Target Marketing

How do companies decide on their target markets? This is an honest question that I have found myself contemplating many times. Customers are the most important part of any company (as the Marketing book by Pride and Ferrell keeps telling me). The more commercials I watch, the more perplexing the question gets. Apparently beer drinkers are funny people who like football and horses.
   
<- Budweiser horse
 

Oh, and only men drink beer. I have yet to see a commercial promoting women to drink beer. How odd... 

To this day, I still don't know what Go Daddy is, but apparently it is a company that is supposed to have a male dominated fan-base... 
  
This woman is excruciatingly beautiful, it's true. But I don't look at her and feel obligated to go to the website to see what she's selling. (As a matter of fact, I find the idea of looking at her website almost scary.)


Even businesses that should be promoting women to shop in their stores are becoming increasingly male dominated for the audience. Why would I want to go to Victoria's Secret after seeing this ad? To feel extra bad about how much I don't look like this woman? ... I'll pass :) 

Are women getting lost in being targeted for marketing? Women's undergarments should not be designated to a male audience. 

-As I said in my first blog post, I am just one woman thinking out loud about marketing. But my question persists - how do companies choose their target markets? And are these targets being chosen correctly? I believe the question is worth contemplation!