Discretion is a key part of the messaging, a spinoff of the classic no-makeup makeup look, and Stryx hopes changing ideas about masculinity will move the idea into the mainstream....From the comments:
Chanel launched a men’s makeup collection that hit the U.S. market in 2019, offering foundation, an eyebrow pencil, lip balm, and a cleanser and moisturizer set for a “natural look.”... And a number of mainstream cosmetic labels have adopted gender-neutral marketing. But Stryx sees itself as something original, a brand made specifically for men from the ground up....
Some say the shift reflects changing attitudes toward masculinity and expression. Other see it as a new market to capitalize on, fueled by Instagram and a barrage of Zoom meetings....
Men's makeup. Also known as makeup. It's the spear counterpart to "vodka... for women" also known as vodka. Or "BIC pens... for women!" also known as pens.Oh, yeah. Just recently WaPo made fun of a new vodka for women: "Bacardi targeted women with its new reduced-alcohol vodkas. It went over as well as you’d expect."
Susan Dobscha, a professor of marketing at Bentley University, says the brand missed the mark on multiple levels.All the links go to other WaPo articles.
First, she notes, modern beverage companies don’t need to market by gender anymore — after all, White Claw hard seltzer became a market-dominating hit by eschewing the old stereotypes of bros guzzling brews and ladies sipping white wines. “You don’t have to rely on these sexist tropes to be successful in this product category,” she says. “Bacardi went the total opposite and decided to go full on girly. Where did they get that intel?”
The move seems to have put the products in league with widely mocked Bic “For Her” pens, Doritos lady-friendly chips, and Johnny Walker’s “Jane Walker” scotch logo.
Actually, it's easy to defend WaPo. It's consistent. The "for women" products are carrying forward the traditional stereotype, and the "for men" makeup is defying the traditional stereotype. If the company is centering its product on the old stereotype, boo. If the product is helping people overcome the stereotype, yay. That makes more sense of WaPo's treatment of new products than what I wrote in the first paragraph of this post. If they were really only about coddling advertisers, they wouldn't have mocked Barcardi, Bic, Doritos, and Johnny Walker.
Posts
46 comments:
Liberal media's never-ending battle to destroy masculinity.
We're living in the worst possible timeline.
For make-up to matter, people would have to pay far more attention to lighting than they currently do. I have yet to see a single person create a broadcast studio in their home for zoom meetings.
The cigarette companies doubled their business when they got PR wizard Edward Bernays to associate women smoking in public with women's liberation in 1929.
Razor blade companies also doubled their market (more or less) when they got womens' magazines in the 1910-1920s to associate cleanliness and attractiveness with shaving legs and underarms.
And until Bernays came along, most Americans ate a light breakfast. He's the one responsible for making people think that bacon and eggs is the normal, healthy American breakfast.
And before around 1980 no one drank bottled water, except in countries where the water was unsafe. What business...selling water in a bottle for a dollar. Hydration!
Proper camera position and lighting is really what you need.
"If the product is helping people overcome the stereotype, yay."
Waiting for the first company to help people overcome the stereotype that transwomen are women. JKR, you have a business opportunity here, knowing the WaPo will applaud your efforts.
TV was always makeup-heavy. It's why Nixon lost to Kennedy.
When I heard that an Omaha lawyer had his nails done I lost all respect for the guy. Wussie.
It's a woman's market the size of a man's market.
It's not the makeup that is different but the size of the potential sales.
Mr. Pants bought a lighted mirror with a phone holder in the middle, like what I imagine young women use for making makeup tutorials for YouTube. He has trouble with light on video calls. So far no actual makeup though. 🙄
The WaPo might be averse to instulting advertisers who spend a lot at the WaPo.
How much time do women spend on makeup? Buying it, watching shows about how to use it, putting it on daily, futzing with it during the day, removing it at night and so on.
Perhaps 30 minutes a day on average?
That's 180 hours per year, more than an entire week lost.
Perhaps men have more useful things to do than spend a week annually worrying about.
And the cost
Global cosmetics market is expected to garner $429.8 billion by 2022,
https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/cosmetics-market
Half a trillion dollars?
Men not only have better uses for their time (gun range for example) but that half a trillion could pay for a lot of ammo. And more guns.
John Henry
If the product is helping create a new stereotype, yay.
I'm imagining someone imagining a zoom meeting wherein everyone looks like Ru Paul and has nice hairless legs.
Men's makeup. Also known as makeup.
AKA "camo".
A little Vaseline on the lens works wonders.
Waiting for the “masculine hygiene” products and the discrete messaging of said products.
And of course, as our woke friends tell us, male tampon commercials are just around the corner
Little Richard I am not.
Advertorials are not new. WaPo is going all in on their new People Magazine approach to the news.
You know what is far sexier than a pretty face? Competence. Competence is the sexiest thing in either sex.
He ain't got laid in a month of Sundays
I caught him once and he was sniffin' my undies
He ain't too sharp but he gets things done
Drinks his beer like it's oxygen
He's my baby
And I'm his honey
Never gonna let him go
“Gets things done” cancels all the negatives.
I wouldn't say a man wearing makeup is automatically less masculine. It depends on the reason.
For example, if the reason is to "peacock" so you can pick up women and you aren't worried your eyeliner and your feather boa might get you into a fight in the mean time, I wouldn't classify that as less masculine.
Is it less masculine to wear makeup on camera for the purpose of subconsciously influencing people, closing deals, making money and getting yourself ahead in your career? I'd say no.
