I went to a movie this weekend, a movie that featured a lot of sparkly shoes, pretty clothes, champagne parties and a predictably happy ending. A movie some would call a chickflick. The few men in the audience were on dates, at a guess the audience demographic was female (80%) and young (18-35). So the movie had found the right target.
The ads presented before the movie were interesting.
| Ad 1: Grolsch |
| It’s a beer I like, but this particular ad features a famous architect (Roberto Meyer) and a famous rockstar (Barry Hay) discussing blueprints. Two middle-aged guys making witty comments about architecture and sharing a beer.
Target audience male, 30+. |
| Ad 2: Killzone |
| Killzone is a playstation multiplayer game. It’s a particularly violent game, you can get a taste of the ad here.
Target audience: male, 30+ |
| Ad 3: Adidas |
| One of the “houseparty” advertisements from Adidas, with shots of skateboarding, tagging, dancing, painting, swimming… all young and happy people. Ratio of men to women = 3:2
Target audience: both sexes (more male?) under 30, |
| Ad 4: Axe |
| This is an ad for male deodorant, set in a caveman village. Where the caveman wearing axe gets to wear leather, ride a bison, and of course – get the girl. The ads can be seen in its entirety here.
Target audience: male, 30ish |
There’s not really anything wrong with the ads per se, but they’re missing their demographic. Women do drink beer, play online games and wear sports shoes. Potentially they may buy deodorant for their boyfriends or partners. But none of these ads really targetted women. None.
Why is that?
A similar line of ads could have included Coke, Wii, Nike, L’Oreal. All of whom have products that suit women and produce ads that are more relevant for women.
The media sellers from the movie theatres are not smart about their sales strategy. They’re lazily selling in bulk avoiding all the tools marketers should use. If they used market segmentation tools to understand to whom the movies are targetted they could sell the advertising space to the right companies at a premium.
Change Meme 