Miserable men in shopping centres are a symptom of marketing’s gender problem
Bec Brideson has spotted a problem in the wild of Australia's shopping centres, and there's even an Instagram to prove it.
The year is 2018. And in the voice of Attenborough, we cross swiftly through the modern marketplace and land on the lush plains of shiny linoleum at a gathering place called the shopping centre. And it’s here on a Sunday that the greatest marvel of Earth reclines – men.
Their appearance here isn’t uncommon, though their weekly get-together rolls on in uncharacteristic silence. Australia’s most celebrated mammal has assembled for a very special event. Each Sunday, these floors strain under the weighty boredom of these descendants of Anthropoidea, while they rest their lengthy extremities waiting for their intrepid partners to return from the hunt and gather.
Immediately, we know this image is and what it means. It’s been a common retail experience since well before Chapelle’s mocking shout-out ‘Women Be Shoppin!’ In fact, there’s even a whole Instagram devoted to the patient wait of male partners as their unseen female partners have disappeared into the depths of the retail jungle.
Women whether mums, partners or your favourite female comrade are rapacious shoppers – not only because she’s been seduced by a discount but because she’s also the influencer of most purchases including your own. Think about it.
She magically knows when you need fresh underwear, what brands to buy and which ones to avoid because they make you itch. Meanwhile let’s not forget your mum who has likely indoctrinated you unconsciously with the default brands to buy. Young men leave home with their mum’s choices indelibly imprinted on their brains.
Did you grow up on Weetbix? Or was it Nutrigrain? How did you like scoffing down a double-pack Tim Tams? How did you have your Milo? I bet mum prepared it best.
Although men may still out-earn and contribute the majority to the household budget; they are often not making the decision at the coal face of retail nor physically pay-waving the card at the check-out.
If you do spot them rushing around the store, basket-in-hand – they will likely have a list in hand of household preferred brands their partners have furnished them with and exacting directions on which ones they must return home with.
And whilst their sheer brute strength appears better built for manoeuvring shiny metal trolleys piled high with FMCG; they’ll likely be lagging behind the domestic female CEO who has the in-depth expertise and deeply moving relationship to designate their family’s brands of choice.
We have to ask ourselves then beyond this imagery’s humour: what are these men doing? Are they escaping the drudgery of retail? Or are they missing the excitement? Why is it that female relationships with brands are so rich and complicated? And men would rather not engage?
Is it just coincidental that when women meet as a group they flow from one unrelated segue to the next – or as Mia Freedman stated “from Libya to labia” – and when men gather together they talk about discrete topics like music, sports results and the tomfoolery Dazza got up to last Friday? Maybe it’s down to the way our brain synapses fire, environmental considerations, societal expectations or as most often argued, all three.
Isn’t it wonderful that we are so different? Such diverse textures and tensions in the way we shop and buy. Such different projections for male and female discretionary spending influence in the next decade. These are great issues to explore but first and foremost, we must acknowledge that our customer bases influence and power has evolved and pandering to non-gender specific (or worse, to stereotypes) is no longer cutting it.
Here’s a simple first step:
My brand has XX% of male decision-maker, and the total male in category is XX%.
My brand has XX% of female decision-maker, and the total female in category is XX%.
Now – are males or females currently worth more to your business?
Growth potential XX% male and XX% female.
Which gender is most engaged? Who drives and influences the household purchase choice?
Do your resources, budgets and internal strategies reflect this?
Homogenising your audience and communications may seem smart and efficient. But it could also be a colossal, ineffective waste. Of. Money. Get down to the gritty and work out your customer’s gender ratio – I’m sure you’ll be very surprised that women have more power and sway over your brand then you initially thought.
Given we still lack diversity in the C-suite and find men as the majority CEOs, agency and department heads, here’s a simple CTA for your next Sunday wait-out. Before you find yourself settling too deep into that shopping centre seat – look up. Look at what she’s doing. How she’s buying.
Ask yourself: has your business proactively pursued the differences between your consumers as a point of leverage? Your best and richest marketing research opportunity is right in front of you. The key to disruption now and sustenance long-term is the person deciding your financial spend, managing your kids’ schedules, preparing your favourite weekend waffles and who always ensures you have a replenishment of non-ratty socks.
Jump up, make eye contact and notice her economic influence, and you’ll learn a lot. Or have Ogilvy ‘ladysplain’ it to you: “The consumer is not a moron, she’s my wife.”
Bec Brideson helps businesses and brands through better understanding the power of gender differences.
