The Ultimate Question: Facts or Details?

"the issue is much more fundamental than the usual myopic media one about where the ads appear: it's about recognising women [and men]'s different approach"

- Financial Times, June 29th, 2001

Recognising the way different people interpret and perceive information is fundamental to being able to create branding, advertising, products etc, that is effective. One of the main, and often most obvious, differences is between the Genders. After being shown a series of different magazine adverts, it was very interesting to see the differences between not only which adverts the guys and gals of the class remembered, but why. The differences in why people remembered the adverts was incredible. It is nothing new to say that there are scores of adverts that are aimed towards either sex, and it is immediately obvious which sex they target, even before you know what the product is.

Katherine Frith states that there are three different levels of understanding an advert. Firstly there is the surface meaning, the first impression of an advert from simply glancing over the picture. Secondly, the advertiser's intended meaning. This is the strategy behind the advert, the meaning the marketeers would prefer you to walk away with. The last level is the cultural or ideological meaning, which is how the viewer relates to the advert; using culture, social groups and immediate relationships as a reference point for the picture.

A recent article, The Effectiveness of Comparative and Noncomparative Advertising, in The Journal of Advertising, a very interesting and useful article that I would recommend to anyone interested in gender differences or advertising to read, states that studies show that while women will see a puzzle as engaging and challenging, and will immediately start to recall memory to solve the problem; a man will be more likely to try and use clues in him immediate surroundings to solve the puzzle, and will give up quickly if he feels that solving the puzzle will not be constructive for him at that moment in time. Essentially, unless it is urgent and significant, men will look for the basic facts where women will usually look for details, whatever the situation, as is illustrated by the cast of Friends in the video below.

Men weren’t really the enemy —
they were fellow victims suffering from an outmoded masculine mystique that made
them feel unnecessarily inadequate when there were no bears to
kill.

Betty Friedan, 1963

The differences between the genders is not something to be seen as an issue, a big problem that must be solved- it is something that should be celebrated. After all the fabulous campaigning of the suffragettes in the 20s and the bra burning of the feminists in the 60s the 80s saw the conformist era starting- and this is where it all started to go wrong. As with race, colour, age, sex- all people are NOT equal. If people were all equal, they would probably be the same. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. Women in the 80s shouldn't have had to wear pinstripe suits to work in business.

The fact is that men and women are different, and that everybody should work to their strengths, although this might be a very idealistic hope. As people have assorted talents, likes, dislikes, shortfall, experiences etc. these are all things that can be marketed to, picked up on and, said crudely, manipulated.

A great, simple, funny video, partially in Italian- http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=jlFsnlmLmyg it is very sweet.