Painted With the Same Brush: Marketing Soccer to Women

The paint company CIL solicited advice from the public to come up with some new names for its colours. I think this is probably just a grab for free publicity, but their press materials say that they feel that men ‘give the final nod’ in a couple’s paint colour decisions, and would more likely choose a paint colour called “Beer Time” instead of “Butterscotch Tempest”. Some of the other new CIL paint names meant to appeal to men:

Midlife Crisis
Brute Force
Deathstar
Old Sweat Pants
Pimpin’ the Trans-Am

What, no “Let One Rip”, “Four Beer Belch” or “Remote Control”?

As imperfect as this list is, it’s given me an idea, and I need your help. I’d like to get more women out to Monday night soccer, since lately I’m the only one (Chrissy, where are you?) and I’ve decided, like CIL, that perhaps it’s all about how it’s marketed. How can I appeal to women to come play with us?

I looked at the covers of a number of women’s magazines for research on marketing. Most headlines are related to:

Weight loss
Glowing skin
Make-up
The latest boots for fall
Saving time
Meeting men
and uh, pleasuring men.

Apparently, as a woman, this is what I care about. (Really? Both this and the CIL list are depressing. Neither men nor women want to all be painted with the same brush as their entire gender.) However, if, like CIL, I’m going to follow the norm and work directly from this list, I can create my own headlines to advertise Monday night soccer to the fairer sex. (I apologize in advance that all my headlines end with exclamation marks.) What do you think?

Kick Those Pounds to the Curb with our New Soccer Workout! (This is obviously not true because if playing soccer was all you needed to thin out then I’d be down to my birth weight. But nearly every exercise weight loss claim is bogus, so let’s go with it.)

Get Glowing Skin in Time for the Holidays! (Technically true, since ‘glow’ is the old-timey term for female sweat.)

Makeup Secrets from the Pros! (To be fair, these secrets would probably be things like “Jeez - don’t play soccer if you want your make-up to look nice!” and “If you play, you will get chunks of mascara all your cheeks, even if you use ‘turbo proof’ washable brands – what were you thinking?!”)

Falls Latest Boots! (These would be soccer boots, obviously.)

Save Time with Soccer! (Like every single ‘time-saving’ invention introduced in the last few years, anything I could come up with here will not save us much time for long. But before you’ve proven yourself to the guys, I guess you could get a lot of mental planning done while you run up and down the field, not getting passed to.)

A New Way to Meet Interesting Single Men! (You will not meet interesting single men if you come to Monday night soccer with me. You will meet sweaty, sarcastic, married men. I guess there’s a chance one of them might bring a recently divorced, middle-aged friend though. He will also be sweaty and sarcastic. Single ladies: try to contain your enthusiasm.)

The Touch that Gives Him Pleasure! ( Most of the dudes at Monday night soccer would definitely be pleased if you had a great ‘touch’ with the ball and could do a sweet cross from the left wing so they could head it in and take all the glory for the goal. Can you do that? If so, please, please come out and play with us. I don’t care if you’re a man or a woman. We need you.)

Faking It

Why are so many women I know injuring themselves these days? In a heartbeat I can think of 10 women I know who have been on crutches in the last 2 years. My physiotherapist says close to 60 percent of the injured people he treats are middle aged women. What gives? Is this what we women get stuck with now for a mid-life crisis? No Corvettes or Rogaine for us, just crutches. It sucks.

Of course, some of us have bragging rights to go along with our injuries-- it was really a matter of time before I hurt myself I suppose, what with regularly hurtling myself towards metal goalposts in the middle of a group of tall, fit, young men trying to head in a corner kick-- but we women even hurt ourselves seriously by walking in our yard, or down some stairs. It's like our bones are made of balsa wood or our ligaments are as weak as tiny newborn kittens. And when we do get injured, life turns completely upside down, usually for at least a year. We would never, ever, fake something like this.

This is why it is especially troubling when professional soccer players fake serious injuries to get free kicks. My friend Frank sent me this short montage called 'Football Idiots'. Try to get past the horrible music:



Now, after watching this I wanted to write something pithy about soccer injuries but I can't say it any better than this quote I found from British author Nick Hornby, author of High Fidelity, About a Boy, and my favourite, his soccer memoir Fever Pitch. He wrote this piece as an open letter to Americans, in response to the idea that they hate soccer because they can't stand the fake injuries:

"...I understand that Americans have come to refer contemptuously to the more theatrical World Cup injuries as the "flop and bawl"-- the implication being, I think, that these players are feigning their distress. First of all, you must understand that the rest of the world is more susceptible to pain than you. Our smoking, our poor diets, and our heightened sensitivities (to both literature and life) mean that even a slight push in the back can send excruciating agony coursing through our bodies. You, however, because of your all-meat diet and your status as a bullying superpower, feel nothing, either emotionally or physically, at any time. So you can sneer at our floppers and bawlers if you want, but what does that say about you?.....And secondly, these players are terrible, awful cheats."

Hee hee. At least we can laugh while we recover.