Here Come The Boys!

Retailers and brands in dire need of some Sexual Equality

Thanks to an increasing number of ill-advised comments by Andy Gray and Richard Keys and declarations by MP Dominic Raab that men get a raw deal from ‘obnoxious feminist bigots’, sexual equality has suddenly become such a hot topic across the UK that the economy-ruining snow has melted away.

However, before we start preaching about how middle-aged sports presenters need to brush up with what is and isn’t an acceptable way to behave in 2011, we may want to look closely at our own industry and address the outdated way many brands and retailers still deal with the reality of the modern male shopper.

The conclusions of a recent study by Saatchi & Saatchi X suggest that just as women are fully entitled to get offside decisions as wrong as their male colleagues regularly do, so men are encroaching onto the traditionally female territory of ‘shopping’.

The study further implies that the failure to create retail experiences that appeal to men’s needs limits their engagement and that we need a much better understanding of the whole male purchase journey. Their Director of Strategy Simon Goodall notes,

“Men love doing things they can do well. They like opportunities to demonstrate mastery, which means they like to go into a shopping environment knowing the answers to questions they might want to ask.”

Goodall also believes that retailers ought to do more to help men find the information that they need to make decisions before they reach the check out.

This view supports the findings of OgilvyAction’s 2008 global study examining the decisions that shoppers made in store. Managed and analysed across EMEA by yours truly, this research suggested that across a range of categories, UK males were generally less likely than females to know which brand they are going to buy before entering the store.

Anything that helps with that decision making process should be considered.

Craig Inglis, Marketing Director at John Lewis states that men dwell less than women when shopping and are more rational and pragmatic in their shopping habits. Thus, male-oriented areas of the store should be clean and modernist with obvious signposting to help men navigate their way around the store.

However, brands and retailers can begin to engage men long before they reach the store. Goodall cites Best Buy’s ‘Twelpforce’,  which offers advice on Twitter as an effective example of a retailer engaging with men and empowering them with the information they crave.

Twelpforce: A good example of engaging men

What’s more, cracking the male shopper is something that will only grow in importance.

A recent study of 2,400 men in the US by online giant Yahoo! revealed that 51% of respondents believed that they took a primary role in buying groceries.

Yahoo’s Director of Research and Insights, Lauren Weinberg, commented that while panellists may have inflated their involvement in purchase decisions, male customers’ perceptions of, and interest in, shopping are changing fast.

Regardless of whether some respondents exaggerated their role or not, the results indicate that gender boundaries are disappearing and modern households no longer see grocery shopping as a ‘womans job’.

Within the set that is ‘Male Shoppers’, we also need to understand the different mindsets men have across different categories, retail environments and lifestages. For example,  the Yahoo! study found that fatherhood was influential with 60% of dads claiming to be the decision maker across a range of categories including pet care, clothing and packaged goods.

All of this means that brands need to think not only about who they target, but also how they represent men in their adverts.

John Badalament, a writer and founder of website ModernDads.net believes that “Men need to be something other than invisible or buffoons in advertising”.

Domino’s Pizza: Not such a good way to get men onside

Not only do such depictions alienate men, but a 2010 multinational study by EuroRSCG found that there was a “pining for chivalry” from women in the developed world and that “young people want to see demonstrations of male strength and responsibility.”

Chivas attempt to celebrate chivalry

Dove celebrate ‘being a man’

Even a seemingly harmless campaign like P&G’s “Behind Every Olympic Athlete is an Olympic Mom“ Winter Olympics ads resulted in grumbling from underappreciated dads, who still make up the vast majority of volunteer coaches for youth sports.

There is clearly still plenty to learn about engaging male shoppers effectively, though with the Yahoo! research finding that men are more brand-loyal and less focused on promotions than female shoppers the rewards for those who are successful are huge.

Either way, just as it has become clear that old dressing room banter is no longer appropriate in a TV studio, so it is equally apparent that failing to engage such an influential and  lucrative proportion of shoppers is just as unacceptable.

Taking Care of Masculinity

From the November Zeitgeist…

If the absurd film 300 is anything to go by, men have been shaving their chests and enjoyed taking part in vaguely homoerotic activities for some time. They also seem to have spoken loudly, decisively and dramatically about all manner of things, no matter their import. How different is the man of today? Does he still shave his chest and communicate with declarative statements to no one in particular? Does he need to be reassured by campaign’s such as Ogilvy’s recent entry for Dove that debuted at the SuperBowl?

In the US, Unilever is currently trying to convince men to use a body lotion. After a quick 15-minute workout in which former NFL player Michael Strahan demonstrates working out in a hotel room before smothering Vaseline body lotion over himself; “It takes just 15 seconds for stronger, more resilient skin.” The point is not to convey effeminate qualities in what until now, has clearly been a female-driven domain, but rather to show that a cream can be related to high performance for demanding men. Vaseline research showed that 17% of men “used body lotion at least once a week”, which is more than might have been guessed.

So, while one marketing tone of voice tells us to take care of ourselves in increasingly unexpected ways, another, Maxim, pushes us toward a different direction; “Using too many products makes you a girl”, the magazine dictates. It remains to be seen how playing on tenets of performance and durability will affect sales of products of these kinds in the long-term. The New York Times article on the subject also mentions that Niveaʼs idea of putting their body lotion in the menʼs aisle was not a successful one.

There seems to be no apparent cachet for such a placement. Is this because women do the shop for men and donʼt venture to the menʼs aisle, or is it because men feel comfortable borrowing the products of their partner confident that it works just as well on his skin as hers? Or maybe men donʼt think or want to think about such beauty products in the retail environment. In Paris and Rome, it would be hard for a man to escape a kiss from a male colleague when greeted. For most men in the UK, however, the act ranks somewhere alongside the activities of Caligula.

Reuters however recently reported on an increasingly prevalent inclination in UK men in their teens and early 20s to end texts to each other with a kiss. 75% “regularly [end] texts with a kiss and 48% admitting the practice had become commonplace amongst their group of friends”. Is the prudish, self-aware man becoming more emotive? Ironically it is only in a non-verbal way, for the moment. If a man can be more open with his feelings, he might be more willing to confess his use of cosmetic products, removing any notion of taboo about the subject. If people feel more comfortable discussing such things in the virtual world, social networks would appear to be a convenient place for network effects to take hold…