The average dolt might roll his eyes at this, but for the rest of us with a functioning brain, we have to ask ourselves: Just what were marketers thinking when they rolled out man aisles?
Oh yeah, they were thinking about capitalizing on the recessionary trend of more men buying groceries than women.
According to a Chicago Tribune article that's setting the internet ablaze this week, Emily Bryson York reports that 51 percent of men were the primary shopper in their household, compared to 1985 when only 14 percent braved the grocery aisles.
Now with more young women forgoing employment to pursue higher education according to the Times and America's "loser guys" shacking up with their parents to search for a nonexistent job, men are "taking the reins on the shopping cart" (ugh) and the result is half-parts marketing marvel and half-parts sexism in sheep's clothing.
Visions of scraggly men-children lost in the feminine hygiene section were too appalling to bear, so marketers decided do male consumers one-better: They'd launch products targeting them.
Results included hits like Kraft's Philadelphia Cooking Creme and MiO, small bottles of flavor drops that make water "more enticing," said Kraft's vice president of innovation, Barry Calpino. York's take:
"Guys, when it comes to shopping and cooking, they love to customize and add their own personal touch."
Because obviously, women don't.
Then there's the man aisle itself offering the ultimate in GPS navigation with TV screens "to guide men to the appropriate skin-care items," writes York, along with requisite shelf displays.
Man aisles are doing superb in testing and marketers like P&G are thrilled at the prospect of making cold hard cash off male consumers' supposed inability to tell a deal from full-on gimmickry. Especially those millennial guys—they don't have a clue: They're "not as structured, not as hurried, much more experimental, more adventurous," writes York.
Certainly not like women!
Let's face it: This is just more evidence of marketers looking down on consumers and yet another reason why it's time to stop BSing yourself into buying things you don't really need and to kick your name-brand habit in 2012 for good.
Read the Chicago Tribune article here—look for the male shopper-hunter analogy—then tell us, what's your take on grocery guyisles?
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