Two Knives

Suave/Unilever is back at it again, touting their research “statistics” as a way to sell more hair product:

The average mom spends 87.9 minutes per day preparing meals but only 4.2 minutes on her hair.

See, you can tell those are real statistics because of the decimals.

Suave’s new report is based on a random sample of roughly 3,000 mothers. 

(Hey, what a co-inky-dink! That’s the same number of women who responded to Suave’s request for stories for their In the Motherhood campaign!)

Suave is using these “startling statistics” from the Completely Random and Statistically Valid Sample of women “to nudge moms into action”:

. . . we want to issue a wake up call to remind moms to look in the mirror, think about their beauty and put themselves back on the to-do list.

Now, who would you expect to assist Suave/Unilever in their quest to get women to stand up and declare, “I’m not good enough! Get me some Extreme Strength Conditioner!” — ?

Why, the National PTA, of course! The PTA is, after all, a voice for all children, a resource for families and communities, and a champion for the education and well-being of every child. Oh, and a revenue channel for Unilever.

Suave created exclusive Beauty Packs for PTA members, filled with everything mom needs to move her “me time” from the bottom of the laundry pile to the top of her “to-do” list. The Beauty Packs include Suave products, interesting Suave survey stats and tips, and product coupons.

Kind of an odd choice for an organization who Stresses Shared Responsibility Across Industries to Protect Children from Harmful Effects of Media.

Time to contact Jan Harp Domene, who is “thrilled to support Suave” and the president of the National PTA: (800) 307-4782 or info@PTA.org.

This just in: my daughter(s) have been chosen to receive an application for the National American Miss Minnesota Pageant!!!

Nothing really wrong with the National American Miss (NAM) pageant, beyond the ususal:

Poise and presentation in formal wear is 30 percent of your overall score;

Winner receives an “exciting visit to Hollwood and Rodeo Drive” and “an authentic modeling scholarship;” and

Contestants must raise $440 in “sponsorship funding” in order to participate.

So much has been written about the horrors involved in these pageants (creepy sexualization of girls, over-the-top competitiveness, frightening stage mothers). You know that already.

What struck me about NAM’s marketing was their goal to manipulate the parents as well as the girls. As most marketing tactics aimed at tween and teen girls do, NAM targets a girl’s natural desire to belong and be accepted. And, aware of some parents’ distrust for beauty pageants, the brochure claims that their mission is to “encourage future leaders.”

It’s just like Girl Scouts! But with Aqua-Net.

So, how does a young “future leader” need to present herself? Some advice from seasoned NAM pageant professionals:

Have an opinion. (Or pretend to)

I had to learn this the hard way. If you are lucky enough to get an “on-stage” question or interview, just say something… even if you’re not sure what the question is about. How you say something is sometimes more important that what you say.

Also don’t stress about interviews because as long as you smile, sit up straight, and be yourself, the judges will love you.

DONT LIE ON YOUR RESUME! they WILL find out if you do, trust me. . . . If they teach you about “pretty feet” don’t forget it.

Good stuff. I’ll be sure to pass that along to my girls.

Today’s StarTribune reprinted a New York Times article about the American Airlines website I mentioned before. In an effort to enter into Web “niche” marketing, American created a special site just for women. The original purplish color scheme and E-Z navigation came down pretty quickly, and as the marketing geniuses at American are discovering, women aren’t buying this ”condescending marketing ploy.”

Even the MarketingProfs are calling this a major boner.

American continued to fall over itself when countering the deluge of negative reactions, stating that the site “will evolve based on the valuable feedback from our customers” and emphasizing their “continued commitment to the women’s market.”

No company, especially one where the CEO received 6.6 million dollars last week, has a commitment to anyone or anything except their own pocketbooks.

Try to imagine the women who work for American  sitting around the conference room table. What were they thinking? ”Yes, make the women’s site pink! No, wait, purple is the new pink! Make it purple! I mean, lavender.” And advising their coworkers, “Women just want things to be easy. We don’t want to be hassled with all those silly buttons and choices on a web site!” And, “Oh, put something on there about how women want to feel connected. We love that!”

Unless . . . .

Unless those women are fresh out of college and realize that they still make only 80 cents to every dollar their male counterparts earn. And that the gap will just widen over their years in the workforce. Maybe, just maybe, they are marketing geniuses.

You know I get off on these marketers paying like a billion dollars to have “researchers” tell them how to sell, sell, sell.

Looks like the marketing geniuses at American Airlines decided to forgo the researchers and instead, asked their grandpas how to get more women to fly.

Some more marketing and product talk: Lotta from Mom-O-Matic commented that it is better to have marketers ask us (women) what we want, and provide it to us, than to have them tell us what we want or tell us how we should be.

So true.

Especially if you’re talking about, say, an automatic washing machine. Or frozen vegetables. Or a Teflon-coated pan.

But if a marketer had asked my grandmother, who was raising six kids on a farm in the middle of South Dakota in 1935, what she wanted? Do you think she would have said,

“A daily face cleansing tool with a technologically advanced method that delivers a deep clean as well as massaging and exfolitating benefits?”

Of course not. That’s not what she needed. She needed running water in the house. A teflon-coated pan would have been a luxury.

What do we need now? Innovations in technology — yes. Advances in medical research — yes. An anti-aging miracle – no.

Perhaps we are so saturated with products, that we really don’t need any new ones. Perhaps we don’t need to participate when marketers ask us inane questions. 

Or, maybe we could answer, “I don’t know, but I’ll let you know as soon as women earn as much as men do.”

P.S. Those really are my grandparents, who were farmers in the middle of South Dakota.