Male and female consumer buying behaviours - Essay Example

Male and female consumer buying behaviours Introduction There’s a whole new target market. Traditionally, the only thing men are interested in putting on their faces is shaving cream and aftershave. But, as a generation of men raised in a culture where youth is a god ages, cosmetic companies are increasingly targeting men. The sheer number of aging men is piquing the curiosity of cosmetic marketers. The number of men between 35 and 54 is expected to reach 40 million by 2000 –up from 32 million in 1990 (Black, 2004). Cosmetic marketers have never had much success targeting men. Lancome launched a men’s line about five years ago, then quickly pulled it. Two California companies, Jan Stuart and Inner-Face also launched men’s lines during the 1980s that flopped. “Skin treatment lines for men have come and gone, because the population just wasn’t ready.” Said Pamela Baxter, VP-Marketing at Aramis. But the expanding number of over-35 men led Aramis execs to believe that there is now a legitimate men’s market. Aramis recently launched Lift Off!, an alpha hydroxy acid (AHA) product for men. The overall men’s cosmetic market is now too tiny to count, Baxter said, but Aramis estimates Lift Off! could eventually account for as much as 12% of sales. However, it is still undecided on an overall marketing strategy. “It’s easier to sell a man if a woman is with him,” said Baxter. Aramis has two radio commercials in test in Kansas City, Dallas, and Miami. One targets men, and the other is aimed at women (Campbell, 2000). Men are often introduced to skin lotions by their wives or girlfriends. When Beauticontrol, a Dallas-based direct-sales cosmetics company, introduced an AHA product called Regeneration last year, “We had wives writing to us saying their husbands were using the product and loved it,” said Ed Hookfeld, director of product marketing. The company packaged the same lotion in a gray and black box, shot a new ad campaign featuring CEO Dick Heath, and renamed the product, Regeneration for Men. Wendy Liebmann, president of New York-based WSL Marketing, said there is a potential for growth in men’s cosmetics, but cautioned against expecting dramatic sales increases.” You’re talking about educating somebody who washes their face with soap and shaves,” she said (Campbell, 2000). Review of Related Literature Marketing Mix Chad Schexnyder of New Orleans remembers how it used to be; approaching the counter of a local drugstore with a bottle of Noxema in his hand, the cahier accosted him. “This is for women,” she said with a dismissive air. “I’ve never seen a man buy Noxema.” Today, Schexnyder, who has bravely jumped into the strange new world of men’s personal care products, says the typical response from the counter help improved along with the variety and number of product offerings. “I was actually looking one day at this eyebrow liner at one store. I was just curious, and to my complete surprise a clerk came up and took me through the steps of how to apply it if I wanted to buy it,” says Schexnyder, who works for a local building contractor. “I just don’t think that would have happened three years ago.” The change that Shexnyder enjoys is part of an ongoing revolution in the nation’s cosmetic industry that is responding to an increasingly growing and demanding men’s personal care market. “I would say it is one of the largest emerging markets in our industry,” says Katie Siefert in the public relations department of American Crew. “For us, the market has been endless. Everything for men that we have marketed, and we right now have a line of twenty-one products from men’s shampoo and conditioners to a variety of shaving products, have sold.” “Men want to look and smell good, too!” exclaims Wanda McDaniel of Giorgio Armani’s communications department. “Just our market share alone in Southern California has increased by more than 10 percent in the past couple of years. It is not in danger of overtaking our women’s business, but it is very much a big market.” How big? No one is exactly sure, and one reason is because of the large number of private internal marketing studies done by such companies as Gilette, Procter & Gamble, and even Revlon. “It seems to be the kind of industry information that is very private,” says Jenette Jennings, Vice President of American Public Opinion Survey and Market Research Corporation. “I know because we are always being asked to do testing for products geared toward women, but even though there are more and more products out there for men, there do not seem to be an outside survey studies on it.” Some company studies, however, do provide a vague profile of what has to be by any reasonable measure a big market with an even bigger potential. A survey for Cosmair Incorporated predicts that U.S. men’s skincare products alone will rack up sales of more than $122 million next year, up from just over $100 million four years ago. That translates to just over 45 million male customers –or about half of the nation’s male population –who today use either hand or body skincare products, not to mention all of the many high-end shampoos, deodorants, colognes, and shaving creams that are flooding the market (Black, 2004). And the trend is even international. In Japan, according to internal research for the Shiseido cosmetics company, the market for men’s cosmetics from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s increased by a massive 70 percent, with one of the fastest-growing segments made up of the under-30 crowd, 65 percent of whom admit to having dyed their hair at least once. Another 32 percent of Japanese men have even gone so far as to have their eyebrows shaped. The growing demand for any number and variety of men’s care products has also taken unconventional turns. In New Orleans, says Doris Farlough, manager of the French Quarter-based Aladin, men are increasingly buying women’s perfumes –Voodoo Love is the biggest seller –because they like the different scents. In Pensacola, Florida, Iz Nauert, a makeup artist with Mainstage Theatrical Supply Incorporated, gets calls from all over the country from men who want to buy makeup. “They like it because it is made for wearing onstage under hot lights,” reports Nauert, “which means it won’t melt outside in warmer climates either.” There’s even men’s nail-coloring movement afloat. Hard Candy Incorporated last year introduced their electric blue, metallic purple, and metallic tea shades for those formerly boring, unpainted male finger nails. And some of their male customers have even ventured into the unknown and applied the stuff to the nails on their feet (Campbell, 2000; Hanley & Wilhelm, 1992). Meanwhile Avon, seeming the last province of June Cleaver America, not only sells a line of men’s products but has even hired male representatives. “We are not particularly gearing any of our products for a men’s market per se,” explains Victor Beaudetof Avon’s publicity department. “But I do not know that the men’s deodorants and colognes are going very well for us.” Well, that may be, but consider this: according to one Avon representative who requested anonymity, MEN buy Avon products that are actually designed for women. “They are some of my best customers,” the saleswoman reported in a whisper. “They like the smells, and they especially like the fact that they don’t have to go out in public to buy them.” Given these new and rather unconventional market demands, it is no surprise that more and more mass merchandisers, specialty shops, and catalogues are bursting with new product offerings directly aimed at the men’s market. “I think men in general are just much more comfortable today of taking care of themselves,” says Eden Grimaldi, with Revlon’s corporate communications office, where they have just introduced a new hair-coloring line called ColorStay Naturals for Men. “Revlon really wants to position itself in this market because the customers are very receptive” (Campbell, 2000; Hanley & Wilhelm, 1992). Receptive, but surprisingly discerning. In interviews with representatives from Gilette, Procter & Gamble, American Crew, Revlon, Vidal Sassoon, Giorgio Armani, and Aramis, one dominant pattern emerges: men are willing to buy and experiment with all kinds and types of fragrances and colognes, but they almost uniformly do not want anything that smells too strong or in any way draws attention to themselves. “It has to within the realm of good taste, understated, nothing that is too alarming or shocking.” says McDaniel of Giorgio Armani. “Our market is more high-end, professional, conservative. And they do not want fragrances that stand out or are too flowery.” But what is not full of flowers, sometimes sounds very much like a bowl fruit. The cologne Avatar, from its advertisement introduction last fall, sounded good enough to eat, a blend of the “fruity accents of pineapple and inflections of heione and muguet, laced by a spicy accord of juniper berries, coriander, and clove.” American Crew with spray gels, shampoos, conditioners, pomades, and both grooming and molding cremes, emphasizes nuances and subtle fragrances, and products made up of tree oil, sage, and ginseng, all in an effort to create what Siefert says, “smells that are masculine, nothing that is too flamboyant.” Masculine, then, is good. But only so much of it. After conducting a series of tests with younger shavers, Old Spice, the granddaddy in the men’s personal care audience –“our beauty health care products are family-positioned,” he says – yet he goes on to note that three recent fragrances, Cool Wave, Wild Rain, and Pacific Light are all designed so that “you can have a unified fragrance from the time you put on a body wash in the shower to the time you shave to the time you put on the aftershave –all in the same fragrance family.” The advertising campaigns for men’s products reflect the contradictions of the market they target: how to encourage men to smell good, put gooey stuff in their hair, and put oily lotions on their faces without feeling somehow unmanly? A recent advertisement from Avatar for