Pink, pink, pink: Girlhood & Marketing

A major difference between marketing toward girls versus marketing toward any other group in society is the use of color.  Back to pink … toys marketed to girls are pink, have pink packaging, and are advertised on television and in print in a sea of pink.  In girlhood marketing, pink is ubiquitous.  No other target audience enjoys such an association with a single color.

I was curious about this use of pink, so I went to Google Image Search and typed “Toys for girls.”  Just a casual scroll through the results shows that almost every image returned is pink -- those that aren’t pink are either purple or another pastel color. Conversely, search “Toys for boys”, and you will see that no one color dominates.  Although the use of color might seem minor, I think it’s a representation of how girls are viewed.  Girl toys are easily identified by the use of pink, and girls are expected to be identified by their appearance more than their actions.  The boy toys represent a plethora of colors -- many of them bold, dynamic.  And boys seemed judged more on their behavior than their appearance, and they defy simple categorization.

I also grew curious about other variations of “pink think” and its relationship to marketing, so back to Google Image Search I went.  (This one isn’t for those easily offended.)  This time, I searched “Sex toys for women.”  Almost all of the products that resulted were -- you guessed it -- pink.  (Most of the remainders were purple.)  I don’t think this is by chance.  I suppose that these sex toys are being marketed to women who have been taught since early childhood to desire “pink toys”, but I also think that the color pink has been sexualized to some degree.

Using pink to such a heightened degree in marketing toward girls results in one-dimensional girls (or -- one-dimensional perceptions of girls, rather).  One color, one way of looking, and one acceptable way of behaving.

Hayley