Diet drinks were mainly targeted towards women here in the US. They are the ones targeted in those old dieting ads too. A researcher went freelance and used a stock TV commercial of the old Coke product TaB diet cola to test mainly men's responses in his van. He used an infrared beam off of the volunteer's cornea and displayed it realtime on a video monitor of what the subject was looking at and recorded those. This stock commercial had a very shapely woman in a low-cut swimsuit walking down the sidewalk carrying a can of TaB in her hand with the music in the background. No mention of the product was in the commercial.
The male subjects of course went to the 'vitals', especially the cleavage crack. The women were not tested using the pointer technique, but were asked questions afterward. Not very many of both sexes did know what the commercial was about. This changed the way the major companies do advertise their products and services.
There was a lightly sweetened, lightly carbonated soda called Rondo, a drink in competition with Gatorade in the late 70's and 80's. In the commercials, that was targeted to men. It showed a few sweaty men in the sun during a break in a pickup game guzzling the product while the announcer said "Lightly carbonated, so you can slam it down fast!" A bunch of doctors didn't like the idea if anybody slamming down anything down the esophagus that fast. That commercial did not last long, neither did the product.
I'm a regular Dr Pepper fiend, no diet here!
Joelene
