For the last few years, the brands that sell cleaning products have strived to show in their ads intrepid women who assume home tasks as super secret missions to save the world. They use characters from the future, elite training, incredible stories, etc. just to make us know that the regular bleach now makes clothes even whiter.
While these ads “try” to show a new image of housewives, we still see how they maintain differentiated roles between men and women. Most of these ads don’t show men helping in the cleaning tasks, but when they do so they only show clumsy men who desperately need the help of a “home heroine”. On the other hand we can find some brands that pretend to introduce a new “diet coke guy” to make us feel attracted to their products.
I wonder if after all the studies that indicate that roles are starting to change, that women are not following anymore the “super mom” paradigm because they are more practical and they want to enjoy their free time, that female consumers are much more critical with the products they choose… do brands really think they are approaching what they think is their one and only target correctly?
