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As we celebrate our first anniversary and approach our 150th post, please join us in celebrating our 30,000th hit.

Over the past year, we’ve written on a variety of subjects. Some articles have commented on whole industries or cultural movements, some on incidents of spectacular successes or dismal failures.

We’ve written on the changing face of masculinity, and how men shop in the second decade of the 21st century. We examined why England lost it’s World Cup bid, and what the World Cup meant for the world as a whole, and the businesses that aim to profit from it.

We talked about the future of content; what it means to own something that only exists as a file on a computer, but you still have to pay for, as bookshops and videostores fade to dust and intellectual property rights evolve along an uncertain path.

How social media is used for good, for ill, for Gatorade and for Conan O’Brien.

We’ve ruminated on leadership, on how luxury justifies itself post-recession, and how antique brands like Louis Vuitton attempt to keep themselves fresh, as well as ultra-premium.

We’ve talked about how movie studios win by marketing their product, and how auction houses lost out to the pitfalls of behavioural economics.

We’ve debriefed you on our visit to the UK’s Google HQ, while waxing lyrical on Nintendo as it moves from taking on Sega to taking on Apple.  We’ve asked what it means for the future of TV when everyone has Sky+ and a broadband connection. And we’ve looked at several examples of superb brand activation.

Lastly, we’ve tried in vain to present the glory of Roger Federer.

Stick around and have a browse, we’re not going anywhere.

Faciamo qualcosa “Viral” adesso

Zeitgeist is not extremely comfortable with the idea of two football-related posts in a row, however circumstances dictate it must be so. The sport is was riddled with corruption in bella Italia (and elsewhere), but that doesn’t stop the sport from entertaining millions upon millions. Heineken recently hosted a superb activation event, news of which comes courtesy of the great Digital Buzz Blog via a Zeitgeist apparatchik. It’s a cunning and humorous ploy that plays on the odd stereotype or two but is harmless nonetheless, and very enjoyable. Such a tactic would not have been suitable for other brands; Heineken pulls it off nicely.

UPDATE: Another Ogilvy blog has also written about this.

An Axe to Grind

Zeitgeist has not yet dedicated the time to comment on the increasing number of campaigns involving elements of crowdsourcing, which has become popular enough that last year an agency launched dubbing itself the world’s first crowdsourced ad agency.

The latest campaign to leap onto the bandwagon is for Axe / Lynx, based on the insight that apparently the fairer sex, inscrutable as they are, “get bored easily”. Does this presumption say more about men though than women? One might also question whether corralling a mere 25 students together really constitutes ‘crowdsourcing’.

UPDATE: Great article about crowdsourcing from the Ogilvy New York Digital Labs blog, here.

Men at Work

From the November Zeitgeist…

In this workaday world, Zeitgeist thought it would be helpful to examine just what is going on in the workplace, and how our behaviour and attitudes toward work can be leveraged for a successful marketing proposition.

Earlier this year, Dr. Burchell of the University of Cambridge discussed the gender gap, which in some respects is still prominent at work. Men have suffered particularly in this recession, as the past year has seen the  consolidation and closure of many manufacturing plants, leading to the loss of skilled labourers, most of whom are men. An initial poll at the beginning of the year showed that women were more worried about the possibility of losing their jobs than men. This, combined with the sharper decline in women’s jobs than men’s, led some to posit that women would be the principle victims of the recession. What Dr. Burchell’s new report revealed, however, was that men were simply “putting on a braver face”, and that job insecurity causes “more symptoms of anxiety and depression in men” than women. If men were to move from being unemployed to having an “insecure” job, their  psychological health would not improve, whereas for a woman it would. This is surely part of the reason why more women than men find work enjoyable.

In a somewhat generic and ribald statement, Dr Burchell says men “have few positive ways of defining themselves outside of the workplace between when they leave school and when they retire.” Quite what this actually means is beyond Zeitgeist’s understanding, but if true, it complements the breadwinner mentality that men feel they not only need to be providing the majority of a household income, they also need to be seen to be doing this and performing well. Knowledge of the arts, prowess at sport and the disposition of offspring clearly not mattering too much in Dr. Burchell’s opinion.

In March of this year, the Bureau of Labor [sic] Statistics in the US reported that 1,162,000 women and 1,238,000 men had shifted from “looking” to “stopped looking” for employment in the preceding month. Such relative parity in numbers are very rare, and emphasise the toll on men’s confidence the crisis is taking.

The difficulty for marketers will be in what to do with this knowledge? Play on it, satirise it, ignore it? Escapism is the order of the day for Hollywood, as the studios shift their focus firmly on to the type of childlike fantasy fare of Transformers 2, whose global reaping of $830m at the box office clearly showed it was not just kids who were going to watch it. Disney clearly felt they were lacking in testosterone until their purchase of Marvel comics in August. Perhaps other attitudes, such as confronting men and empathising with their increasingly stressful lives, might be as successful? In purchasing your product, a man could reinforce his slighted standing, reinvigorate his self‐perception and re‐Alphabetise his Alpha male status.

