Marketing To Only One Gender

An ad presenting, for instance, a shooter video game franchise as if only men would enjoy it, beyond promoting logical falsities, absolutely sows the seeds that could significantly hinder that game's sales.  By treating gender as something relevant to purchasing or enjoying a given video game, the opposite gender is at least subtly but actively discouraged from exploring the product.  This obviously diminishes the scope of the revenue and thus profits that could be gained.

Yes, there are products or services that by nature would only be relevant to one gender or the other.  Men have no physiological use for menstruation pads, and women have no need for male pattern baldness treatments.  There are products that simply are not relevant to the anatomy and physiology of specifically men or specifically women.  The vast majority of products and services, though, from footballs and violent video games to bags and pedicures, have absolutely nothing to do with gender, though people enslaved to fallacies might assume otherwise due to cultural stereotypes.

Does any of this stop ads in my country from sometimes treating gender stereotypes as if they are true?  No, but diversity in mainstream marketing has relatively blossomed: it is increasingly common as a whole to see certain entire categories of products, like video game consoles or makeup, no longer advertised as if only men or only women would ever have a personal interest in them.  As for the corporate leaders of companies that explicitly stereotype people in marketing, including but not limited to on the basis of gender, perhaps they think it would be financially risky to deviate from company tradition or the expectation of their consumer base.  Done correctly, it would not have to be anywhere near disastrous (though logical facts and morality are more important than profitability anyway).

However, some marketing is either meant to perpetuate belief in stereotypes for the sake of monetary gain or even to express sincere belief in them—while also generating an income from people who likely also believe or tolerate the stereotypes.  Of course, profits from a given example of market segmentation would not mean the underlying ideas behind why the markets were segmented are philosophically correct.  But market segmentation in such a situation certainly prevents a given product or service from generating as much revenue as it truly could garner.  Aside from all of the logically necessary truths as to why promoting or relying on stereotypes in marketing is erroneous, it simply can be terrible for business!

The same things are true of marketing to a particular race or age group: if the product isn't by logical necessity related to the color of someone's skin (such as lighter or darker-toned makeup) or age (such as clothing in an adult size), it has nothing to do with these qualities of the consumer.  And as with gender, encouraging the idiocy of racial or ageist stereotypes or merely trying to make money by appealing to them ultimately limits the revenue scope of an item or a service.  Yes, the worse aspect of this is, of course, endorsing or profiting off of untruths.  At the same time, it is also very unpragmatic as far as expanding to more markets and maximizing profits is concerned.