Are Men from Mars and Women from Venus?

Scientists have discovered that only 78 genes separate men from women ( BBC News, 2006). How these differences influence on consumer behaviour ? 

It can be argued that men shop on Mars, women shop on Venus, because the behaviour of the gender is so different. With women, there are several types of shoppers: mothers and kids, shopaholics, social shoppers and bargain hunters. With men, there is, well -just men.

 In general women see shopping as pleasurable, stimulating activity and a way of obtaining social interaction. Men see shopping as a way of acquiring goods (Hoyer&;MacInnis, 2008). Man goes  into a store with a precise goal. If he can’t find what he want in a few minutes he despair . Woman is able to visit  hundreds of shops for  a lot of hours to find something what is JUST :  fashionable, glamorous, chariming, pretty and original ;-)

According to research and observations by marketers and urban anthropologists, women care more about comparison of stores, bargain hunting and getting a lower price at outlet stores. When it comes to men they are more willing to do shopping at traditional  stores to find well-known brand names, regardless of the price.

Shopaholics are tend to be women.That is why marketers recognize the growing importance of women as customers.  A funny image of shopaholic, but real, however,  was presented in Confessions of a Shopaholic, directed by P.J Hogan.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8BoR-tKCLs&feature=related

 Gender Marketing

According to Bristor and Fischer (1993), gender is a social concept referring to psychologically, sociologically, or culturally rooted traits, attitudes, beliefs, and behavioural tendencies. Because gender is a pervasive filter through which individuals experience their social world, consumption activities are fundamentally gendered. Women and men design their environments differently. The main purpose of gender marketing is to consider differences between women and men in their way to making purchase (Flocke 2006). According to Mitchell and Walsh (2004) males and females want different products and they are likely to have different ways of thinking about obtaining these.

The cause of differences in consumer decision making process is made up with several reasons.

 Gender differences in brain functioning are used to explore  different information processing of advertising message. Men tend to use more of the left side of their brain. The left side of the brain tends to focus on anlytical thought, logic, language, science and maths. Women  tend to process  well  both sides of their brain,  the right side of the brain focuses on holistic thought, intuition, creativity, art and music. This is the reason why men tend to do better at left brain activities and problem solving and women excel at solving problems creatively and being aware of emotion.

The advertisements are created with the aim of stereotypes about men and women.

 Women are tend to be more emotionally expressive and more empathetic. They  are more obsessed with having children than men. Women judge emotions from nonverbal communication and express more love, fear, and sadness.Men control their feelings and show emotion to communicate dominance. Advertising is most effective when it targets women becouse they are tend to believe ads more than men.  Women are more engaged in a detailed, thorough examination of a message  and they make extended decision based on product attributes . Men receive informations using simplified stimuli. Men are more likely to express positive emotions than women(Hoyer&;MacInnis, 2008).

 Colours play a significant role in marketing communications. Scientific surveys have concluded that red is the sexiest colour of the rainbow.  Women perceived men wearing red T-shirts to be significantly more attractive than those in blue T-shirts. For both gender ,red has powerful psychological triggers (uk.special, 2010). Advertisements with yellow and blue are more effective with men than women.Orange is the least favorite color for women. Blue is the most popular color for both men and women. Green is also a good color for ads that that target both men and women.

 This video shows male advertising...

...and this video presents advertising for women :

Did you see the difference ? ;-)