Marketing for girls

Somewhere there is a picture of my youngest child, slumped asleep in his buggy with a nappy at bursting point. We were on holiday, he fell asleep and we selfishly continued to consume food and wine until adult bedtime. I used to feel guilty every time I saw that photo. Now I don’t. It was only wee, he didn’t get nappy rash and his parents and older brother enjoyed a bit of non-toddler quality time.

But it was of course against my instincts as a mother (for instincts read ‘social conditioning’).

All over the country, every day of the year, women return from work or something self-indulgent like the weekly shop, to find their male partners watching telly and the kids covered in chocolate, wearing each other’s clothes and with nappies stretching Pampers technology to its limits. (Do they still look like giant rice puddings?)

The partner will suggest that the kids are in fact, perfectly OK. The mother will express her view that chocolate biscuits are only for after tea and now all their teeth will rot.

And that’s why women are so good at marketing. Have a look at this interview in today’s Observer (brought to my attention by @MichaelNewbury). Sofie Gråbøl describes her portrayal of Sarah Lund in The Killing. To make Lund work Gråbøl had to act like a man - to suspend the feminine impulse to run round ‘making sure everyone has enough salad’, or indeed a perfectly hygienic bathroom and a dry nappy.

I’m not suggesting for one moment that women in marketing should put themselves in second place or (pass the sickbag) use their ‘feminine wiles’. Like Gråbøl, I don’t want to generalise about men or women. But the ability to empathise - to see things from other people’s point of view - comes in pretty handy when you’re trying to sell stuff.