Gender Coding

Kirkham and Weller’s article “Cosmetics: A Clinique Case Study”, exhibits the different gendering techniques of companies who have toiletry products on the market for both men and women. They argue that “the differences between advertisements for male toiletries and female toiletries are marked and, to a certain degree, conform to certain binary oppositions which are generally accepted to relate to men and women” (269). For example, there are extreme differences in the advertisements for the popular brand Nivea, which has skin care products for both genders. To begin with, you wouldn’t even know these two advertisements came from the same company. In contrast, the snapshot of the welcome page for Nivea Men is exploding with action, whereas an ad for Nivea body lotion for women is much more out of focus and bland. True to the article, the women’s ad has little copy, as opposed to the men’s where even the products have a specific name and there is a long description at the bottom of the page. With the women’s ad, “the product becomes the signifier of feeling through conventions such as color, [and] light…which evoke a series of affective responses including freshness and pleasure” (271). It is also important to note that the copy of the men’s Nivea ad empowers them stating that “men understand that looking their best is crucial to conquering life’s everyday challenges and that Nivea for Men can help them achieve success” as opposed to the Nivea ad for cream where the copy is subjective to women “touch and be touched”.