I was talking to a friend of mine about his skin care regimen, I guess after we had seen the abundance of commercials spots Dove has been buying on TV for their new line of skin care for men. He told me: “Oh, I am a Kiehl’s man”. As a Sephora customer myself, I knew very well where my friend could get his Kiehl’s fix, but I decided to ask him anyway where he bought his creams and lotions. The answer surprised me – he buys them online.
My surprise to his answer was due to my own preferences when shopping for cosmetics. For me, the experience of going into a store and trying new products, after having read about them in a magazine really plays an important role on my decision making. Other times, I like going to the department store cosmetic counters and have one of the saleswomen play around with an array of different products and tell me the best way to apply this or that or the other.
It is clear that the pursuit for younger and healthier looking skin is no longer the domain of women and is going mainstream for men, as evidenced by the new launches by Dove and expansion of Axe. However, the shopping experience for the men seems to be undefined and unexplored.
A quick trip to Walgreen’s with the “Kiehl’s man” had me baffled at the huge display of Axe body wash at an end cap. Looking around the store for men skin care products showed me there is a lot of room for improvement: the products were all in the lower shelves, close to the shaving items. Another funny thing: the Axe display was an arch at the entrance of an aisle, standing at about 6’; my friend is 6’5” and had to skip that aisle altogether, to avoid having to lower his head to go by.
I could think that my very tall moisturized friend is an exception, but I don’t think so. An ex-boyfriend once complained about the dark circles under his eyes. I told him to try some of my eye cream, which he did. He is now a faithful customer of Neutrogena’s eye cream, which is targeted for women. I don’t see either of them entering Sephora to play around with different creams.
Although this is all anecdotal, Dove’s expansion to the men’s market is evidence of a change that needs to take place. Also, on the article “Masculinity in a spray can” by Jan Hoffman, published in January 29th 2010 in the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/fashion/31smell.html?pagewanted=1&hpw), younger boys are also starting to become avid consumers of beauty products. Here is a link to Dove's skin care for men website:http://dove.us/mencare/Products.aspx
For my paper, I would like to investigate the following points:
How have men historically viewed cosmetics – Here I want to explore how men have used grooming products throughout history the recent history (19th, 20th and 21st Centuries) and the metro- sexual fad that happened earlier this decade.
From some of the papers I have started to investigate, men skin care business has been discussed as a high growth potential market, but it never really took off. My guess is that the industry still sees that portion of the market as an after-thought and hasn’t honed in to what experiences will drive men to the cosmetics counter and what the needs of that target consumer really are. The article “Making Himself Attractive: the growing consumption of grooming products” (Sturrock and Pioch, 1998) discusses why men have increased the consumption of grooming products and points to a trend that will keep growing. The growth has not been as large as that of grooming products for women.
The new segments of men’s skin care consumers – For this section, I would like to create personas that will identify the consumers of men’s grooming products. I am curious about who they are, how they currently shop for grooming products, what are their needs. For women, there is an abundance of fashion magazines that advertise skin care products and the latest and greatest innovations in the market, as a way to encourage the consumer to try new brands (and increase top of mind awareness). Are these male personas reading Men’s Health Magazine and GQ and looking for articles on skin care?
The shopping experience for women’s skin care – I think a brief analysis of what women’s experience when shopping for cosmetics and some research on which aspects of the shopping experience for women’s skin care can be applied to men and which need to change, in relationship to the identified segments.
I would also like to do some of my own “research”, by investigating local stores that offer products for men and see how the product is displayed, what kind of promotions are run, and interview some sales people regarding selling products to men.
Ultimately, I would like to come up with a set of recommendations for each of the different personas, as to what can stores to do to enhance the experience for their male customer.
References:
Sturrock, F and Pioch, E - Making Himself Attractive: the growing consumption of grooming products – Marketing Intelligence and Planning – 1998 – Vol. 16 – Issue 5
My surprise to his answer was due to my own preferences when shopping for cosmetics. For me, the experience of going into a store and trying new products, after having read about them in a magazine really plays an important role on my decision making. Other times, I like going to the department store cosmetic counters and have one of the saleswomen play around with an array of different products and tell me the best way to apply this or that or the other.
It is clear that the pursuit for younger and healthier looking skin is no longer the domain of women and is going mainstream for men, as evidenced by the new launches by Dove and expansion of Axe. However, the shopping experience for the men seems to be undefined and unexplored.
A quick trip to Walgreen’s with the “Kiehl’s man” had me baffled at the huge display of Axe body wash at an end cap. Looking around the store for men skin care products showed me there is a lot of room for improvement: the products were all in the lower shelves, close to the shaving items. Another funny thing: the Axe display was an arch at the entrance of an aisle, standing at about 6’; my friend is 6’5” and had to skip that aisle altogether, to avoid having to lower his head to go by.
I could think that my very tall moisturized friend is an exception, but I don’t think so. An ex-boyfriend once complained about the dark circles under his eyes. I told him to try some of my eye cream, which he did. He is now a faithful customer of Neutrogena’s eye cream, which is targeted for women. I don’t see either of them entering Sephora to play around with different creams.
Although this is all anecdotal, Dove’s expansion to the men’s market is evidence of a change that needs to take place. Also, on the article “Masculinity in a spray can” by Jan Hoffman, published in January 29th 2010 in the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/fashion/31smell.html?pagewanted=1&hpw), younger boys are also starting to become avid consumers of beauty products. Here is a link to Dove's skin care for men website:http://dove.us/mencare/Products.aspx
For my paper, I would like to investigate the following points:
How have men historically viewed cosmetics – Here I want to explore how men have used grooming products throughout history the recent history (19th, 20th and 21st Centuries) and the metro- sexual fad that happened earlier this decade.
From some of the papers I have started to investigate, men skin care business has been discussed as a high growth potential market, but it never really took off. My guess is that the industry still sees that portion of the market as an after-thought and hasn’t honed in to what experiences will drive men to the cosmetics counter and what the needs of that target consumer really are. The article “Making Himself Attractive: the growing consumption of grooming products” (Sturrock and Pioch, 1998) discusses why men have increased the consumption of grooming products and points to a trend that will keep growing. The growth has not been as large as that of grooming products for women.
The new segments of men’s skin care consumers – For this section, I would like to create personas that will identify the consumers of men’s grooming products. I am curious about who they are, how they currently shop for grooming products, what are their needs. For women, there is an abundance of fashion magazines that advertise skin care products and the latest and greatest innovations in the market, as a way to encourage the consumer to try new brands (and increase top of mind awareness). Are these male personas reading Men’s Health Magazine and GQ and looking for articles on skin care?
The shopping experience for women’s skin care – I think a brief analysis of what women’s experience when shopping for cosmetics and some research on which aspects of the shopping experience for women’s skin care can be applied to men and which need to change, in relationship to the identified segments.
I would also like to do some of my own “research”, by investigating local stores that offer products for men and see how the product is displayed, what kind of promotions are run, and interview some sales people regarding selling products to men.
Ultimately, I would like to come up with a set of recommendations for each of the different personas, as to what can stores to do to enhance the experience for their male customer.
References:
Sturrock, F and Pioch, E - Making Himself Attractive: the growing consumption of grooming products – Marketing Intelligence and Planning – 1998 – Vol. 16 – Issue 5
Hi Samantha - I really like this topic - I guess as a representative of one of the personas of male cosmetics, I am curious to understand more about my own behavior. I would suggest that one way to conduct research on this is to look at the various (successful) men's lines to see if you can get a sense of who they think they are targeting. Let's definitely talk about this some time - I find this topic really fun.
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