Open Letter To Advertisers

[joreth]

Picture this...

The screen fades from black to show a man sleeping in bed.  His eyes pop open.  Cut to another man bouncing out of his bed in his pajamas.  Cut to yet another man running down the stairs.  Show a series of different men all acting like children on Christmas morning, running to the tree, tearing open the presents, and all finding Craftsman tools, or Makita, or Dewalt, or Black & Decker, whatever.  The men are excited, behaviour has regressed, this is the best thing EVAR!  Some voice-over says something witty about getting your man what he really wants this holiday season: a set of their tools.

Dear Advertisers of Manly Stuff;

I don't know if you know this, but I'm a woman and I like tools.  Seeing ads like this on TV around the holidays makes me feel excluded from the very things that I love.  It's like when I was a kid and saw commercials for my favorite toys, but there were no girls playing with those toys, even though I knew lots of girls who liked those toys.  Since there were no girls on the commercials and no girls on the packaging, the adults in my life refused to buy me those toys because they weren't "girl toys".  But I loved them!

Commercials like these don't just make me feel excluded.  They make me think that I am deliberately unwanted.  Oh, sure, when it comes to money, you're willing to cater to the women.  But you make our tools less powerful, smaller, and pink or purple.  I want my industrial yellow, 15-bajillion hertz Dewalt power drill, not some frilly purple drill with flowers on it that doesn't even have enough power to screw in my picture hardware.

I know this may come as a shock to you, but I don't hang pictures.  I build shit.  I fix my car.  And I don't mean that I change tires (although I do).  I've rebuilt my own carbuerator.  I built the shed out back.  I've installed load-bearing walls.  I operate heavy machinery.  I have all the best name-brands and a better tool collection than my father - a manly man who taught me how to use a circular saw and to hunt deer and let me steal sips of his beer when mom wasn't looking.  I have multiple tool chests for different kinds of work, and I have specialty tools just for certain industries that your average guy won't have.  And, here's even more of a shock, I also like cooking and sewing and men.  And (are you sitting down?) I'm not the only one.

Maybe tool purchases by women only make up 10% of your sales (although I don't believe it's that low for a minute, but let's say for the sake of argument).  Would it really kill you to throw in a single woman in that holiday morning montage?  A girl amidst the dozen men who tears off the packaging while wearing fuzzy pajamas with snowflakes on them and finds a black and blue Kobalt power drill or air compressor or something - a good, powerful tool that matches her fuzzy pajamas - and who shakes her fists and grins and gives her husband a bear hug in thanks?  Just one?  You can even make her blonde and young and pretty.  At this point, I'd settle for a token woman.

Maybe you're afraid that the big manly men won't want to buy that brand of tool if you suggest that women like it too.  But maybe you'll win tons of loyal female customers to make up for the handfuls of chauvanistic pricks who refuse to buy a good tool just because some chick also knows it's a good tool.  Most men won't stop buying something good just because they find out that some women like it too - in fact, they probably won't even notice the woman in the commerical at all, because they probably never noticed her absence in the first place.  But word will spread that you are including women, and not pandering to them, and women notice that.  They'll go out of their way to buy YOUR brand when they need a tool, especially if you're the only, or the first, brand to do this.  If you ever thought men cornered the market on being brand-loyal, you've never seen "loyal" until you've treated a woman customer like a person, listened to what she wanted, and offered her a quality product without assuming she wouldn't be interested or doesn't understand or must be buying for her husband.

Throw in a female in your advertising - make me think that you appreciate my business, because I appreciate your products and want to buy more of them.  Only I won't if I think I can get better service from another company, and the next generation of women won't if they continue to get bombarded with messages that say that your products are not for them.  Don't girlie-up your tools, don't make tools - or commericals - exclusively for women and leave out the men.  Just include us.  That's all we're asking for.  Treat us like human beings first, paying customers second, and only like women if you have a shot at the parts that make us women.

Sincerely,
A Woman Who Likes Tools