Social Media
The launch of the latest online social network, Google+ a month ago has sparked a tide of interest into what Google are actually trying to achieve in battering heads with 750-million strong social networking titan Facebook. While some say the internet search giant (Google) just wants a piece of the social media pie that Facebook shares with other players such as Twitter, Tumblr and LinkdIn, the answer in my view lies in one word: demographics.
Big Business
While Google (the search engine) has led the world in internet advertising revenues for a number of years now, "techies" predicted that this year would be the one that the Google advertising juggernaut would first get pipped, and guess who by? Of course. Facebook.
While Google still gets more individual hits on its sites than Facebook, what the social networking site has been able to offer advertisers is the ability to specifically reach certain demographics in line with their own target markets.
What is known about you
How do they do this? By gathering people's personal information from their Facebook accounts. You know those little ads that pop up under the 'People You May Know' bar on the right? If you change your details to an 80-year old woman in Russia, you may find yourself facing a flock of ads for collectable Babushka dolls. And so, Facebook can charge through the teeth for advertising. And here is where Google wants in, with Google+.
The value of knowledge
If they can gather people's gender, age, location, hobbies, friend circles, etc. then they can allow advertisers the same opportunity. As it stands, you can't have a Facebook or Google+ account without first having a gender, because they know the polarity of men and women's needs and tastes.
In my view, it isn't news that "our culture" holds boys and girls to be very different, and from what I've seen and read about this subject, it's been alluded to over the last few months in the media. newsOne couple in Canada triggered a massive debate over the ethics and repercussions of their decision to raise their child genderless: the sex of their 6-month old child remaining a secret to the world.
Marketing
The spectrums of male and female subcultures are slowly converging in our society, and this is prompting companies to continually adjust what products they market to boys and what products they market to girls.
In my view, however, although I'm not a parent, but from personal observation, such as toy stores and boutique fills-in pamphlets in newspapers, it seems that, at least during childhood, parents are being sold on the idea that the boys are getting tougher and the pink is getting pinker.
Backed up by Advertising
Big business knows what sells, this is the tell tale sign. This week I stumbled across a blog commenting on the kind of words companies use to advertise recreational products to young girls and boys respectively. Among the top words targeted to girls were "love", "perfect", "share", "glamour" and "cute". Contrast that with what is advertised to boys: "battle," "heroes", "weapons", "opponents" and "power". Nobody mistakes Barbie for Ben 10.
Marketing companies seem to have cottoned on to the stark differences between the identities of boys and girls. So, though we can see the contrast between girls and boys more clearly than ever, one last question remains: who is the creator of such difference?
Comment
I've illustrated how Google and FaceBook focus research in their advertising and how marketing doves tails to this research. In the big business of products for children the marketing hones-in on the differences between boys and girls.
My question therefore is whether Mattel's marketing department has hijacked this difference from the research when they made Barbie and Ben10, or is a more basic answer relating to a Creator when he made Adam and Eve?
Joshua Mathew is studying his Bachelor of Theology and leads in the senior high youth ministry of Hillsong Church.