Dr Pepper TEN

To Drink or not to Drink, that is the Question

Dr Pepper has been one of the more popular soft drinks since 1885. The company sets itself apart from other drinks by its unique blend of 23 flavors. Throughout the years, I’m sure there have been dozens of advertisements and products that have come and go. Some were successful some were not. One recent products marketing tool and commercial has caught my eye. It is the commercial for Dr Peppers new diet drink Dr Pepper Ten. It is called this because it has 10 calories instead of the usual 0 calories. They have aimed the campaign marketed towards men age 25-34, because in the past there have been difficulties marketing diet drinks to men. They directly singled out men with the slogan It’s Not for Women. To use this slogan is brave to say the least, when we are supposed to live in a time where men and women are theoretically equal, stereotypes and society tells a different story. I believe that this commercial is good as an advertisement. It’s good because it catches your eye and almost makes you want to drink it (if you’re a woman) because it says that you can’t. It also uses humor to its advantage. However, I believe that it makes for a bad argument because of the sexist tones that the director used. Therein lies the cause which I believe is the gender stereotypes that exist in our society.

As an advertisement the commercial is successful because it is very eye catching and they use a big issue (gender inequality) to try to gain their audience of men. Right from the start you get the feel that you are watching an action movie, which I think plays to men’s emotions the main character is running through a jungle with a laser gun shooting at something while there is fast pace adventure music playing in the background. He jumps from a cliff and lands in a jeep, which is driving through that jungle as there are motorcyclists chasing it. The character throws a can to trigger a trap for the guys chasing him. With all of these visuals, many people are able to relate having seen at least one action film in their lives. The visuals aren’t where the commercial goes wrong; it’s the dialogue that the main character uses. Right from the start they use gender stereotypes. He states “Hey ladies enjoying the film, of course not, because this is our movie”. With the use of “our” they are setting this up to be a gender issue. The “our” implies that action movies are just for men, or men as a whole enjoy action movies more than women do. He also uses our when he talks about the soda, that this is our soda, that because this has 10 calories and not 0 it’s a manly drink. The gender stereotypes are all over in this commercial.

As an argument this commercial was not successful because of the gender stereotypes. It’s illogical to believe that women like just romantic movies or “chick” drinks. I believe that they are using the gender stereotypes as a shock value to get the product noticed or talked about. The reason this has been marketed specifically to men is it’s been proven that it’s been difficult to market a diet drink to men because of the association of diet and femininity. This being said Dr Pepper decided not to sugar coat the issue, and very blatantly and literally scream who this is and isn’t for. The use of the gender issues was risky because it could have gone either way. In this case I think it did the opposite of what they wanted it to do. Approval ratings actually went down with both men and women, more so with women, since the commercial had been released. Women don’t like to be reminded of a time when they couldn’t do anything and they had people telling them what they could and couldn’t do. I believe that this commercial touches on that a little bit, even though it’s supposed to be humorous.

After I saw the commercial I just wanted to laugh. I got right away that it was supposed to be a joke, and I understood what it was trying to do. They were trying to poke fun at the stereotypes while also using them to attract their audience. On the other hand I’m sitting here talking about this commercial, about this product, so in some way, the advertising may have worked.