An interesting debate about the new “Game Fuel” ad

I meant to write about this earlier, but someone opened up an interesting debate over at the girl_gamers community over at LiveJournal. She asked a few questions about the ad currently running for Pepsi's Halo 3 marketing tie-in soda, Mountain Dew Game Fuel. I have tried the soda. It tastes like liquid gummy bears. I will also
be getting to Halo 3 at some point. Obviously, I'm within the customer
base for both products.

Personally, I think the ad would have been great if there were a female at the end, but I think it works just fine with a male there. Hey, at least it's sort of ethnically and racially diverse. Admittedly, many people would have found the ad gimmicky if the end showed a female beating all those other male players. I don't think that's deserved, but it would have been how many people would have perceived it.

I do think that the agency really made a mistake in not including any portrayals of any female gamers, however. I'm aware that the console market is overwhelmingly male, but we're far from nonexistent, and it would have been a nice nod. Instead, we're treated to stereotypes like a guy playing while his apparent girlfriend reads on the bed in the background and a guy playing while what looks like his mom is in the background putting something on the kitchen table.

In other words, we're in the background, uninterested, and definitely not active players, as portrayed in this ad. It's sad that putting a female in that role in the end would have been seen as gimmicky and as a potential joke, but I doubt the bottom line would have been hurt had a female been included amongst the frustrated gamers in the ad. In other words, if we'd been shown as involved and not as merely background set pieces.