their latest fragrance was for the man who is “perpetually embarking on journeys of personal and professional fulfillment… to cosmopolitan cityscapes and exotic locales,” prompting Los Angeles Times columnist Rich Tosches to wonder if the recent journey in his Ford Pinto transporting a $89 sectional sofa attached to the roof of his car “technically qualifies me as an Avatar man.” Other manufacturers worry about the age of the market they target. While the sale of men’s personal care products for men over the age of 50 has experienced double-digit increases, the largest customer base is composed of men under the age of 30. Old Spice worried about its old image –it has toned down the one-time endless sea-going adventures of its middle-age captain in favor of images showing slender boys riding bikes –is on the brink of introducing a new product line or one advertising campaign that one Procter & Gamble official said “would be more geared toward the youth market than anything we’ve done before.” Meanwhile, store shelves are expected to become increasingly crammed as more manufacturers enter men’s care market and others with firmly established lines enhance their lines. “It is amazing for us to sit back and see how many products for men’s care out there right now than there was five years ago,” says Giorgio Armani’s McDaniel. “It seems everyone is jumping into the business.” All of which is good news for loyal but adventurous customers, who buys lotions, shampoos, conditioners, and cologne on a regular basis (Campbell, 2000). Having acknowledged that there indeed is a beauty industry market for men, do significant differences exist between males and females in terms of consuming buying behavior within this industry? Gender Differences in Compulsive Buying Behavior Probably the most consistent finding in over 30 research studies on compulsive buying is that women are disproportionately affected. In studies that classify individuals as compulsive buyers, the percentage of women ranges from 74% (Hanley & Wilhelm, 1992) to 93% (Black, Repertinger, Gaffney, & Gabel, 1998), with the majority reporting around 90%. In research that examines continuous scores on Compulsive buying scales, women typically score significantly higher than men (e.g. Schehorn, Reisch, & Raab, 1990), although, one survey showed that women in their late twenties scored only slightly higher than men (Magee, 1994), and a study on adolescents failed to find any gender differences (Roberts & Tanner, 2000). Thus, women are highly vulnerable to compulsive buying, although gender differences may be less pronounced in young samples. This gender difference in compulsive buying is not explained in previous research. It is, however, consistent with research that demonstrates stronger physically motivated buying in women. Emotional and identity-related dimensions of shopping are more important for women than for men (Babin, Darden, & Griffin, 1994; Dittmar, Long, & Meek, 2004). Women tend to have positive attitudes towards browsing, shopping, and social interaction, associating buying with a ‘leisure frame’, whereas men’s attitudes tend to be a negative, seeing buying in a ‘work frame’, as a task that they want to accomplish with the minimum input of time and effort (Campbell, 2000). Clearly, this general tendency may be less strong or even reversed for particular types of goods (e.g. tools or computer equipment), but it can be argued that, overall, shopping plays a stronger emotional, psychological, and symbolic role for women compared with men (Dittmar & Drury, 2000). If we can accept that there is a link between female gender identity, at least in its traditional form, and shopping, then we can expect compulsive buying to be disproportionately more likely among women. However, it is important not to mistake such differences for essential differences between women and men. Rather, buying behaviour is likely to remain gendered in the way described only as long as cultural norms and shared representations continue to frame shopping as closely-linked to women’s social, personal, and gender identities, and as long as women-who still are the majority of home-makers and primary careers for children-have fewer opportunities than men for other psychological compensation strategies. In summary, it is hypothesized that women are more affected by compulsive buying than men, although possibly less so among younger people. Factors Found in Consumer Decision-Making Styles The advent of global markets has resulted in a plethora of product choice, retail channels (e.g., mail catalogues, television, Internet, and stores) and promotional activity, which make consumers’ decision increasingly complex. In the extant consumer behaviour literature, most studies that all consumers approach shopping with certain decision-making traits that combine to form a consumer’s decision-making style. Some of these traits, such as brand/store loyalty (Moschis, 1976), quality-consciousness (Darden & Ashton, 1974) or value consciousness (McDonald, 1993), have been identified by other