Designing Meaning through Marketing

Vibrators have clearly changed in meaning since their creation. But this change came more through society and culture, and not so much as a result of a change in form or physical design. These products have always functioned in the same basic way, but what changed were peoples' attitudes towards them, and settings in which they were used. Consequently, minor physical changes have arisen, relating to packaging, coloring, marketing, and the like.

The vibrator began as a medical device, but has grown into a mass market product geared and advertised towards women. Women are still targeted by gender-specific advertising, sometimes for better and sometimes for worse. In fact, many of the vernacular products we don't give a second thought have "genders" attached to them.

Take the obvious examples of beauty products. Loreal shampoo in pink bottles means something very different than a bottle of Axe in black. There’s not usually anything on these products that says, “this is for a woman” or “this is for a man” but all the cultural cues are there. Brand names, shape, and color all speak for themselves. Even more obvious, of course, are things like hair replacement (which usually shows pictures of males or females right on the box), or shoe inserts, which clearly say for which gender they are made. It’s actually interesting that all of these products are so polarized in their marketing, because in reality a woman’s foot insert will probably work just fine for a man, and a woman certainly won’t have some perverse bodily reaction to using Axe.

Televisions have a similar story. When Sony introduced a new television line called “Bravia,” they marketed it as “the first television for men and women.” Sony seemed to really push this concept, releasing multiple ads emphasizing that this was one television that would somehow be "easier" for women to use.

The truth is, of course, that there wasn't anything about previous televisions that women couldn't handle. The Bravia televisions ' change in appeal was mostly cosmetic, but it was the marketing that truly changed peoples' perception of the product. If Sony hadn't given us the tagline or fed us the ads, no one would have looked at the Bravia and declared "these were designed for women!"

Marketing has a powerful effect on our subconscious (which is why we see it everywhere), but it's not the only thing that can direct the meaning of a product. Users themselves have the power to shape a product's meaning through re-appropriation. To take an extreme example, people have used their cell phones and iPods as flashlights in dire situations. I read a news article a while back describing how a man lost in the wilderness was saved because he used his iPod as a beacon to help rescue teams track him down from the air. Another interesting re-appropriation of the iPod comes from the military, which is using the device for translation.

Some of the lighter-hearted appropriations have seen people cooking on their laptops, because they can heat up so much. In fact, there's an entire do-it-yourself culture in which people modify a product so it becomes something completely new, and then post how they did it online for others to follow.