Capitalizing on Men's Vanity

CAPITALIZING ON MEN’S VANITY: A qualitative study of men’s behavior when evaluating, buying and using men’s grooming products. MASTER THESIS MSc Brand and Communication Management Copenhagen Business School 2014 Author: Pernille Burkhalter Supervisor: Jesper Clement Hand-in date: 20.08.2014 Number of pages: 83 (excluding appendices) Number of characters: 174 461 (excluding appendices) Abstract Grooming products especially designed and developed for men is a fast growing industry, however, little attention has been devoted to understanding the male consumer in regards to this product category. The purpose of this thesis was to investigate Norwegian men’s consumer behavior when buying and using grooming products in order for the cosmetic industry to better capitalize this market. A review of the Norwegian grooming market and how it is currently being capitalized served as the starting point, and a conceptual framework was developed based on consumer behavior theory and contemporary studies in the field, creating a base for primary data collection. Methods of data collection included in-depth interviews with 7 Norwegian men, in- store participant observation and follow-up interviews, in addition to interviews with in-store experts. The conceptual framework and the method for data collection chosen provided a good level of explanatory power and interesting themes emerged, namely: Involvement & Knowledge, Notions of Masculinity, Hairstyle and Identity, False loyalty, Avoidance of Feminine Behavior, Significant Females, and Importance of Quality. Making it possible to better understand men’s consumer behavior when evaluating, purchasing and using men’s grooming products and on the basis of this knowledge recommend how the industry can better capitalize the Norwegian grooming market for men. This report aimed at increasing knowledge and understanding in regards to men’s consumer behavior when evaluating, buying and using grooming products, and the report can be used as a starting point for further research on this theme. Further research should test the framework created and quantify the results so that the external validity increases, providing greater opportunities for generalization and market segmentation. 2 Table of Contents ABSTRACT 2 INTRODUCTION, AREA OF RESEARCH AND DEFINITIONS 5 1 INTRODUCTION 5 2 AREA OF RESEARCH 6 PROBLEM STATEMENT 6 FOCUS AND LIMITATIONS 6 GEOGRAPHICAL FOCUS 6 PRODUCT FOCUS AND LIMITATIONS 6 DEFINITIONS 7 GROOMING AND GROOMING PRODUCTS 7 MEN’S GROOMING PRODUCTS 8 PREMIUM BRANDS VERSUS MASS BRANDS 9 STRUCTURE OF THESIS 9 INDUSTRY OUTLOOK AND LITERATURE REVIEW 11 3 INDUSTRY OUTLOOK 11 THE MARKET 12 TRENDS 12 COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE 13 NORWEGIAN MEN’S GROOMING HABITS 13 FORECAST (2012-2017) 14 4 LITERATURE REVIEW 15 CONSUMER DECISION-MAKING PROCESS 15 PRODUCT INVOLVEMENT 17 MOTIVATION AND ATTITUDE 18 PERCEPTION 21 PERSONALITY, SELF IMAGE AND SELF ESTEEM 21 EXTERNAL INFLUENCE 22 PRODUCT, PACKAGING AND DESIGN 22 PRODUCT ATTRIBUTES AND FUNCTION 24 PROMOTION 25 PRICE 26 PLACE 27 SOCIO-CULTURAL INFLUENCE 29 CONSUMERS AS TRIBE MEMBERS 30 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK 31 METHODOLOGY, DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS 33 5 METHODOLOGY 33 RESEARCH APPROACH 33 METHODS OF DATA COLLECTION 34 IN DEPTH INTERVIEWS 34 ETHNOGRAPHY 37 OBSERVATIONS OF MEN IN-STORE 38 3 FOLLOW-UP INTERVIEWS 39 LIMITATIONS 40 INTERVIEWS OF STORE PERSONNEL 40 QUALITY OF RESEARCH 40 6 ANALYSIS 42 METHOD OF ANALYSIS 42 DISCUSSION, KEY FINDINGS AND MARKETING- IMPLICATIONS 46 7 DISCUSSION 46 INVOLVEMENT, EXPERIENCE AND KNOWLEDGE 46 ROUTINE PURCHASE AND PRODUCT LOYALTY 48 PERSONALITY AND SELF-IMAGE 49 EXTERNAL INFLUENCE 52 PRODUCT AND ATTRIBUTES 55 SCENT 55 PACKAGE DESIGN AND COLOR 57 PRODUCT LABELING 60 PRODUCT FEELING AND EFFECT 62 NUMBER OF PRODUCTS OWNED 64 PLACE 66 STORE PREFERENCE 66 IN-STORE HELP 68 IN-STORE BEHAVIOR 69 ONLINE PLATFORMS 70 PRICE 71 PROMOTION 73 8 KEY FINDINGS 75 9 MARKETING IMPLICATIONS 76 CONCLUSION, LIMITATIONS AND FURTHER RESEARCH 81 10 CONCLUSION 81 LIMITATIONS AND FURTHER RESEARCH 83 11 BIBLIOGRAPHY 85 12 APPENDIXES 89 APPENDIX 1: TABLE: SUB-CATEGORIES: PREMIUM- AND MASS PRODUCTS 89 APPENDIX 2: AJZEN ATTITUDE MODEL: THEORY OF PLANNED BEHAVIOR 90 APPENDIX 3: VIRKE E-COMMERCE FIGURE 91 APPENDIX 4: RESEARCH PROPOSAL: THEMATIZING SCHEMA AND INTERVIEW GUIDE 92 APPENDIX 5: TRANSCRIBED INTERVIEWS 99 APPENDIX 6: IN-STORE OBSERVATION GUIDE AND INTERVIEWS 183 APPENDIX 7: INTERVIEW OF IN STORE PERSONNEL 189 APPENDIX 7: PICTURE OF GROOMING PRODUCTS BEING SHOWN DURING THE INTERVIEW 193 APPENDIX 8: PICTURES OF BIOTHERM 196 APPENDIX 9: PICTURES OF BULL DOG 196 4 Introduction, area of research and definitions 1 Introduction Men are experiencing an increased pressure from society on appearance and looking