My cart belongs to daddy ?

For years gender differences has played an important role for any marketer trying to map out a strategy for a specific target group. The classic, old school and predictable trend have been the awareness of women as a strong, sometimes "invisible" influence behind purchasing decisions. Another, the fact that women for generations has dominated the cart-strolling in most stores and what has landed into them. 

This article focus on what might be significant new changes in consumer habits and shopping trends between men and women. Not only as a result of new trends and shopping habits the last decade, but influenced by important demographic changes. 

One caution: The article does not disclose any information in regards to how the research was conducted. As with all quantitative market research the formulation of questions can have significant impact on the results, especially when you deal with psychological issues. Gender roles and peoples personal perception about them are still among issues that can be case sensitive. A "weakness" in this report is the age segment from 18-64 years which is too general. The results should have been broken down into several age groups which I believe would have given significant different and interesting results.

As the demographic gets more fragmented so does the shopping habits and trends. Obviously the growth and impact of internet shopping the last decade has led men to more frequently stroll the electronic shopping carts. New generations of women are steadily increasing their impact on the household economy and younger men have a different and more open approach towards being part of the household logistics. But as  the article mention, the results may be influenced by the wish to be perceived and/or self perception of being the main provider and a strong contributor to the household.

No matter what, it is interesting results that eventually will have impact not only on future advertising in all media channels, but also packaging design and other commercial design. In the meantime I enjoy the ride watching the attempts of adjustments whether it is Old Spice commercials for women (which proved very successful) or men portrayed with a soft backdrop of the bakery section of a Publix store. It's going to be interesting to see the changes towards more masculine household product commercials versus more feminine high tech commercials for products like for example 3D TV and cable ads and what about more feminine beer commercials ? (I love a good beer but I never drink "Dos Equis") I also believe we can expect much stronger social media reactions from men in regards to campaigns failing to pick up on changing trends, like the mentioned "Behind Every Olympic Athlete is an Olympic Mom".

To read article: Time to Rethink Your Message: Now the Cart Belongs to Daddy