marketing at work

… despite having a girl’s name. It’s like a boy named Sue, isn’t it? You have been taunted and toughened and become the manliest of them all now that you are all grown up.

Mars Chocolate North America announced today the release of the second annual COMBOS ‘America’s Manliest Cities’ study – crowning Charlotte with this year’s top spot of manliness.

Mars, yes, the candy company, commissioned Bert Sperling, the people who brought us “Best Places to Live” studies (in case you have actually heard of these studies), to conduct the “America’s Manliest Cities” study for the second time. This is a marketing move, as far as I can tell, to promote Combos.  You can check them out at Combos.com: Home of the Comboviore. And yup, they are really going after a certain demographics, hard.

Charlotte, N.C. now has chief bragging rights on manliness thanks to its top 10 rankings in the sports, manly lifestyle, manly retail stores, manly occupations and salty snack sales categories.

Naturally ”salty snack sales” is one of the metrics. I wonder whether instances of men dying of heart attack and high blood pressure is also taken into account for the study. Have no fear because we know men dying will be well taken care of in these cities since the quintessential Manly Occupations (fire fighters, police officers, construction workers and EMT personnel) were added to the mix this year.

I don’t know what Manly Lifestyle means, in all seriousness. Can someone explain to me? Because here is my thought process when I saw “Manly Lifestyle”:

Watching sports, drinking beers, hanging around bars, shouting, yelling, hooting.

Smoking. Driving. Smoking while driving. Smoking while driving while using the earth as his personal ashtray.

Having big loud supped-up cars that can supposedly go very fast. But ooops. You live in a crowded metro city so your speed is constantly lower than 50 MPH. Better move to Montana (which is not on the list).

Wouldn’t you think that men who work on farms and ranches with their bare hands, and bare chest *swoon* should arguably be the manliest?

Hmmm. Brokeback Mountain. Oh. Never mind.

Well, the study did not say you have to be straight to be manly. I am down with that.

Hmmm. Brokeback Mountain. So it is kind of stupid that Wyoming is not on the list.

Wyoming should definitely be on the list.

Maybe that’s why they did not dare do “The Manliest STATES” because that would totally not be targeting people who may buy Combos and be caught dead with a bag of Combos in their hands walking around when their neighbors are wrestling with steers and cattle and other miscellaneous large animals that men in these mountainous ranges wrestle with their bare hands.

Maybe that’s why the study was confined to Metro Cities. So metrosexuals are not good marketing target for Combos?

Mars feel that they need to step up to market to “manly men” because, eh, Combos look kind of suspicious? Cylinder shape with gooey filling inside?

Do straight men naturally suspect eating anything that’s cylinder shaped? But they sure like hot dogs.

Ok. Focus: Men in metro cities. Think. Harder.

Construction workers. Jack hammers. Wolf whistles.

Wife beaters.

Marlon Brando. A Streetcar Named Desire.

“Stella!” For once I just want to do this in the middle of a crowd.

Wife beaters.

West Side Story. Jazz hands. Definitely manly. Yup.

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And my mind went on and on. See? It is all very confusing.

So here are the rankings of the 50 cities included in the study:

1. Charlotte, NC (▲ 1 spot)
2. Columbus, OH (▲ 5 spots)
3. Kansas City, MO (▲ 5 spots)
4. Nashville, TN (▼ 3 spots)
5. Baltimore, MD (▲ 32 spots)
6. Milwaukee, WI (▲ 11 spots)
7. Chicago, IL (▲ 39 spots)
8. Indianapolis, IN (▲ 1 spot)
9. Washington, D.C. (▲ 36 spots)
10. Philadelphia, PA (▲ 20 spots)
11. Denver, CO (▼ 6 spots)
12. St. Louis, MO (▼ 6 spots)
13. Columbia, SC (No Change)
14. Harrisburg, PA (▲ 12 spots)
15. Cleveland, OH (▲ 4 spots)
16. Orlando, FL (▼ 2 spots)
17. Salt Lake City, UT (▼ 1 spot)
18. Birmingham, AL (▲ 5 spots)
19. Detroit, MI (▲ 1 spot)
20. Cincinnati, OH (▼ 16 spots)
21. Richmond, VA (▼ 9 spots)
22. New Orleans, LA (▲ 5 spots)
23. Phoenix, AZ (▼ 1 spot)
24. Houston, TX (▲ 15 spots)
25. Oklahoma City, OK (▼ 22 spots)
26. Toledo, OH (▼ 16 spots)
27. Minneapolis, MN (▼9 spots)
28. Memphis, TN (▼ 17 spots)
29. Louisville, KY (▲ 2 spots)
30. Seattle, WA (▲ 10 spots)
31. Boston, MA (▲ 7 spots)
32. Atlanta, GA (No Change)
33. Providence, RI (No Change)
34. Dayton, OH (▼ 19 spots)
35. New York, NY (▲ 15 spots)
36. Jacksonville, FL (▼ 15 spots)
37. Pittsburgh, PA (▼ 8 spots)
38. Grand Rapids, MI (▼ 14 spots)
39. Dallas, TX (▼ 5 spots)
40. Rochester, NY (▼ 4 spots)
41. Las Vegas, NV (▼ 13 spots)
42. San Diego, CA (▲ 1 spot)
43. San Francisco, CA (▲ 5 spots)
44. Tampa, FL (▼ 19 spots)
45. Sacramento, CA (▼ 4 spots)
46. Buffalo, NY (▼ 11 spots)
47. Oakland, CA (▼ 3 spots)
48. Los Angeles, CA  (▲ 1 spot)
49. Miami, FL (▼ 7 spots)
50. Portland, OR (▼ 3 spots)

I know there is a reason why I instinctively like Portland… Miami got beaten by San Francisco? I blame it on David Caruso.

Charlotte won the crown but Chicago is the biggest winner this year (and of course I am biased): Chicago had the biggest move in the rankings, going from 46th to 7th, reportedly due to the addition of the “Manly Occupations” category.

We clearly have the best Men in Blue (and Red and Yellow and White and Brown and Black and so on…)

The following is said without any trace of sarcasm. Seriously.

The Chicago Blues definitely deserve The Manliest Award this year because many of them are confident enough in their own skin and self-identity to host (and give permission for their fellow officers to host and attend – this is a giant step away from the stereotypically homophobic environment associated with police departments in general, and specifically the Chicago PD in the past) the 14th annual International LGBT Conference for Law Enforcement & Criminal Justice Professionals for the first time in Chicago, ending with the Chicago Pride Parade this past Sunday.

I salute you, officers! Rock those self-confident booties of yours!

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Tagged as: chicago, there is a reason why I am not a philosopher

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