Choices and preferences: Experiments on gender differences
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GLORIA MOSS is a director of Product Psychology, a consultancy specialising in tailoring consumer products and services to specific market segments. Formerly training manager (UK) with Eurotunnel, and before that site training manager with Courtaulds at Britain’s largest manufacturing site, she has been an associate lecturer for many years with the Open University Business School.
ANDREW M. COLMAN is professor of psychology at the University of Leicester. His research focuses mainly on decision making, and he has also investigated aesthetic preferences and consumer preferences for services. His contribution to this paper was facilitated by study leave granted by the University of Leicester.
Abstract Gender differences in consumer choices and preferences were explored in two quasi-experiments. In Experiment I, business cards were collected from 144 men and 83 women attending a Young Designers exhibition. The business cards of male designers were found to be of standard size and printed on white card significantly more often than the cards of female designers. In Experiment II, 35 female and 30 male respondents indicated which of four representative Christmas cards they preferred. A significant tendency was found for respondents to choose cards designed by members of their own sex. These findings are discussed in relation to earlier research into gender differences, and implications for design and brand management are outlined.
THE CUSTOMER’S POINT OF VIEW 1
Gloria Moss 53 Asmuns Place, London NW11 7XE, UK Tel/fax: ⫹44 (0)20 7458 2879 E-mail: [email protected] Andrew M. Colman School of Psychology, University of Leicester, Leicester LE1 7RH, UK Tel: ⫹44 (0)116 252 2170
A classic marketing textbook, written almost 50 years ago, suggested that successful marketing involves seeing the business from the customer’s point of view, and in today’s commercial environment the same could be said with equal force about successful brand management. One possible route into the customer’s mind, often recommended in the literature, is the study of market segmentation variables. They provide a method of identifying subgroups of consumers who are likely to respond in a relatively homogeneous way to
products/services or brands.2 Gender is almost invariably cited as an important segmentation variable, but in fact relatively little research had been carried out until recently to establish whether men’s and women’s responses to consumer products and brands differ systematically. Some publications have discussed informally techniques of marketing specifically to women,3 but gender differences have surprisingly seldom been addressed in relation to consumer or brand preferences in the published research literature. In particular, very little research has
䉷 HENRY STEWART PUBLICATIONS 1350-231X BRAND MANAGEMENT VOL. 9, NO. 2, 89–99 NOVEMBER 2001
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been devoted to gender differences in design preferences. Aside from some earlier work by the first author of this paper,4 researchers have failed to examine whet
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