“If you can dream, and not make dreams your master…”

From the November Zeitgeist…

When we think of the depiction of a typical man, our mind tends to drift toward a suit, a dinner jacket, or something similarly familiar, stable and unchanging. In truth, menʼs fashion – moreover our interpretation of masculinity – is very fluid and varies wildly according to time and culture.

At the V&A museum in London currently, an exhibition on the Maharaja is a good example of just how open to interpretation are the symbols of masculinity and power. In this case, “teardrops of diamonds dangling from succulent pearls” represent the pinnacle of masculinity. The bygone days of a world that celebrated “the effervescent elegance of a male world” serve to illustrate that the definition of what makes a man manly is inherently arbitrary, and therefore malleable. In this case, power and divinity were symbolised by an extraordinary amount of jewellery that even MC Zeitgeist would have been jealous of. The New York Times review says that with the independence of India so ended an era “when the male peacock finally folded its wings”.

Did it though? Pages of editorial are still detailing the rise of the metrosexual, seemingly one of the slowest ʻrisesʼ of anything ever. While one might be inclined to think that a womanʼs ideal man as sporting some kind of ill-fitting firemanʼs ensemble, with over-developed muscles straining underneath, in truth women in the UK apparently find willingness to do housework a most attractive asset. Perhaps increasingly then, it is responsibility that takes precedence over a more base hunter-gatherer, physical appeal.

In Japan, news of Toyotaʼs withdrawal from Formula 1 and itʼs first earnings loss in fifty years caused Tadashi Yamashina to break down in tears at a public press conference, specifically apologising for the F1 teamʼs failure to win a single race in nine years. Business failure in Japan equates to personal shame for the heads of organisations, and such a display of emotion is presumably intended to illustrate a full mea culpa and to show they are affected by the decisions they make for their employees, rather than appearing stone-faced and passive. This latter description is something of a stereotype for men – oblivious to the more sensitive side of their personality – and in this case shows the public that they truly care about the institution they preside over. As The Mirror comments “if the bullet train is delayed, you will see the CEO on TV bowing as low as he can. It’s about honour and showing sincerity”. Thus, while crying may not be seen by some as sign of manliness, in this context it is a conduit for showing you are a man of principles and respect, both tenets traditionally associated with masculinity.

Perhaps in another hundred years, when the current V&A is underwater, a future exhibition will remind us that brute force and intimidation, even from beyond the grave, once represented manhood. In Russia, the tombstones of erstwhile Mafiosi stand proud and very tall; several are life size depictions of the eternal residents, gazing menacingly outwards. These grotesque images are reminders that not all markets approach the concept of masculinity in the same way.

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…

Of Mad Men and Spider-Men

From the November Zeitgeist…

What do fictional characters and celebrity ambassadors say about the state of masculinity today? The last twenty years have arguably seen a dramatic shift in terms of representation in these fields, from a black president to a different type of action hero.

Indeed, we have gone from a period of filmic portrayals with Arnie and Stallone to a complete absence of testosterone-fuelled role models; Christian Bale toplines the Batman and Terminator franchises, Robert Downey Jr. is Iron Man and Tobey Maguire is Spider-Man*.

Does metrosexuality, a word that Microsoft Word refuses to accept as real, now rule? The term suggests a love of the arts, of music and the theatre; it also seems to suggest a narcissistic obsession with personal appearance and general aesthetic. Russell Brand would seem to epitomize the more questionable side of this relatively new sexuality. Does he epitomise the direction manhood is heading?

Mad Men has become something of a cult hit in the UK, as well as Stateside where it has a bushel full of Emmy and Golden Globe awards. The show oozes style, cool and a love of the finer things in life. It also reminds the viewer of a time when men were [seemingly] far more in control; unquestioned, dictatorial, bitter, frustrated, introverted, promiscuous, manipulative.

Women were confined to the home, save for the most perfunctory work roles. Rather than illustrate a desire for males to return to this period of dominant bliss, what this show and its niche popularity really demonstrates is a wry enjoyment of seeing this tongue-in-cheek depiction of a world that once was, or might have been. Of indulging vicariously in a world without wars in the Middle East, without energy, water and food scarcity, without climate shocks and without gaping budget deficits.

The programmeʼs tone has undeniably bled into popular culture; the rounded collars and square pockerchiefs favoured by Zeitgeist have now become very au courant, as everything from clothing to luggage to scotch glasses becomes imbued with a touch of refined minimalist – but robustly masculine – elegance. The fictional lead, Don Draper, was recently voted the most influential man of the year by AskMen, ahead of such luminaries as Obama, Clooney and even the great Roger Federer.

Cultural depictions of men have clearly evolved over the last two decades to a less overtly aggressive portrayal. Are men more comfortable without these fantastical images? Perhaps a new pragmatism has arrived, one where men are willing to accept that moisturising may be as important as teeth brushing, and one where a superhero is not a ripped Arnold Schwarzenegger but rather a weedy, more accessible Tobey Maguire.

*UPDATE: Even Maguire is deemed too much of a man now, as Sony has scrapped plans for Spider-Man 4, instead returning the series to Peter Parker’s high-school days.