Marketing III - Playing Dr Pepper

So I noticed something a little wonky with Dr Pepper's recent ads. Below are a couple of the Diet Dr Pepper spots released this month...

Okay, so Diet Dr Pepper is heavily targeting women? But then we have Dr Pepper Ten, which caught flack last year for sexist advertising, but is still pressing forward with these...

Obviously, some products skew towards one gender vs. the other and that's fine, but I don't remember ever seeing a soft drink put it so flagrantly in their advertising ("Dr Pepper Ten: It's Not For Women!") Also - and maybe this is picky - what message are we sending?

"Hey men, we've got a great new drink for you: Dr Pepper Ten! It's only for men, not for everyone - women can keep their reality tv and ladydrinks. But don't worry, ladies, we've got something special for you too. Just with fewer calories. Wait, no, we didn't mean it that way! Hey, come back!"

It was a fairly big story back in 2012 when Diet Coke surpassed Pepsi as the #2 selling soft drink, partially due to some gross mismanagement of the Pepsi brand. Maybe Dr Pepper's plan isn't to better their advertising, but to wait for Pepsi's to get worse?

Oh well, despite growing up in Waco and even living across the street from the Dr Pepper Museum, I'm not a fan - I prefer Diet Coke. Y'know, one of those ladydrinks.