My son woke me up early this morning, and then fell asleep on me. I couldn’t sleep and didn’t want to move, so I opened up Twitter on my phone. At the top of the feed were some posts from Simone Giertz, commenting about Makita.
Simone Giertz is a maker, known for her wacky robots. If you want to know more, go watch one of her YouTube videos.
I rarely feel excluded from making/building as a woman. But this video from @MakitaTools really did it.https://t.co/GOtiwoTmk3
— Simone Giertz (@SimoneGiertz) March 28, 2018
In case you don’t see the embedded tweets, here’s what they say:
I rarely feel excluded from making/building as a woman. But this video from @MakitaTools really did it.
I love Makita’s tools. I have invested a lot of money into buying them. I’ve been seen using them in front of hundreds of thousands of people. But it’s so painfully clear, through marketing like this, that I’m not a part of their target group.
— Simone Giertz (@SimoneGiertz) March 28, 2018
I love Makita’s tools. I have invested a lot of money into buying them. I’ve been seen using them in front of hundreds of thousands of people. But it’s so painfully clear, through marketing like this, that I’m not a part of their target group.
Hey @MakitaTools, how about retiring the Miss Makita program for 2019 and using that same budget for sponsoring actual female builders?
I can send you a list of names if you need it. Thanks.
— Simone Giertz (@SimoneGiertz) March 28, 2018
Hey @MakitaTools, how about retiring the Miss Makita program for 2019 and using that same budget for sponsoring actual female builders?
I can send you a list of names if you need it. Thanks.
The offending video is a Makita USA “Behind the Scenes” photo shoot of Miss Makita and Senorita Makita, the two models that will be promoting the brand and their products in 2018 sales flyers and advertisements.
Whether you like Simone or not (I do!), her feelings and message are important.
I rarely feel excluded from making/building as a woman. But this video from @MakitaTools really did it.
It sucks to feel excluded. I’m a very hands-on dad of a toddler and preschooler, and it gets really annoying how brands cater towards moms and often ignore the dads.
From some of the comments I’ve seen so far on Twitter, Simone isn’t the only person unhappy with Makita over their Miss Makita marketing strategy.
In Makita’s defense, they might not have realized that they were making some of their customers feel unhappy or excluded. Well, they do now.
It has been 7-8 years since we posted about pinup-style tool calendars. Sometime after that, Ridgid changed the style of their calendars to only feature tools. This type of marketing has been waning.
I was chatting with one of the administrators at my daughter’s nursery school today. She mentioned something about liking woodworking when she was younger, despite it not being typical for girls. Times have changed since then, but not a whole lot.
What will things be like as my daughter grows up? I want her to see woodworking, robotics, DIY, and other tool-related activities as equally welcome and inviting as my son might. Awareness and action will get us there.
Would you miss the Miss Makita and Senorita Makita marketing materials if 2018 was Makita USA’s last year doing this kind of thing?