Boys or Men?

A recent article in Marketing News, the monthly magazine of the American Marketing Association, reveals a blight in modern-day marketing efforts: the blight of stereotyping men.

Author Christine Birkner points out that most marketing campaigns are aimed at women, under the assumption that women are the primary purchasers of most consumer goods for a household. Among marketing campaigns targeted at men, she observes, many play on clichéd views of men as beer-drinking, ESPN-watching, buddy-bonding "frat boys."

Perhaps men do enjoy these things - beer, sports, time with "the guys" - and perhaps they need these activities in their lives. But that's not all of who they are, and marketers shouldn't treat them as if it were.

Birkner quotes Ken Wong - a brand consultant, and a man - who reports that "87% of men think that being a father is an important if not defining part of who they are." These men are fathers, providers, leaders - invested in being men of character, courage, wisdom, and strength for their children.

Birkner quotes researcher Paul Jacobs, who found that "one-third of men are single and one-fifth live alone," and that these men are "über-shoppers...buying cars and groceries and hardware" and all the other products in their lives. They want information to help them make good purchasing decisions and steward their money well, based on their lifestyles and needs.

And she quotes Robert Passikoff, head of a New York-based brand research firm, who posits that "there was a time when sex sold to men, but now...what sex does is get attention. There's a big difference between attention and liking and real marketing engagement."

If marketers want to make a meaningful impression on male consumers, we need to appeal to more than just the "beer, sex, and sports" side of men. That's a small segment of their lives - albeit fun and healthy segment, when it remains just a segment.

For real, deep connections and lasting brand loyalty - to be a company who "gets" men - marketers ought to be appealing to all of who a man is: a husband, a father, a son, a friend. A worker, a director. A lover, a gentleman. A thinker, a doer, a leader, an imaginer. An adventurer, a warrior, a provider, a hero.

Marketers today would never presume to treat women uni-dimensionally as just cute, sweet homemakers, and nothing more. We would call that sexist and foolish. Marketers approach women in all their roles - wives, mothers, sisters, daughters, friends, employees, leaders, cheerleaders, coaches, fixers, movers, shakers. Why don't we apply that common wisdom elsewhere, and extend the same courtesy to our male consumers?