Offering products “for him” or “for her” is a risky business.

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SHARE YOUR SCIENCE: Only when consumers perceive a relevant biological difference between men and women will they accept gendered marketing as legitimate.

Over the past decade, many brands have been accused of sexism for offering products that seemed unnecessarily gendered: from BIC with “BIC for her,” a line of pens just for women, to Kleenex with its “Mansize” tissues.

The phenomenon arguably reached its peak when PepsiCo’s CEO announced that Doritos was working on “female-friendly” chips, arguing that women “don’t like to bite too hard in public.” Consumers were outraged by the announcement, accusing Doritos of sexism.

To better understand this phenomenon, I studied how consumers respond to gendered products, focusing on whether they view the brands behind these gendered products as sexist.

Consumers have negative attitudes towards gendered products

To begin my investigation, I conducted an experiment in which I told participants that SodaCola—a fictional brand—was announcing that it would be launching a low-calorie soda.

Half of the participants were told that the new soda would be called “LadySodaCola” and would have pink packaging. The other half were told that it would be called “Diet SodaCola” and would have yellow packaging.

I then asked participants how likely they were to share information about SodaCola through word of mouth and how sexist they perceived it to be.

As I predicted, participants who were informed about “Lady SodaCola” (a gendered product) viewed the brand as more sexist than participants who were informed about “Diet SodaCola” (a gender-neutral product), and they were more likely to spread negative word-of-mouth about it.

Furthermore, launching a low-calorie soda called “Lady SodaCola” was perceived as a less legitimate practice than launching a low-calorie soda called “Diet SodaCola.” In summary, these results confirm that consumers react negatively to a gendered product.

Consumers’ personal beliefs influence how they react

I also predicted that two personal characteristics might change how consumers respond to gendered products: whether they are feminists and whether they hold sexist beliefs. I found that this was indeed the case.

Consumers who identify as feminists are more likely to view brands that offer gendered products as sexist. Conversely, consumers who adhere to sexist beliefs are less likely to view brands that offer gendered products as sexist.

Gendered products apparently based on biological differences are considered legitimate

Noting that consumers seem less skeptical of some types of gendered products than of other types, I decided to distinguish between products gendered based on a stereotype (e.g., men like and tolerate spicy foods more than women) and products gendered based on an apparently biological difference (e.g., men need, on average, a higher protein intake than women).

I tested this in a new study and found that launching high-protein chips “for men” was perceived as more legitimate than launching spicy chips “for men.”

Additionally, participants who believed that men and women had different biological needs for protein intake viewed the launch of high-protein chips “for men” as less sexist than the launch of spicy chips “for men.”

Reference

• Caruelle, D. “Are brands that carry out gender differentiation of products perceived as sexist? An experimental investigation”, Product and Brand Management Journal2024. DOI: 10.1108/JPBM-07-2023-4590 (Abstract)

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