But Wimminz Like Pink and Lavender Pills!
Apparently GNC wants to be more appealing to women. Time to pull out the pink! From Monday’s NYT:
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.
The products — including be-Beautiful, which promises to revitalize skin, hair and nails, and be-Hot, which promises to “maximize the results of your workout” — 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.
The goal was to “create a brand that looks like it was designed for women, by women,” 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 “smaller and colored and really quite pretty,” Ms. Kaplan said.
Because wimminz need pretty pink and lavender pills to gaze at, and – of course – more space, so they can wander around without interfering with the purposeful, driven, barbell-lifting Men!
A concept store it calls the “prototype for the future,” 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.
The goal of the new design is to draw women, yet not be off-putting to men.
“Men are mission-oriented in how they shop,” Ms. Kaplan said. “They come into a store very focused, and they know what they want — they may ask a few questions, but they’re very goal-oriented.”
Women, on the other hand, “are more about the shopping experience — they want to look, browse, spend some time and they tend to be less goal oriented,” she said. “We’ve opened up the space enough so that men can be goal oriented and women can spend some time browsing.”
Kill me now…
I “browse” in nutrition stores too – but not because I’m searching for pretty pastel pills to make me look “wholesome;” or to “maximize the results of my workout” (whatever the hell that means). I don’t set foot in a store unless I’m planning to buy – so I’m not wandering aimlessly, gawping at the brightly colored display cases and photos. Rather, I’m analyzing labels and comparing prices. I don’t give a damn about the “shopping experience” – and wouldn’t even if GNC staffed their “concept” stores with Chippendales dancers.
Congratulations GNC! Assuming your female customers are rudderless, pastel-pill gobbing, yoga-obsessed airheads is a truly brilliant marketing strategy.
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. So it’s not like I needed another reason to avoid the place, although if I did, this would definitely qualify.