authors , but a more comprehensive instrument that measures these and other traits is provided by Sproles and Kendall’s (1986) Consumer Styles Inventory (CSI). This instrument measures eight mental characteristics of consumer’s decision-making: Perfectionism, Brand Consciousness, Novelty-Fashion Consciousness, Recreational, Price-Value Consciousness, Impulsiveness, Confused by Overchoice, and Brand-Loyal/Habitual. Sproles (1985) defines consumer decision-making styles as “a patterned, mental, cognitive orientation towards shopping and purchasing, which constantly dominates the consumer’s choices resulting in a relatively-enduring consumer personality.” Although some concerns about the generalizability of the inventory have been expressed, the CSI represents the most tested instrument currently available to assist marketers in examining cross-cultural decision-making styles. Marketers intending to enter or to expand into new overseas markets are more likely to succeed if they gain a good understanding of different cultures. With such knowledge, retailers can differentiate and target their offerings, locations, and promotional efforts according to the varying patronage responses of the basic shopper types. From an international marketing point of view, a single instrument measuring decision-making styles that is applicable to many different countries would be desirable because such an instrument could be used to identify similarities and differences in consumer decision making between countries and could enhance comparability. To date, however, there is no single accepted decision-making typology (Mitchell & Bates, 1998). There is evidence that decision-making styles can vary across different cultures (Sproles & Kendall, 1986; Hafstrom, Chae, & Chung, 1992; Durvasula, Lysonski, & Andrews, 1993; Durvasula, Lysonski, & Zotos, 1996; Mitchell & Bates, 1998; Fan & Xiao, 1998), but it is not known how they vary across all cultures, not even those markets that can represent major export opportunities. Thus far, the CSI has been applied to seven countries: The U.S., Korea, New Zealand, Greece, India, the United Kingdom, and China. However , Rosenthal and Rosnow (1984) suggest that a study needs to be replicated at least fifteen times before results can be generalized, indicating that additional work on the CSI is necessary. The following factors of the CSI represent measures of consumer buying behavior which may be used to assess the difference between males and females within the beauty industry. Factor 1: Brand Consciousness The more expensive brands are usually my choice. The well-known national brands are best for me. The higher the price of the product, the better the quality. I look carefully to find the best value for the money. Nice department and specialty stores offer me the best products. The most advertised brands are usually very good choices. A product doesn’t have to be perfect, or the best, to satisfy me. Factor 2:Perfectionism In general, I usually try to buy the best overall quality. When it comes to purchasing products, I try to get the best or perfect choice. Getting good quality is very important to me. My standards and expectations for products I buy are very high I make a special effort to choose the very best quality products. Factor 3:Recreational/Hedonism Shopping is not a pleasant activity to me. Going shopping is one of the enjoyable activities of my life. I make my shopping trips fast. Shopping in many stores wastes my time. It’s fun to buy something new and exciting. I shop quickly, buying the first product or brand I find that seems good enough. I really don’t give my purchases much thought or care. To get variety, I shop in different stores and choose different brands. Factor 4: Confused by Overchoice The more I learn about the products, the harder it seems to choose the best. All the information I get on different products confuses me. Sometimes it’s hard to choose which stores to shop. There are so many brands to choose from that I often feel confused. Factor 5: Impulsiveness Often I make careless purchases I later wish I had not. I am impulsive when purchasing. I should plan my shopping more carefully than I do. I carefully watch how much I spend. I take the time to shop carefully for the best buys. Factor 6: Novelty Fashion Consciousness I keep my wardrobe up-to-date with the changing fashions. Fashionable, attractive styling is very important to me. I usually have one or more outfits of the very newest style. I enjoy shopping just for the fun of it. Factor 7: Variety Seeking I change brands I buy regularly. Once I find a product or brand I like, I stick with it. It’s fun to buy something new and exciting. To get variety, I shop in different stores and choose different brands. Nice department and specialty stores offer me the best products. References Babin, B., Darden, W., & Griffin, M. (1994). Work and/or fun: Measuring hedonic and utilitarian shopping value. Journal of Consumer Research, 20, 644-656. Black, D. (2004). 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