{"id":2898,"date":"2009-11-14T02:18:52","date_gmt":"2009-11-14T00:18:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.ultimatefatburner.com\/?p=2898"},"modified":"2015-02-16T09:02:32","modified_gmt":"2015-02-16T14:02:32","slug":"but-wimminz-like-pink-and-lavender-pills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/but-wimminz-like-pink-and-lavender-pills\/","title":{"rendered":"But Wimminz Like Pink and Lavender Pills!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Apparently GNC wants to be more appealing to women.\u00a0\u00a0Time to pull out the pink! \u00a0From Monday’s NYT<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The ads, by Arnell in New York, part of the Omnicom Group, feature black-and-white photographs of wholesome women, and resemble ads for antiwrinkle creams or cosmetics.<\/p>\n

The products \u2014 including be-Beautiful, which promises to revitalize skin, hair and nails, and be-Hot, which promises to \u201cmaximize the results of your workout\u201d \u2014 are packaged in pastel containers, with pills that also are pink or lavender. Those pills are smaller than the norm for GNC, and have a flavored coating, since company research found a common complaint among women was that vitamins were unpleasant to swallow.<\/p>\n

The goal was to \u201ccreate a brand that looks like it was designed for women, by women,\u201d said Beth J. Kaplan, president and chief merchandising and marketing officer at GNC. Containers have a clear window so women can glimpse pills that are \u201csmaller and colored and really quite pretty,\u201d Ms. Kaplan said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Because wimminz need pretty pink and lavender pills to\u00a0gaze at, and – of course – more space, so they can wander around without\u00a0interfering with\u00a0the purposeful, driven,\u00a0barbell-lifting\u00a0Men!<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A concept store it calls the \u201cprototype for the future,\u201d also designed by Arnell, opened recently at the Ross Park Mall in suburban Pittsburgh. At 3,000 square feet, the store is considerably larger than the typical 1,300-square-foot GNC outlet, and it features brightly colored display cases and photographs on the walls of women doing yoga, men lifting barbells and close-ups of pastel-colored pills.<\/p>\n

The goal of the new design is to draw women, yet not be off-putting to men.<\/p>\n

\u201cMen are mission-oriented in how they shop,\u201d Ms. Kaplan said. \u201cThey come into a store very focused, and they know what they want \u2014 they may ask a few questions, but they\u2019re very goal-oriented.\u201d<\/p>\n

Women, on the other hand, \u201care more about the shopping experience \u2014 they want to look, browse, spend some time and they tend to be less goal oriented,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019ve opened up the space enough so that men can be goal oriented and women can spend some time browsing.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Kill me now…<\/p>\n

I “browse”\u00a0in nutrition stores too\u00a0– but not because I’m searching for pretty\u00a0pastel\u00a0pills to make\u00a0me look “wholesome;”\u00a0or to\u00a0“maximize the results of my workout” (whatever the hell that means).\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I don’t set foot in a store unless I’m planning to buy – so\u00a0I’m not wandering aimlessly, gawping at the brightly colored display cases and photos.\u00a0 Rather, I’m\u00a0analyzing labels and comparing prices.\u00a0 I don’t\u00a0give a damn about the “shopping experience” – and wouldn’t even if GNC staffed their “concept” stores with Chippendales dancers.<\/p>\n

Congratulations GNC!\u00a0 Assuming your female customers are\u00a0rudderless, pastel-pill gobbing, yoga-obsessed\u00a0airheads is a truly brilliant marketing strategy.<\/p>\n

I’ve been steering the folks on my forums away from GNC for years, since their supps are invariably a) mediocre; b) overpriced; or c) both.\u00a0 So it’s not like I needed another reason to avoid the place, although if I did, this would definitely qualify.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Apparently GNC wants to be more appealing to women.\u00a0\u00a0Time to pull out the pink! \u00a0From Monday’s NYT: The ads, by Arnell in New York, part of the Omnicom […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[28],"tags":[194,195,763,1000,1177,1207,1245,1285,1591],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2898"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2898"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2898\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9672,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2898\/revisions\/9672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}