And now I have two more companies to add to the list.
Here's what Giant, the supermarket chain (also known elsewhere as Stop & Shop), mailed its customers:
- This is not a Father's Day special mailer.
- The father is not shown as a clueless visitor to the kitchen or clueless about interacting with his son.
- And the best part: No grill! The father and son are making salad! How the hell did that happen? Wasn't there a marketing wunderkid in the room, telling them that dads only grill, and may only be shown surrounded by burgers, buddies, and beer?
So well-done to Giant Food for thinking beyond the grill and beyond the stereotypes.
The second praise goes to a company selling baby feeding products, baby bottles, pacifiers, baby monitors, and even breast-pumps. This is what you see when you go to TommeeTippee.com:
I'm sure that like Avent, a company that completely ignores fatherhood because its research has confirmed the shocking statistics that moms buy more baby bottles than dads do, the people at Tommee Tippee know who buys what. But they also know that when a mother sees a company that respects fatherhood (or at least accepts it), the mother is not going to leave that website and take her money to Avent just because Avent likes to pretend fathers don't do the parenting thing.
I mean, seriously. Is there a mother looking at that picture, thinking, "This place is not for me"? So many marketing companies are stuck in this concept that they must target according to gender while excluding the other gender, not realizing that, for example, mothers actually like the idea of a man hugging a child. They're not offended by the image above, and they don't feel excluded. Marketing to moms doesn't mean excluding dads.
Good luck to the two trend-setters. And thanks, on behalf of all parents.