good at all times and products like anti-wrinkle and body lotion are no longer reserved women. In fact, there has been an overall trend in men devoting more time and energy on appearance, leading to a boom in sales for appearance related products and services, such as dietary supplements, gym memberships and personal grooming products (Sturrock & Pioch, 1998). As men are learning about their skin and grooming rituals, they are increasingly looking to buy male- specific products and the cosmetic industry has capitalized on this by developing a wide range of grooming products especially designed for men and their needs (Euromonitor, 2013). But what are really men’s needs? And how do they behave when trying to find their way through the fast growing jungle of grooming products? Men’s grooming products is one of the main drivers of growth in the cosmetic and personal care industry and in 2012 men's grooming increased by 7% making it worth US$34 billion globally (Euromonitor, 2013). Despite this, surprisingly not a lot of research has been devoted to men’s behavior when purchasing grooming products. In fact, the male shopper has long been ignored in the area of research. There is now, however, widespread consensus that the traditional notion of men as producers and women as consumers is outdated (Sturrock and Pioch, 1998; Dholakia, 1999; Bakewell et al., 2006). Research that does address male consumption has typically focused on consumption of “male” items such as alcohol, cars and electronics, that serve to enhance one’s masculinity rather than threaten it (Otnes & McGrath, 2001). This thesis sets out to address this topic by researching Norwegian men’s behavior when purchasing men’s grooming products. According to a report from Euromonitor, Norwegian men had the highest capita per man spent on grooming products on a global basis in 2009 (Euromonitor, 2009), and to the researchers knowledge qualitative studies on Norwegian men in regards to grooming purchase is non- existing. The study is therefore significant in two ways. First, it focuses on men’s grooming, an under-studied product category. Second, it applies a qualitative approach in order to 5 fully explore the decision-making process of the Norwegian male consumer. Understanding consumers purchase behavior and decision making process is critical in order to define appropriate marketing strategies, in-depth awareness of the male consumer will therefore help marketers to better capitalize the Norwegian grooming market for men. Due to the discussion above I therefore find it very interesting to research one of the main drivers of growth in the cosmetic and personal care industry: The Man. 2 Area of research Problem statement The problem statement that this thesis aims to answer is therefore as followed: What characterizes the consumer behavior of men when evaluating, purchasing and using men’s grooming products? From these insights, how can the cosmetic industry better capitalize the grooming market for men? Focus and limitations Geographical focus I have decided to restrict my thesis to examining the Norwegian market and all primary data collection are therefore gathered from Norwegian men. The reason for this is that Norwegian is my mother language, and I argue that when both the researcher and the studied object can speak the language most natural to them, it will eliminate cultural and lingual barriers, providing higher reliability. Norwegian men are becoming increasingly aware and concerned with their appearance, resulting in increased grooming product purchases (Euromonitor, 2013). However, it is the author’s knowledge that there exists no qualitative research on Norwegian men’s consumer behavior in regards to grooming products, which makes them a very interesting geographical group to study. Product focus and limitations The primary purpose of this dissertation is to identify the key drivers of behavior within an entire product category and not a single product such as for example 6 shampoo. I have chosen to limit examination of the user's specific brand preferences for each product group, since this will be too comprehensive. However, some factors in regards to brands and brand loyalty will be discussed. The analysis and the conceptual behavior model is not tailored to a specific firm or brand, but as a general behavior model for men when buying grooming products, and therefore applicable for the whole Norwegian grooming industry. Definitions In order to make sure that the terminology used throughout the thesis is clear to the reader, and to make sure the reader knows what products the category “grooming” consists of and the different channels they are sold through, some definitions are necessary. Grooming and grooming products The general term grooming holds no clear definition and different

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