I thought this was going to be an article about how bad brands are at engaging men in retail, and how men are stereotyped as disinterested and stupid when it come to shopping, when perhaps the real problem is brands and shopping centres/mediums/channels do nothing to adapt to the way men like to shop, what they want to buy, or how they want to be engaged with a new product.
If I’m reading the closing point of this article correctly, it is encouraging brands to skew marketing heavily towards women as they are the financial/purchasing decision-makers… isn’t that what is already happening? Isn’t that why women are so engaged with the shopping process? Isn’t that why men are so disengaged?
I think the real opportunity is finding the way to better engage and influence men to buy… men will be more likely to make the financial decisions if they actually care about the decision
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Men ARE engaged in retail – look at the arenas of consumer products from sport, tech, outdoor etc. This is specific to men who are tagging behind their wife while she shops for them, herself, the home, all the ‘we’ things that HE’S NOT engaged in because of outdated masculine roles and ideals.
It’s a light-hearted article – but please keep doing the MOST (you may not get that Bernie, you sound like you skew [insert Steve Buscemi ‘How do you do, fellow kids?’ gif]) to tear down what is a sound, cogent argument about who are the real majority influencers and shoppers of discretionary purchases of the home. You can disagree with that (and I’d love to see your own candid photographs to support that assertion) but instead all of you’ve done is MISS THE POINT. lol
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I must say I agree 100% with Bernie. I felt the article identified the men “patiently waiting” for their hunter gatherer female partners and was going to offer some insight into this “bored in Westfield” market segment. I think we’re quite aware the FMCG, clothing & anything else that can be purchased in a mall is primarily marketed to women because we’ve known for quite some time now that the female head of the household is responsible for brand choices across discretionary type spending.
I didn’t think the end of the article matched the premise at the beginning.
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Sorry bernie
You have come up with the completely wrong politically correct answer to the question being proposed!
Shame on you and your type of thinking!
#hetoo
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Bec Brideson has spotted a problem in the wild of Australia’s shopping centers, and there’s even an Instagram to prove it.
So then suggest you exacerbate the problem by ignoring the more difficult solution and double down on what you have been doing since the 60s and go harder on what has been working less and less over the last 10 years?
Solution.Keep Ignoring the men as they are too hard to market too!!!
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I was a man, on a bench, outside shops on the weekend. I was shopping away, on my phone. I wasn’t going to by new soccer boots from Rebel (far to expensive), I bought them online.
I researched outdoor umbrella’s and found a firm in Western Sydney. I called them and negotiated a rate if I bought two. Same quality as in many stores; I got a bargain.
I scolded my wife for paying so much for a blouse in DJ’s – I found it $30 cheaper online, as I did some baby goods too…..
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buy*
too*
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The whole point of this web site is to help induce/coerce/cajole/nag people to buy more useless crap that they don’t actually need (especially “fashion!”). I’m siding with the men on this one. Where the “value” of an economy is measured by how quickly the municipal tip is filling, something is sorely out of whack. I think the men have it right when they don’t like to go to a commercial temple of worship where they are nagged to try to choose between one bit of low quality chinese crap from another: it is ALL crap! This is what the women have not figured out yet. The men are also despairing that the women are sending their hard earned dollars overseas, and with that thoughtless activity also making *their* “breadwinning” position more precarious by directly exporting jobs to china and india. A man would rather pay a lot of money up front for something that will last 10 years (such as shoes or a barby!) so he does not have to think about it again for a very long time. Whereas a scatter brained woman will spend spend spend on cheap crap in the mistaken belief that she is saving money. But in reality she will have to keep boringly re-buying that same item, over and over again. This pointless activity is what is boring the heck out of men : and who can blame them? They could be out at the cricket or the footy, instead they are dragged to the temples of “Jobs Export” time and time again by some clueless indoctrinated scatterbrain. And don’t you saintly “advertising people” pretend that you don’t know and don’t manipulate this sad situation!
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No matter how you pitch the advertising, you are not going to get men interested in shopping for groceries or going to department store clearance sales, so you might as well target the females. Then again, the females would go even if there were no advertising. In the old East Germany, for example, such advertising as there was was all for the Party and the glories of socialism (“40 Jahre Sozialismus”, read the poster on one semi-ruined building) but it was still the women who did the meagre shopping. I once visited Switzerland with a student group, and our first stop was Zurich. In contrast to East Berlin, there were lots of things to see and do in Zurich, but the first place all the girls wanted to go to was the shops. The boys: total lack of interest.
