Diet Coke tacitly admits being for ladies with new lady-centric ad campaign

It's probably true that Diet Coke is a drink that people associate with ladies — ladies on diets, or ladies not on diets who figure they "might as well save the calories" for something other than a soda. So maybe it makes sense that Diet Coke has launched a decidedly feminine ad campaign in the U.K. and Europe, called "Love It Light," along with the debut of fashionable soda-can designs. They are quite pretty, in fact: they feature patterned silhouettes of female profiles and have a very 1960s feel.

What gets to me, though, is the way that gender-neutral things like soda are being marketed to specific sexes. I mean, it's obviously a thing ad people have always done: "get inside" the male or female brain and market stuff to them from inside their own brains. But Diet Coke already has women hooked on their product. And not to get all Gender and Sexuality 101, but why perpetuate the stereotypes that women, not men, drink Diet Coke? Shouldn't they want everyone to buy their damn soda?

This might not even be something I or anyone else would bat an eyelash at if it weren't arriving on the heels of the sexist "NOT FOR WOMEN" Dr. Pepper Ten campaign, "with just ten manly calories" (because that's oh so different from drinking straight-up diet). Diet Coke isn't brazen enough to proclaim that their product is "not for men" (although that would be funny), but I don't see why soda companies can't just be more accepting. Gosh.