Pink Marketing

Overview & Synopsis

Gender marketing takes advantage of gender research, modifying some products to respond the allegedly specific needs of women. The aim is to double profits by offering two gendered versions of the same product. Pink is then massively used to particularise a product “for girls/women”, which has often been criticised by feminist researchers and activists as sexist. The intent here is to explain how and why such a marketing strategy persists, even though it is in decline. Through gender studies, the article will first show how the gendered use of pink in marketing manages to construct a “feminine mode of consumption”, referring to Christian Derbaix and Pierre Gregory’s model of the “doors of persuasion” to show how the colour pink can activate different levers likely to modify the attitudes and behaviour of female consumers. The article will then consider Jean Baudrillard’s semiological approach to consumption in order to explain female consumers’ adherence to this “pink marketing”. Finally, using the concept of “extended-self” developed by Russel W. Belk, it will show how the consumption of these “feminine products” allows consumers to prove their belonging to the category of “women”, while reinforcing their feeling of “being a woman”.