Dr Pepper is market testing a new diet soda: Pepper 10. The name refers to the ten (manly) calories packed into the diet drink. Pepper 10 and Diet Dr Pepper are almost identical on the inside, with Pepper 10 containing a blend of sweeteners including high-fructose corn syrup, acesulfame potassium and aspartame and has 10 calories. Diet Dr Pepper is made with aspartame and has 0 calories.
There’s really one only key difference between the traditional Diet Dr and Pepper 10, though, that Pepper 10 is not for pussies. Whoops, I meant women. A fact the company’s newly released commercial uses every sexist trope to reinforce.
If the manly black of the can didn’t clue you in to the fact that Pepper 10 is for Tough Guys (a marketing technique also used by Coke Zero), the commercial will leave no doubt in your mind. The commercial conflates masculinity with brawny action heroes, simultaneously telling us that women can’t be in to action flicks and wimpy dudes who like romantic comedies can’t be men. The commercial uses buff dudes to take aim at men’s self-esteem, calling their manliness into question by surrounding the actors with jeeps, jungles, and motorcycle chases while the actor’s monologue decries the womanly domains of lady drinks and romantic flicks. The final line literally has the actor yelling “It’s not for women” as he falls off screen, creating a clearly divided line between the sexes leaving not simply women on the side of romantic movies and cosmopolitans, but any man who may choose those activities over muscles and guns on the womanly side of the equation.
The commercial makes it clear that only the right kind of man can enjoy the taste of Pepper 10: The Macho Man.
Thanks for this daily dose of sexism, Dr Pepper. Without it, I might’ve accidentally bought your product.
[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTs-BmLOGWQ&feature=player_embedded 425×344]*The picture above is from ad for the Australian man soda “Solo“, which packages their drinks in something called man cans.
