In Sweden, there is something a little different about the Christmas toy catalogue parents are flipping through this year.
Top-Toy Group, which is part of the Toys “R” Us brand, has published a “gender-blind” catalogue with advertisements showing boys and girls playing with toys that typically would be categorized by gender. Little boys iron on a toy ironing board next to little girls and little girls let little boys blow dry their hair with toy blowdryers.
Brands in the past have tried to incorporate the female gender into their marketing. Yet they have still kept them separate. Nintendo for example, now has many ads and commercials showing girls playing on their own handhelds. But those handhelds are usually pink. It’s not wrong, but it is still separating the two genders in terms of which toys belong to which gender. Color coding doesn’t count as gender neutrality.
The marketing director of the Top-Toy company, Thomas Meng, stated this on their website:
“We want our catalogues to reflect the way that boys and girls play in real life, and not present a stereotype image of them. If both girls and boys in Sweden like to play with a toy kitchen, then we want to reflect this pattern.”
Hear, hear. I think this is an amazing effort. Why aren’t we doing this, America? Do you think people here would be against this sort of advertising for their own children, lovelies?
Source: The Wall Street Journal, Business Insider
guest
True–the colors are still gender specific. However, when I first looked at the pictures my thought was “this is how kids actually play”, and then saw that that’s what the marketing director said. If that was the goal, I think they did a good job.
guest
I like I like.
guest
I couldn’t even tell at first. I just saw blonde children. lol. I’m indifferent. I played and wanted toys that were aimed for both sexes. I didn’t care.
guest
Yes, that is the way that children actually play. So, I don’t really see this making any kind of statement or difference, because little kids already don’t care.
guest
I don’t have any kids but I am this l___l close to buying a toy from that shop. Its an awesome idea!
guest
I think its a good idea.When I was growing up I saw Girls Playing With JiJoes and Liltle Boys Playing with Barbie dolls nothing wrong there and these Kids Grew into ok Adults.
guest
I grew up with gender-specific toys and I think I only turned out mildly sociopathic.
But, clearly, if they had these oh-so-wonderful gender neutral toys I would be a regular ole pillar of society right now! Possibly a neurosurgeon. Yes, that seems likely.
It’s kinda just shite.. do people really think kids care?
They just want their bloody toys.
(Granted if someone gave me an IRONING BOARD; I’dda been pretty pissed off lol)
guest
mmm… I think this is a step in the right direction. I still don’t see why miniature cleaning supplies are considered toys though.
guest
That’s pretty good marketing there.
guest
It’s not just the color-coding that bothers me about Nintendo’s “Hey look, girls can play the 3DS too!” ads – it’s the fact that she’s only playing a fashion game. That’s still gender separation because they’re still saying, “Hey, fashion is for girls, but our gaming console has a fashion game, thus, it’s for girls, too!” – completely disregarding the fact that girls might want to play Mario, Scribblenauts, or some other relatively popular game.
hydrangea / 73 posts
They used to have girls in Lego ads in the 50′s/60′s. Now there are girl and boy Lego sets.
I would beg to differ from everyone who said ‘kids don’t care.’ Kids see this stuff and absorb it as information about their world. Also, instead of asking ‘why should the manufacturers and retailers change their marketing strategies to be more gender-neutral’ we should ask ‘why shouldn’t they?’ Where exactly is the downside in trying to appeal to children, as opposed to boys and girls?