Francis 1

Shannon Francis

Professor Mateer

LA101H

15 February 2012

Drink Up, Ladies

An effective advertisement can't appeal to just a small group; it has to make its product

appealing to the largest audience possible. It is obviously not something that is easy to accomplish, as

40 year old men are not going to have the same interests as 80 year old women or 12 year old girls. An

advertisement needs to be versatile and use many different techniques to take a single image or video

and give it several different messages that can appeal to a wide range of very different people, not only

based on gender and age but also based on ideology. Dr. Pepper 10's commercial is an example of one

such effective advertisement. While on the surface the commercial uses action-packed manly imagery

to appeal to younger and middle aged men, there are many other tactics at play under the surface that

appeal to other demographics. Through the use of reverse-psychology, they are able to appeal to large

groups of younger and middle-aged women, and by utilizing kairos, Dr. Pepper 10 also appeals its

product to younger members of both genders.

On the surface, the visuals and language used in the commercial make it instantly clear that Dr.

Pepper 10 is appealing to the male demographic. The ad begins like the middle of an action movie. A

dirty, muscular man in military garb is sprinting through a jungle with a futuristic looking gun, dodging

laser gun fire. This immediately draws the male demographic (as well as more masculine females) into

the commercial, as males tend to enjoy more action-packed, violent, and militaristic movies. The

camera then focuses on the man as he dives behind a tree and directly addresses the audience with the

question, “Enjoying the movie?” before punching a snake in the face with lightning. Up until this

point, it appears that the commercial is solely addressing the men of the audience. However, it takes a

Francis 2

twist once the action resumes and he shouts, “of course not! Because this is our movie!” By this point

it is apparent that he is addressing the women in the audience, making the assumption that women are

not interested in the action that the commercial seems to be centered around and that this commercial is

therefore meant to appeal to men only. The commercial continues to state that, just as the action

movies that the commercial is alluding to are for men, the drink Dr. Pepper 10 is for men as well. Not

only is the scenery giving off an air of absolute manliness and testosterone; the very language used in

the commercial is meant to appeal to men as well, the soda going so far as to be described as having

“10 manly calories.” The whole point Dr. Pepper 10 drives home using this commercial, from the

visuals to the vocals and everything in between, is that the drink is for men and men only, and that

ladies can stick to their romantic comedies and “lady drinks.”

It should be blatantly obvious how all of the outrageously overdone action and manliness is

meant to appeal to men. After all, Dr. Pepper 10 is advertised as a manly drink just for men that ladies

obviously would never be able to handle. However, when one looks underneath the surface of the

commercial, one can discover that Dr. Pepper is appealing to a lot more than men through this

commercial. Dr. Pepper 10 is also appealing to an entire audience of women by using a technique that

parents oftentimes employ when trying to make their children behave: reverse-psychology. The tactic

is simple: if you keep telling an individual or a group, be it an uncooperative child or a middle-aged

feminist, that they are not good enough to do something or have something, they will, in turn, actively

seek to do or have that something, whether or not they even wanted it in the first place, just to prove

that yes, they are indeed good enough.

Take, for example, a toddler who doesn't want to eat his vegetables. The exasperated parents,

after begging and pleading themselves hoarse, will finally gain a smug look on their faces as they start

going on about how their child would of course never want to eat vegetables, because they were just

too delicious and wonderful for such a child. Vegetables would of course make one big and strong like

Francis 3

Superman, and so the parents would attempt to take them away, saying that they supposed their child

was not strong or super enough for such a wonderful food. Now any reasonable child wants to be big

and strong like Superman. And the second one's parents starts saying their child isn't good enough to

be like Superman? Oh, it is so on; those vegetables are going down. The kid is not only going to eat

every last vegetable off of their plate, but is going to absolutely beg for the opportunity to do so. Why?

Not because they suddenly developed a taste for broccoli and brussel sprouts. No – they are eating

their vegetables just to prove to their parents that, yes, they are good enough to have them. The same

logic applies in the Dr. Pepper 10 commercial. By being so adamant that Dr. Pepper 10 is a drink for

men and only men, and that ladies aren't good enough to drink it, women everywhere will actively go

and seek out the beverage and consume it in copious amounts just to prove that they can.

“I'm just as good as any goddamn man,” they'll say as they open a can with one hand and flip

the bird with the other. “I will drink whatever the Hell I wanna drink and nobody is gonna stop me!”

And as angry as women's rights groups may be over the advertising campaign, Dr. Pepper 10 is,

in fact, advertising to women as well – just in a much more subtle, and somewhat twisted, fashion.

Even all of the attempted negative publicity by right's groups and activists plays right into Dr. Pepper's

game. The flood of blogs, news reports, and even Facebook posts about the product give Dr. Pepper

more free, viral advertising than they could have ever imagined in their wildest dreams. Whether or not

the attention given to the product is positive or negative is completely irrelevant; the fact of the matter

is that, on top of consuming a product they probably would never have bought in the first place in an

effort to “stick it to the man,” women everywhere are also getting the product's name out into the

general public without Dr. Pepper ever having to pay a dime.

Amidst all of the angry, middle-aged Feminazis and the constantly chestbumping men who the

Dr. Pepper 10 advertisement appeals to,there exists a third demographic that the commercial

incorporates into its audience: the entire population of young people with a good sense of humor who

Francis 4

find the entire campaign absolutely fricking hilarious. The ad takes manliness and anti-feminism to an

outrageous extreme that can't help but elicit a few giggles from those who are able to understand just

how silly the commercial really is. It taps into a sort of forbidden sense of humor, much akin to Helen

Keller jokes or men shouting for women to “get back into the kitchen.” While most people do not want

to admit that they enjoy a commercial with such a sexist message, the overall humor of the overdone

efforts at manliness appeal to a certain sense of humor. This makes the commercial memorable enough

so that the next time the members of this audience go grocery shopping, they're remember the name Dr.

Pepper 10 and how the commercial appealed to them and perhaps buy it, if nothing more than young

ladies (or their boyfriends) buying it as a joke.

Such a bold move in an advertising campaign can only be used in a very small social timeframe.

The woman's rights movement cannot be nonexistant as it was as late as the 1950s, as women would

never have had the drive to actively drink Dr. Pepper 10 as a form of social protest. Furthermore, the

movement cannot be taken completely seriously, as then there would be no humor to be found in the

commercial and the population in general would just condemn the advertisement as well as its product.

The advertisers have to find that sweet spot where some women take the rights movement seriously

enough to throw a fit over the commercial, yet the rest of the population with a sense of humor will still

be able to laugh at and find appeal in the commercial and men will be able to find appeal in the overall

manliness of the ad without going against any strict social morals. That is where the ad employs

kairos; the timing of the release of the commercial coincides with such a sweet spot in our culture, so it

is able to carry many different messages and appeal to a large and diverse audience. d

Works Cited

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iuG1OpnHP8 “Dr. Pepper TEN.” Youtube. 18 April 2011. Web.

Francis 5

14 Feb 2012.