Traditionally Masculine Brands Eye a New Audience: Young WomenDo us a favor and try this little experiment: In your mind’s eye, picture the typical American who watches football, dreams of owning a Ford Mustang and never leaves home without an insulated, indestructible beverage container. Who do you see? A middle-aged man? Your father or uncle? Yourself? Because we see a teenage girl. This Sunday, young women across the country will tune in to watch the Chiefs take on the 49ers in hopes of catching glimpses of Taylor Swift. Many of these same Swifties will be sipping out of the now ubiquitous Quencher, a bottle made by Stanley, a company whose drinkware was long marketed to blue-collar workers and outdoorsmen. While scrolling through Instagram or TikTok during commercial breaks, some will be targeted with ads promoting the new Ford Mustang GT by way of Sydney Sweeney, Ford’s new spokesperson. For the average Boomer or Gen X man, it may be surprising to find that they now share the same interests as their daughter, niece or — gulp — granddaughter. To a professor of economics, however, this demographic flip-flop was entirely predictable. |