shared a bubble-gum pink bedroom with my sister. The carpet was pink, the walls were pink, and our bed shams were pink, flowery, chiffon-y things. That hyper-girliness would have been enough to make even Elle Woods gag. I credit that room, at least in part, for my aversion to all things girly. I roll my eyes when I see women wearing lipstick at the gym or walking their dogs in high-heels. I don’t paint my nails. I don’t like decorative pillows. I don’t enjoy shopping.
But I do like pink. I have one designer suit and it is unapologetically pink. I feel ironic in it. It’s an in-your-face move to flaunt my gender while simultaneously kicking ass and taking names. The power suit redefined: it’s my wonder-woman costume for the board room and it fits like nothing else in my closet. You know what one recruiter told me? “I thought maybe you worked for Mary Kay.†And therein lies the problem with pink.
Advertisers use pink to “chickify†products. You can buy pink laptops, phones, cameras, even stun guns in pink. In the country of excess, does everything now come in pink? Barbie™ must be beside herself! Pink might be perfect for your personal life but it can be poison in your profession.
Don’t get me wrong – Pink IS Powerful. Pink can even “do good.†The Komen Foundation received more than $30MM from the sale of pink goods by companies who pledged a percentage or donation from those sales (2005). Pink Magazine is a women’s periodical dedicated to women’s career life. They clearly get the irony I love so well… not a lipstick or hairdo article to be found!
Not everyone gets it, though.
I hear it from conservative marketers all the time. “All that pink†on Glam.com seems to distract them from the diversity of editorial voice, creative brand integration and most valuable online audience today. Thankfully, they are in the minority as Glam ascends as the undisputed leader in marketing to women online. To be fair, Style and Beauty are about as girly as it comes so come get your pink on.
In the un-pixelated world, though, Pink can backfire on you. The Girls Next Door and the Famously Bleach-Blonded have poisoned an entire generation of teen and twenty-somethings into thinking all that blings is beautiful. There’s a danger to using Pink as your entire marketing platform to women when it is so dearly espoused by witless caricatures of women. “Bimbo†is not generally a term of endearment and many women believe that in order to be taken seriously, they should (and want to) don a more sober palette.
There’s also the maturity factor with Pink. Swaddled in pink from birth, our emergence into and assent through adulthood must be illustrated in contrast. Whether you believe that a glass ceiling exists or not, most women will tell you that in order to be considered adequate, they have to be smarter, work harder, and play cleaner than their male colleagues. If a woman is trying to fit into a male-dominated environment, pink serves her up as a glaring outcast from the boy’s club.
Finally, there’s the issue of sexuality. There is no question that people confuse femininity with sexuality. Don’t get me started on THAT topic (it’s rooted in CENTURIES of religious misogyny and good old-fashioned male-chauvinism… but I digress). For some, pink is just too revealing – like hanging your delicates to dry in your office cube.
So what’s a girl to do with the problem of pink? And what are marketers to do?
First of all, quit subscribing to skewed research studies that proclaim girls are attracted to pink genetically. By the age of 3, children are influenced by environmental cues so don’t give me any of that nonsense that 20-something women instinctively choose pink and call it science. You cannot conduct research in a bubble; there’s no way to isolate all variables. I know this is revolutionary… *insert roll of eyes here* but advertise to women logically. If you don’t know your audience, then yes, you will definitely think “Pink†is a fine idea to apply broadly to that homogenous and not at all varied, individual or niche demographic called women.
Second, context is king. Yes I know that the only way I could afford that designer suit was because it was in a god-awful color that no one else wanted to wear. But I also believe that rare is the woman who has the proverbial balls to do so. As Ms. Warner wrote, “pink is an option; it’s not a marketing campaign.†To whom are you marketing your pink product and in what environment will they be?
Finally, don’t forget your sense of humor. Every dragon-lady out there has a pink underbelly. It’s up to her if she chooses to expose it. Your attempt at wooing her with pink may just relegate you to the teen aisle for the rest of your brand’s natural life. Still, if you make an irreverent poke at gender inequality and aspire to reclaim some of the pink stereotype on behalf of womankind, well more power to you.
I would like to see a day when pink doesn’t polarize my gender – when pink doesn’t carry so much baggage. There are women in corner offices and government positions, military operations and athletic fields who embrace pink as a flip of the bird to everyone who stereotypes it, but not enough of them.
[tags] ebrand, marketing, women, pink, gender [/tags]
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February 6th, 2008 @ 1:55 pm
Why is the idea of pink as a color/choice and not a symbol of “feminine” so difficult to understand? Maybe if brands did the same with things they were marketing to men – and made phones for men baby blue or used a lot of blue in ads for anything for men or made blue the base color of any web site with a core male viewership, the point could be made. But, that is the thing, there are no “his turn” columns in men’s magazines (tell me if I’m wrong) and we don’t see a lot of ads for blue cellphones for father’s day (or blue laptops etc). What you and Fara are writing about here, Christine, and what has been on my mind for years (since before my book on the topic published in 2004) is no feminist rant. It is not men vs. women, or “men don’t get it/women do.” It’s more a long-held habit that advertisers have built from years and years of not really being comfortable with how to reach women. A more gender-inclusive Super Bowl ad mix – as per Fara – is certainly a great indicator of breaking that habit. It is great to see the change happening.