Space for Rent: Gender Marketing

Tweet of the Day: Who is FemShep?

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Another post on gender and marketing. And you probably seen this video before. If you haven’t, take a look:

There you have it. From an early age manufacturers target their products along gender lines. Why? Because it works. But for those of us who want to brake down the walls of the media ghettos, be they animated, sci-fi or fantastic it can be frustrating. And I wish I could say it is all one sided, men sitting on board rooms deciding which product gets the blue colored laser blasters and which other product gets the pink frilly dresses. Just take a look at the current trend of slapping romance on existing sub genres.

And don’t get me started on the covers.

So, do I have any solutions to this problem? Other than the ones suggested countless times before: write/create with a wider audience in mind, do not pigeon whole yourself (or allow others to do it for you), defend your genre with concise arguments, ect.

Instead, I open the forum to you dear reader. But be mindful that gender base marketing DOES work. If not, Mattel would not have sold millions of Barbies and Hasbro would have warehouses full of unsold G.I. Joes.

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