The brave new world of marketing:
Where "Sex and the City" meets Darwin
It’s the oldest cliché in the Western world, and it isn't even wrong: women love sexy clothes. According to a 2007 US consumer spending survey, the average household expenditure for women’s and girl’s clothing amounted to $749, compared with just $435 for men and boys. And, as a survey by the Daily Mail discovered four years ago, women spend a whopping eight and a half years of their lives shopping, much of this time being spent in clothing stores. But why do women devote so many resources to their wardrobe? Is it really a ruse to help them nab Mr. Right or are their motives more subtle?
Ask no more: The answer, it seems, is hormones (what else?). A new study from the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management entitled "Ovulation, Female Competition, and Product Choice: Hormonal Influences on Consumer Behavior," to be published soon in the Journal of Consumer Research, suggests that ovulating women are far more likely to spend money on sexy clothes than women at a different point in their monthly cycle. The researchers selected a group of ovulating women and asked them to look at a series of good-looking women living in their immediate area. Then they asked them to choose clothing and accessories that they would like to purchase. A majority of the women chose sexier products than another group of ovulating women who had viewed photographs of plain women or of attractive women who lived more than 1,000 miles away from them. A further group of non-ovulating women remained utterly uninfluenced by the images.
Is shopping a survival strategy?
(freemania.com)
The implication, according to the researchers, is that the women do not buy sexy clothes – along with shoes, cosmetics, health supplements and a world of other products – to attract men directly, but rather to edge out their female rivals. Kristina Durante, a post-doctoral student at the school, says in a university press release that "if you look more desirable than your competition, you are more likely to stand out" in the competition over desirable male partners. "In order to entice a desirable mate, a woman needs to assess the attractiveness of other women in her local environment to determine how eye-catching she needs to be to snare a good man."
What a brilliant use of modern science! The implications for the fashion and cosmetics industries are enormous, as biological determinism once more becomes the watchword of the future. After all, "for about five to six days every month, normally ovulating women - constituting over a billion consumers - may be especially likely to purchase products and services that enhance physical appearance," Durante says. Clearly, once marketing experts find a way to tap directly into this potential, it will revolutionize the profession. As evolutionary biologists get into the act, look for advertising to go not only viral, but also hormonal.
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Comments
I'd say it's a mathematical certainty...
I had always assumed that woman's urge to shop was a leftover from the hunter-gatherer days, shopping being a modern “gathering.” This is a little more sophisticated insight into the phenomenon as it relates to personal adornment.
Maybe Schopenhauer was onto something in The World as Will and Idea when he proposed that the will to reproduce forms all human existence.
The relation of the sexes . . . is really the invisible central point of all action and conduct, and peeps out everywhere in spite of all veils thrown over it. It is the cause of war and the end of peace; the basis of what is serious, and the aim of jest; the inexhaustible source of wit, the key of all illusions, and the meaning of all mysterious hints.
We see it at every moment seat itself, as the true and hereditary lord of the world, out of the fullness of its own strength, upon the ancestral throne; and looking down thence with scornful glance, laugh at the preparations made to bind it, or imprison it, or at least limit it and, whenever possible, keep it concealed, and even so to master it that it shall only appear as a subordinate, secondary concern of life.
Hmm, so it's Darwin vs. Schopenhauer - that should make for some interesting ad campaigns!
Nice try, but wrong time of the month ;-)
If you look closely in the right places it will be clear that some psychologists and sociologists are working for marketing researchers. They are constantly trying to study more effective ways to manipulate the public and they don’t want this activity broadcasted. Sometimes it does make it into the view of the public but this is rare. One example is when James Garbarino cited some research that was being done to market to children and he mentioned an effort within the American Psychology Association to raise ethical considerations about it. It failed presumably and at times people from the Mass Media criticized James Garbarino for calling for censorship. They failed to mention that they rarely if ever give people like Garbarino and other credible academics who understand the root causes of violence to explain this to the public which means they are the ones actually doing the censorship. But I’ve strayed off topic now oh well.
There's gotta be more to the shopping thing than hormones. Perhaps deep down inside (well, make that just a little bit under the skin) she hates me and wants to torture me every minute we're together.
(R)ated for reason!
havent read study but think you might have typo here based on basic structure of control vs test group. do you mean:
"A majority of the women chose sexier products than another group of NON ovulating women who had viewed photographs of plain women or of attractive women who lived more than 1,000 miles away from them"
this ties in very nicely with recent research that showed that strippers that are ovulating make more money. its not known yet the mechanism, if this related to clothes, body language, broadcast pheremones.
possibly our brains are wired that way-- to make unconscious decisions and then deceive us into thinking they were rationally based. there is a lot of scientific research that now supports this in psychology etc. consider malcom gladwells bestselling book "blink". ... also I would say that the public is still generally poorly informed on evolutionary psychology and tends to push back on it anyway.
Often this stuff doesn't pan out after critical analysis.
I'm with Zachary Taylor - everything he said.
vzn commented that the public only poorly understands evolutionary psychology - I say that too many evolutionary psychologists only poorly understand evolution (and history, too).
Great Post!
Happy Blogging,
Heather
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