Women at the expense of men?

David Menzies wrote an interesting article in this month's Marketing Magazine titled "Excuse My Gender" where he laments about men and their negative portrayal in recent ad campaigns by Rona, Rogers and Royal Bank to name a few. I can certainly relate to the sentiment of the article. Perhaps the pendulum has swung to far for marketers trying to wave the flag for the female gender. As an agency who specializes in marketing with women I can sympathize and agree that good quality marketing and communication strategies do not have to come at the expense of men.

That said, is the message getting through at the retail level? With all of the mega bucks being invested by North America's big brands in search of winning the female favour, is this translated at all customer touchpoints of the sales experience? Sadly, I say no. Just walk into a retailer selling consumer electronics, try signing up for a new small business phone system or even purchasing a car, home or a vacation membership package and as a woman you will still have to sustain some good old fashioned gender discrimination.

So, perhaps these ad budgets should be allocated to gender specific sales training and operationalization of communication strategies across all customer touch points. Just a thought.