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I thought the concept of women being the main decision makers in retail decisions was very well known and accepted. Oglivy published his very famous quote over 50 years ago now. (Which is presumably why the bait-and-switch intro was used).
The only matter for contention is whether female marketers are generally better at understanding how to change women’s retail purchasing behaviour than male marketers. That case is very poorly made in the article. Which is not to say it’s not true, but look elsewhere for evidence of it.
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I agree the headline is a tad misleading – Mumbrella write these – not me. From my perspective this article is about fishing where the fish are. Following the money. Always. And why, if you want to be successful and win in the retail arena, you need to closely examine and understand which gender you are selling to/communicating with.
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Yep. Nailed me in one.
Can’t buy my own undies – the missus has to do it for me.
Still buy the brands Mum bought. Yep, I just stocked up on Bex, Shelley’s lemonade, and some Craven A fags from Flemings. Oh that’s right – they don’t exist any more. Looks like I am rooted then.
What a load of type-casting philogynist clap trap.
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^ This.
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I suggest a new male shopper is emerging in the FMCG. Under 30s single guys are quite food savvy, more fitness and health conscious than the older above stereotypes and comfortable with decision making. They now have long term online experience which has made them familiar with brands and personal selection. Ignore them at your marketing peril.
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Shopping centers alike have ruined the shopping experience for everyone. They have cheapened the quality of what we buy and destroyed the fabric of bustling little communities and suburbs, especially in first world countries. The idea of wet markets, food and clothing markets is so lost that subjects about them will soon be exposed at various history museums across the world. It is sad, but it is also the reason why so many Australians have to travel overseas to look for something they have lost, something they had access to on their high street only a couple of generations ago. Things keep changing around us and we are all guilty of accepting these changes without stopping to think of how they could impact us. We are becoming lazy, overweight and common.
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Fair enough Bec
That does change my criticism some what.
Are you able to shed some light on the broader issue of marketing to men, which has become an almost no go zone for anything other than dumb car stuff and hardware?
I’m personally tired of seeing adds on television that make women feel empowered and intelligent by making the man look as dumb as shit.
Surely we can be more sophisticated in 2018?
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Am I missing the point here? I am reading an article that tells us women are the main household shopper (duh!) and that malls are primarily targeted to women (duh again). And then that marketers and agencies are missing a trick because they are dominated by men in the “C suite” and don’t effectively target those women (clearly not true BTW). Mix in a few cheap shots at dopey simian men and hey presto another click bait article for Mumbrella. Even more self serving and trite than previous articles on this theme.
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Men – you are all idiots and sometimes rapists. Now buy our stuff.
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Hey Andrew, You hit the nail on the head. Gender is a wonderful lens in which to view and create growth in markets. Understanding our differences and discovering ways to better leverage products, service and communications with each gender is just plain clever. But it’s not as simple as one would expect – it’s nuanced and requires a re-examination of our research, strategic processes and outdated methodologies – yes! – including the reliance on reverse sexism that dumbs us all down. Old world thinking and traditional agency approaches are not making progress. It’s time to get serious because the rewards are $28trillion femeconomy.
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Dear Friend – or Faux! Male and female marketer – it doesn’t matter which gender you are! It matters what lens a marketer uses in order to better connect with their audience. What matters is the gender your business has, your culture becomes and your brand represents itself as. Brands have a persona, a perceived experience and a lens in which they view and communicate to the world. If a brand is selling to 80% women, but relies on the perspective or “lens” that is masculine – Houston you have a problem!
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“Why is it that female relationships with brands are so rich and complicated?” Men don’t have rich and complicated relationships with brands because we are not idiots. We shop quickly because we know what we want and can quickly assess whether a product meets those expectations. Women are baffled by choice but seem to enjoy the process of “shopping”. Those men are looking bored because they probably efficiently did all the shopping they actually needed to do in the first ten minutes and now have to wait hours for their inefficient partner. Buying crap you don’t need is hardly something to be praised.
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It’s not good when you can’t tell whether the author is satirising a suggestion to take both notions of gender and advertising principles back to the 1950s or seriously suggesting we do it.
I have an uncomfortable feeling it’s the latter.
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The real joke here isn’t that you dropped in to post that passive-aggressive Men’s Rights Activists whine but that you got the article ass-backwards.
I imagine however this is not a scenario you are unfamiliar with.
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Shhh! Don’t get in the way of a perfectly good stereotypical generalisation pitched at middle aged white folks!
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