Yes, of course, Mad Men was the hit show of the recent TV season. And one of the continual questions the advertising types asked themselves was, “What do women want”?

Some will see this as simply reflective of the desperate sexism of the times (and let’s not beat about the bush, compared to now those were indeed highly sexist times). Thus, of course, no advertising type now would indeed ask the same question now, “What do women want?”, would they? Not even a refugee from the Mad Men’s time would do so, right?

Actually, just about all advertising types do indeed ask that very question all the time today. And no, it’s not down to sexism, just as it wasn’t back then.

The reason is that now, just as back then, women are the decision makers on most purchases by households. Partly of course this is because they do most of the shopping….but even over cars, houses, furniture, things you might assume are joint decisions, women have a vastly larger influence over what actually gets purchased than the men in their lives do.

Here’s what hasn’t changed. The question, “What do women want?” continues to be asked every day. Even now, nearly 50 years past the Sterling Cooper era, men may be doing the grocery shopping, but women make the lists. That’s why so much advertising is directed at them. Make no mistake; advertisers know this. They do copious amounts of research, they listen to their customers and give them the products they desire. The real question is whether advertisers can create meaningful, innovative ways to communicate to women. As Bernbach said, persuasion is an art, not a science. It requires alchemy, insight and Wallenda-like nerve.

I am a working adman — “man” being the operative word there. Yet the majority of the work I do is aimed at women. And understanding the opposite gender is a lifelong lesson, as we all know.

So despite the fact that the people working in hte advertising industry are entirely different from those portrayed in Mad Men the basic question is indeed the same, just what is it that women want. Not from any vestigial sexism, but just because they control the purse strings.

I thought this was also pretty interesting:

And let’s talk about men for a second. Have you ever noticed that most men are depicted in ads as goofy and ham-handed? The reason for this is that white, Anglo-Saxon men are the only safe targets, driven by the fact that so much advertising is based on humour, and humour needs a foil. In other words, it needs a fall guy, or a doofus. Humour needs a pivot point.

This can never be a woman. You cannot make a wife the dumb sidekick, ever, or a storm of biblical proportions will rain down on you. But make the dolt an adult white male, and all is well. Not one letter of protest will be mailed, not one stamp licked in the name of husband-protection. The only caveat here, and I mean the only one, is if the ad only features women, then one can be hapless. But only then.

So that’s why all he men in adverts are idiots then. Finally, we know!