Mansized Kleenex and Other Sexist Advertising Gone Wrong

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Kindra Cooper
10/24/2018

The latest in a spate of brands being lambasted for sexist advertising, Kleenex UK recently announced plans to rebrand its Kleenex Mansize to "Kleenex Extra Large." Retailed exclusively in the UK, the product was introduced over 60 years ago as a “unique, non-disposable” alternative to cotton handkerchiefs, then a prevailing fashion.

But the tissue brand only recently courted backlash on Twitter, with one commenter claiming her four-year-old son had asked if little boys and women could use them, or if they were exclusively for men.

Hi @Kleenex_UK. My 4yo son asked me what was written here. Then he asked, why are they called mansize? Can girls, boys & mummies use them? I said: I don’t know & yes of course. He suggests you should call them “very large tissues”. It is 2018 pic.twitter.com/SeOg32RsDV
— Lisa Hancox (@LisaMHancox) October 10, 2018

The allegedly outsized tissues were advertised as “confidently strong, confidently soft with a touch of silk,” and packaged in the black, smokey grey and mustard yellow tones often associated with man-specific products. By contrast, the Ultra Soft brand, described as “beautifully soft and silky for your face” is clad in a purple box with a grey-and-white damask motif.

Customer complaints on social media have the power to reshape what brands do, especially when the complaint goes viral and courts buy-in from other consumers.

In its defense, the Texas-based parent company Kimberly-Clark said in a statement: “Kimberly Clark in no way suggests that being both soft and strong is an exclusively masculine trait, nor do we believe that the Mansize branding suggests or endorses gender inequality. Our massive tissues remain one of our most popular products, with 3.4 million people buying these tissues every year.”

Kleenex’s decision to rebrand despite steady sales for over 60 years demonstrates the importance of brands being socially conscious in order for them to establish a human connection with customers, even if there was no urgent commercial motivation to do so.

Our UK Kleenex team recently made the decision to rename the Kleenex Mansize tissues in the UK to Kleenex® Extra Large. We applaud the change!
— Kleenex® Brand (@Kleenex) October 19, 2018

“We are always grateful to customers who take time to tell us how our products can be improved, and we carefully consider all suggestions,” the statement went on to say. It bears repeating that for every customer who complains, an average of 26 other customers shares the same sentiment but chooses to stay silent. However, some thought of the Kleenex rebrand as an example of overblown political correctness, while others claimed it sent the wrong message:

I thought mansize was fantastic. In 2015, 75% of all UK suicides were male. I think it was important in acknowledging that men cry too. #standagainstsuicide
— Char (@CharStevo90) October 21, 2018

Gender-specific pens...and Doritos

The consumer goods industry is facing intense pressure from rapidly changing tastes. Examples of other brands put on blast for sexist marketing include stationery maker BiC, which tried to market pink and purple pens “for her,” which were eviscerated in Amazon reviews for being supposedly “designed to fit comfortably in a woman’s hand.”

In a separate incident, PepsiCo chief executive Indra Nooyi announced that the company was preparing to launch snack products “designed and packaged” with women in mind. In an interview on the Freakonomics podcast, she described the never-materialized product as follows: “Low-crunch, the full taste profile, not have so much of the flavor stick on the fingers, and how can you put it in a purse? Because women love to carry a snack in their purse.”

We already have Doritos for women — they’re called Doritos, and they’re loved by millions.
— Doritos (@Doritos) February 6, 2018

Getting women to stop saying worry

Another gender-specific product courting mixed reviews is a Chrome extension named “Just Not Sorry,” equipped with AI that is designed to eliminate self-effacing speech patterns like “sorry” and “actually” and “just” from emails to help women sound more assertive.

First conceptualized at an all-women business networking brunch, the app was launched in 2015 by full-stack web developer Tami Reiss. Available as a Chrome add-on, the app has ignited a polarized conversation about whether it reinforces the ongoing rhetoric that women should quash so-called “feminine traits” to advance the fight for gender parity.

Reiss even launched a campaign targeted at women to sign a petition pledging to make it their 2016 New Year’s Resolution to eliminate hedging words from their speech and writing. Twitter users took up the call-to-action using the hashtags #JustNOTSorry and #10000women. The movement has even caused some to question why basic politeness should be conflated with hedging or discrediting, and why it should be thought of as a uniquely female trait.

Source: Chrome Webstore

Modeling soap bottles after women’s bodies

Normally a pioneer in “empowerment advertising” with its #RealBeauty campaigns, Dove veered way off target last year in a bid to promote body positivity after it released limited-edition body wash bottles modeled after seven different body types.

Bearing the tagline “Beauty comes in all shapes and sizes,” the ad shows the bottles being manufactured from molds, before flashing the somewhat self-contradicting slogan: “Real beauty breaks molds.” While customers mostly reacted with a sense of humor, it’s pretty clear that female consumers felt alienated by the brand’s spectacular lack of tact.