All The Way From Johnny to Seal

Men, they are a-changing. We all know that. From going soft to hard, from trimmed to savagely tangly. We had it all and it is shown that there is a pendulum swinging from one extreme to the other. According to social monitoring metrosexuality is slightly fading away and it seems like men finally can say good-bye to their identity crisis (Beckham, you know?) and are just about to commit to co-operation in the gender war that should be over soon. While women are entering “men”-dominated fields, men have been - obligatorily - advancing into “female” territories (e.g.: paternity leave).

This trend, examined in “Die Männerstudie - Strategien für ein erfolgreiches Marketing” (German for “The Study of Men - Strategies for a successful marketing”), has an impact (as the title already suggests) in marketing strategies and product placement.

Therefore racing cars with child seating systems or fuel-powered blow dryers (for the environment’s sake we should boycott products like that) are today’s niches that will turn into major product divisions. I purposely picked extreme examples to show that companies now are preparing for is a “feminization” of products available on tomorrow’s market. 

From John Wayne to Seal. To fully understand, we take a brief look back in manhood history. Then the idea and transition to a “new manhood” gets quite obvious…

From the 1950s till the 1980s John Wayne did a good job preserving unquestioned manhood. Nobody would have ever dared to challenge his masculinity because he simply was the macho on the block. Everything was fine until the emancipation hit men in the 80s where men turned to themselves as a security mechanism - that’s how I interpret self-reference. The irritation of what’s male and female could begin…

The fortress of unquestionable finally was cracked wide open when David Beckham was a fashion icon for (not only) metrosexual football players and dyed faux-hawk was all the rage. My stomache still aches in pain… I don’t know how this was recieved on other spots around the world, but I’m afraid we haven’t yet moved on from this trend because tanning booth orange-yellow-tanned vokuhila (mullet) people (Krocha?) are considered to be part of Beckham’s metrosexual fashion religion.

Seal is said to be the first celebrity who has been able to overcome men’s difficulties in a oh-so-irritating world. A new commitment to cooperation (with Heidi, I think, it also bring advantages) marks a milestone in the evolution of men.

According to the study there are 4 major types of men that will be key in future marketing strageties:

• Everyday-Manager shuttling between kids, his own stuff and his career leader
• Health-Hedonist  ”sea-changed” from an ivory-tower ignorant to health apostle
• Self-Designer  is off his ego-trip on his way to a new self-consciousness
• Work-Life-Venturist: between “Laufbahn und Laufband” (Laufbahn = career, Laufband = treadmill)

If you are not content with this development, just wait 20 years and maybe by then men have been able to go back to the John Wayne sovereignty of society… Or maybe, men won’t think like that anymore after all.