This is exactly how a recent Associated Press article on men selling Avon products began (and, please note: it is not Bobbi with an "i."): Meet Bobby McKinney. Your local Avon man.


"Forget the product, forget it's Avon. This is a very viable business," says the 58-year-old fire code inspector from Winter Haven, Fla. He rang up about $800,000 in sales last year along with his wife and has about 170 sales reps under him.
Apparently the well-established and typically "women's products" brand is making efforts to broaden its appeal. A Derek Jeter skincare line and more male salespeople are two of the methods to their sane-ness.
The story of Avon and Bobby is a great example of comfort zones expanding between the sexes. Men can apparently still be manly and care about their skin and women don't seem to have a problem buying their skin and beauty products from a man. In the same way, women can still be feminine and want to buy motorcycles or lawnmowers, and they don't have to have women selling those products to them.
This all makes sense to you, right? Still, a lot of marketers don't seem to give consumers the credit they deserve.
Society just rolls with the punches and people adapt. What may once have been seriously "taboo," may now just be a line in the sand that is easily crossed. Yet, marketers keep up these often arbitrary "girls buy this" and "boys buy that" separation.
The lesson we can all take from Avon? Never make assumptions about who may be a great salesperson, and don't forget to involve a few more men in your marketing development process. They may both learn a few things and become better at serving women, and, ta da, they will likely bring a balanced perspective to how you are approaching your twenty-first century audiences of women and men.