My newsletter doesn’t live online anymore. If you want my content, you have to subscribe. But I will publish the occasional piece from the archive–this is one I sent out August 2025.
Men who are trying to sell products to women–especially problem/solution products, especially those that touch on emotional third rails like weight loss and aging–can hit a wall developing “middle of funnel” advertising.
I posted on X about this and it took off, so I thought I’d expand here and include an example.
I am going to be speaking in general terms. If you have a tendency to get offended easily or assume the worst in people, you should probably stop reading.
What Is “Middle Of Funnel” (MOF) Advertising?
MOF ads speak to audiences who are problem aware, but not necessarily root cause- or solution-aware. They have a burning issue that they want GONE. But they don’t know why it’s happening and they haven’t become intellectually or emotionally invested in specific solutions.
This is the bread and butter of direct response advertising. “My back hurts”. “I can’t sleep at night”. “I can’t lose weight no matter how hard I try”.
These are really BIG audience pools compared to something like “folks who have narrowed down their sleep issue to Sleep Apnea diagnosed by a doctor and are comparing CPAP machines”. Because the audiences are BIG, they are fertile territory for banger ads if you’re able to convert ’em.
But that is harder than it looks, especially if you’re trying to convert women over 40–a notoriously skeptical audience. The reason? MOF is not a secret. Marketers have been proposing solutions for these problems–novel and cliche–for decades.
The longer you’ve been alive, the greater the odds that you’ve tried one or more of these solutions and failed. You’re not going to blame yourself. No. You’re going to blame the marketers! And the whole dang category! Marketing is a scam, amirite?
(this is where the “unique mechanism” comes into play–beyond the scope of this post)
It’s Not Just “Problem, Agitation, Solution”
Another marketing cliche: problem, agitation, solution. Your ads should call out the problem, so folks who suffer from that problem take notice. Then, you should really “rub it in” how painful and frustrating the problem is. That will get people reaching for their credit cards. At which point you present your product as the solution.
This framework is too generalized to work “just like that”. It might work on the bottom of the MOF, or the top of the BOF, but it’s not great for converting truly cold, solution-agnostic (for now) audiences.
The reason? Men and women proceed through this narrative journey differently. There is truth in the meme “men will literally do (insert activity here) before going to therapy”, and its rebuttals. Men and women (again, speaking in averages here) approach problems differently.
Male Mindset: motivate into action (via self deprecating humor or aggressive agitation), then offer the solution, but frame it as an insider secret that only the “winners” are using.
Think: someone in your life who you respect giving you the harsh truth, holding nothing back, because they actually do care about you. Then telling you (remember, you respect this person) “I’ve been in your shoes, this is what worked for me”.
Female Mindset: validate struggles and potentially absolve guilt, then offer a solution supported by social proof from the right (usually aspirational but relatable) peer group
Think: an influencer who tells you that your struggles are normal, your negative emotions are justified, and it’s not entirely your fault. Some external factor is making progress harder than it should be. Then telling you “here’s what worked for me and the dozens of other women (just like you) that I’ve coached”.
If you are a man marketing to women, especially if you’re touching emotional third rails, your first instinct might be to realllly agitate the problem. But if you make women feel too bad about the problem, they’re going to tune out. They already feel bad!
What makes this especially challenging: the competitor references and organic content that naturally excite you (what you consider “good marketing”) is going to be colored by this perspective, even if you’re reviewing ads from a best in class competitor.
To put it differently: you (as a man) are going to be drawn towards marketing examples that feature expert secrets, aggressive problem agitation and humor–even if those examples come from female-focused brands. So you risk building your marketing strategy on a weak foundation if you’re trying to reach women.
How do you solve this problem?
- Acknowledge that your initial instincts might be skewed. Write drunk (brain dump), edit sober (ask “is this too male-coded?”)
- Talk to your customers, or to real women suffering from the problem
- Hire women in your target demo
- Use AI to gut-check your angles and copy, or write copy from a female POV
- Listen to more woo-woo stuff about feminine and masculine energy dynamics, if you can stomach it.
Real World Example: Weight Loss
I promised a real world example. Let’s compare the positioning and angles of two weight loss supplements: the Dad Bod Destroyer Stack from Alpha Lion and Hormone Harmony from Happy Mammoth.
Dad Bod Destroyer Stack
The product name blends self deprecating humor (“dad bod”) with a direct approach to the problem (you’re going to destroy it). The product breaks the issue (extra body fat) into three drivers: calories in, calories out and sleep/recovery. Each item in the stack addresses one of those drivers.
Check out this ad and this ad. The first ad takes on the problem directly, with humor. The company founder is literally wearing a fat suit. How do you think a woman would receive that approach? It also speaks to accountability–these pills won’t do your squats for you, but they’ll help you get results faster.
The second ad is really agitating the problem hard. Your dad bod puts you at higher risk for divorce, your woman is going to reject you, you’re going to get a heart attack, etc.
Hormone Harmony
At first glance, this product isn’t even about weight loss, it’s about menopause relief. But many women do see their body fat increase during menopause for a number of reasons, many of them hormone-related. So addressing the hormones could, hypothetically, make weight loss easier (less of a battle).
Check out this ad and this ad. The first ad is a “testimonial” (aka a testimonial script read by a creator) that highlights signs that hormones are sabotaging your weight loss and then shares the narrator’s own results. The “problem agitation” is pretty clinical. It doesn’t slide into how the weight loss is impacting one’s greater life satisfaction.
The second ad is another “testimonial” that focuses on validation. The doctor isn’t taking this woman’s issues seriously, but the supplement company has the solution! The problem/symptoms are mentioned, but no one is “twisting the knife” (this has become an X copywriting cliche).
Do I know for a fact that the linked examples were “banger ads”? No. But if you review the libraries of both brands you’ll see similar themes.
I hope that was helpful. Also–women have the same issues when they’re trying to market to men. But most of my readers are men, and most consumer spending in the US is driven by women.