Yes I had a lovely birthday thank you very much.
Didn’t get any cards or presents from you, but I’m assuming they’re in the post.
Anyway, there is literally no benefit to being 41 so let’s move on and pretend it hasn’t happened.
Deal?
Good.
So in the interests of this post, I want you to imagine we have opened the door of major electrical manufacturers marketing department – let’s say Deepoo.
Cool?
OK, so I shall begin …
Marketing Director: “People, we have something very exciting to announce today, we have perfected our robot vacuum cleaner”.
APPLAUSE RINGS AROUND THE ROOM.
Marketing Director: “No longer will people have to suffer the annoyance and pain of cleaning their house, robovac will do it for them. But we have a problem, who should we target with it? Ideas.”
Marketing Lacky #1: “What about students, they’re lazy fucks and this way they can look clean without the effort?”
Marketing Director: “You fucking idiot, don’t you realise students have no fucking cash and what they do have, they blow on piss, drugs and kebabs.”
Marketing Lacky #2: “But what about after them, when they have a job, won’t they have loads of money for us to rip out of their grubby little hands then?”
Marketing Director: “What the hell is wrong with you people? It costs so much to be a student these days that the fuckers will be working till they retire just to pay off their debt. Hasn’t anyone got any good ideas?”
Marketing Lacky #3: “What about men?”
Marketing Director: “Go on …”
Marketing Lacky #3: “Well they love technology and this is the sort of shit they’d buy. I know at least one person in China who is a dead cert to cough up the cash.”
Marketing Director: “But men hate vacuuming. It’s women’s work. We’ve spent 50 years flogging that myth, why the hell would men start to buy them just because they can be called a ‘robot’?”
Marketing Lacky #3: “Here’s the clever thing, they could buy it and give it their wife and say it’s a present … something to stop them wasting so much time keeping the house spick and span. Something that goes from practical to romantic.”
Marketing Lacky #1: “But robots can’t move furniture like a woman can so the house will never be as clean sir.”
Marketing Director: “SHUTTHEFUCKUP, no one cleans that well anyway unless their mother in law is coming. Carry on Lacky #1”
Marketing Lacky #1: “So as I was saying, we could target men to buy it for their wives. The men get a cool gadget they can tell their mates about, the women get a machine that removes a job removed from their list of chores plus they can tell their friends their husband is both romantic and not stuck in the 1950’s – like their husbands – and we can sell a bundle of the bastards.”
Marketing Director: “Good … good … but don’t women love looking after the house and their family – all our pre-determined research findings says they do.”
Marketing Lacky #3: “Yes, they love it, but they like romance even more.”
Marketing Director: “So how do we make sure they don’t slip into one of their ‘moods’ and see this generous and heart-felt present from their husband as something beautiful, not something they can bitch their man out about?”
Marketing Lacky #3: “Easy sir, make sure it comes in pink, that’s how gullible they are.”
Marketing Director: “You are promoted to head of insight.”
THE ROOM ERUPTS INTO APPLAUSE AS MARKETING LACKY #3 UNVEILS HIS VISION
At a time where brands are so politically correct it hurts, it never fails to surprise me how many subconsciously – or maybe consciously – promote old fashioned/sexist gender roles or believe the public are so easily pleased/fooled … however on the bright side, I now know what I can buy for Jill’s birthday on Wednesday.