I'm not advocating men's makeup, but if you think it'll do the trick, hey, knock yourself out.
I, for one, use a nice picture of myself for online meetings. Seeing my lips move, if required for work purposes, is available at a small premium.
Like those snicker-worthy photo spreads of blond Zoolanders modeling culottes and multi-colored plastic blouses? Yeah, like that...
Of course the opportunity to condemn the kind of ageism that motivates a lot of men to use makeup, hair restoration, and nip and tuck is missed because agism is the zeitgeist now. If you came out against ageism, you might get cancelled by the red guard millennials.
They say that women apply makeup for other women, but that’s half the story, the real story is that they are in competition with each other to see who can be the most attractive to men.
"Perhaps 30 minutes a day on average?"
What?!
I don't know a single person who spends 30 minutes a day on makeup.
Your stereotypes bad, my stereotypes good. There really is no more thought behind it than that.
Tcrosse: “ A little Vaseline on the lens works wonders.”
TMI man, TMI.
I don’t wear anything other than eyeliner and mascara because I don’t like the way it feels on my face and I’m lazy about putting it on. But a friend and I were talking a few weeks ago about whether makeup companies were taking a coronavirus hit.
Why would people want to wear makeup that ended up rubbing off on the face mask that they have to put on and take off all day. Foundation, blush, and lipstick all rub off on the masks.
Back in the day my mother would take a slip (not the one she was going to wear) drape it over her hair and face so that she could pull on clothes that had to go over her head. It prevented smears of makeup on the neckline of her clothes.
I’m tired of the myth that “everybody’s stuck at home” as casually inserted here. There was never a time when even most people were stuck at home. He’ll only a third of the workforce ever had to stop working. Big Business kept going outside a few key industries, like restaurants and gyms and of course schools.
Just. Make. It. Stop.
OTOH, Bethany Frankel made a fortune selling her Skinny Girl brand of alcoholic drinks to Seagram's.
Most computer cameras do not have the harsh lighting that TV or movies have that require make up to cover up or to enhance.
But nice attempt to feminize men. The thing is that the people that would buy such things already do.
The leftist/liberal/progressives are on a roll: maybe they need to make cars for women. We will call them kitchens.
I can't imagine using foundation and rouge and mascara and eyebrow pencils and whatever else women use for makeup. But in recent years, I've started using an all-in-one product that has moisturizer and some other stuff in it. And I've started wearing sun screen regularly. It makes a difference. My face is a lot more even now. Nose isn't as red, etc. I think the sunscreen is carrying most of the load there, but I'm keeping to this regime for the time being.
For video calls a proper camera does more than anything else, I think. A lot of web cameras already have some degree of smoothing, so the makeup probably makes less difference than normal if you're doing web conferences.
Say what you will, but I despise, detest, and distrust the WaPoo.
“I wouldn't say a man wearing makeup is automatically less masculine. It depends on the reason.”
Sure, but in a business environment it would be professional suicide. A group of adult dudes who twig to the fact the fact that another dude is wearing makeup in a meeting? They won’t say anything at the time but they’ll be subtly and absolutely dismissive when he’s gone.
Strange how the MSM likes to encourage men to do things that will diminish them.
You've come a long way, baby.
Less-alcohol vodka makes sense if you want to keep up with the men drink-for-drink...lower weight and all that. And don't tell me about the women you know who can drink bikers under the table. Those women are called alcoholics.
I am reminded of my partner running into one of the more prominent TV news people in PHX one night at a club. He, being on TV five nights a week, assumed that every woman there knew who he was, and wanted to go out with him. He hit on my partner. Nope she said. Not interested. Then adding insult to injury, told him that she had a rule of never dating a guy who wore more makeup than she did.
All they need is some new names for lipstick. Ruby Woo isn't going to cut it. Nude Kate? No. Uncensored? Better, but maybe get yourself cancelled. Cancelled? black with a bold red diagonal slash. Also tricky. NPR? a wimpy gray. Safe but why bother. But how about Camo? looking like that. Silverado? looking silvery. Shotgun Shell? bold red with a gold outline. MMA? looking beat-up all over your face.
I use makeup and shadowing to deemphasize the enormity of my penis. I've been doing this since puberty as it was the only way I could find to avoid scaring my dates.
It appears the world went to shit when they awarded the first marketing degree in college.
Conflating sex and gender. Sexist? Genderist? Exercising liberal license to indulge diversity and exclusion.
I'd imagine makeup companies are taking a huge hit right now. When I went into the office every day I did hair, makeup, fussed a bit with clothes. Since the big lockdown in March I wear minimal makeup maybe twice a week for video calls and a quick trip to the store, rarely do much with my hair, and rotate thru a small selection of comfy shirts and shorts or capris.
I drove around Rocky Mountain National Park last week, and my left ear peeled from sunburn today, while my right ear remained pale pink. Drove with the window open, I did, and got a reminder that UV light has more intensity at high altitude than at Austin's < 500 feet above the ocean.
Makeup? Why, when I can look like a leprous ghoul and scare my coworkers?
I was at a zoom birthday party at which some people could not understand that if the main light source was behind them, we could not see their faces. Makeup wouldn't have helped.
The tone is soppily uncritical, because of course, they want makeup companies to advertise. We hear about a new company, Stryx, that has makeup for men.
In all likelihood, it's soppily uncritical because it's a planted story by Stryx's PR company.
Saw in all the pharmacy ads today July 29th is National Lipstick Day!
How are you planning to celebrate?
Post a Comment