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BEFORE YOU GO: COPY-CATERPILLARS / SEXISM

Archie joins the Cuthbert and Colin show

As the much publicised legal battle of the caterpillars rumbles on between Aldi and M&S, some of the social media hashtag hijacking that followed has been less than edifying with everyone and their granny trying to cash in on the debate for their own ends.

The latest company to join the fray is Just Love Food Company, which has just launched its very own copy-caterpillar cake: Archie.

Archie is, apparently, vegan and he has been registered with The Vegan Society’s Vegan Trademark. Archie is also egg, peanut, nut and milk-free.

Ericka Durgahee, Marketing Manager at The Vegan Society, commented: “The world has been missing a vegan chocolate caterpillar cake.”

Has it though? Has it really?

Men just don’t buy women, apparently

In one of the more esoteric press releases to land in our inbox this week, we learned that, despite the many advances made in recent years when incomes to equality of the sexes, men are apparently less likely to buy a product with a female mascot or brand name.

In one of the more esoteric press releases to land in our inbox this week, we learned that, despite the many advances made in recent years when incomes to equality of the sexes, men are apparently less likely to buy a product with a female mascot or brand name.

New findings from the NEOMA Business School in France, published in the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, claims that “men devalue brands that use female names or mascots and are less likely to buy their products”.

Various academics with long names and even longer job titles investigated how products are valued differently depending on how the ‘gender’ of the brand is represented.

In one experiment, men were shown the original male or an imagined female mascot for Pringle’s. The mascot was shown alone or accompanied by agentic (masculine) or communal (feminine) messaging. When only the mascot was shown, men strongly preferred the male brand, and subsequently including a communal description did not influence purchasing intentions. However, when the messaging was agentic, men were more likely to purchase the female brand.

The conclusion? If a female name or mascot is chosen for a brand, marketers “should use competitive, self-confident slogans or brand descriptions to reduce gender bias and prevent men devaluing the brand”. Or, alternatively, men could sort their shit out.