“The challenge in the fast-growing men's beauty segment is to find ways
to wrap a quintessentially feminine product in masculine hues and
lingo,” according to a recent article on The Globe and Mail.com. Beauty care becomes skin care, anti-wrinkle cream becomes moisturizer and bronzer turns into “power bronze.”
P & G with Head and Shoulders and Gillette brands, as well as
Unilever (Dove and Vaseline) are developing products to satisfy the new
male. This new male shopper is lazy, according to the piece, and not
prone to trying new products (may use his wife’s stuff). But he can be
more loyal than a woman once he finds what he likes. Often the woman
of the house may bring home a male grooming product for her partner to
try.
Quick tips: don’t intimidate by offering too many choices; deeper
blues, gray, black and brown are popular “male” colors; shapes
matter--men equate jars to women’s beauty products, so use pumps and
tubes instead.
Dove even shaved off a bit of the elegant curve to its soap container
to offer a more masculine shape. Think about isolating men’s products
somewhere in the front of the store so male shoppers do not have to
pass through female shoppers.
Not everyone is convinced this market will boom, but many expect it to
bloom within the next few years. “There's a perception that if you look
dated and tired and old, your ideas are tired and old,” said Dave
Lackie, editor of trade publication Cosmetics.
For me, a 50-year-old male, all I can say is it is going to be a cold day in “you know where” before I try any “guyliner.”
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Challenges of designing packaging for men's "beauty" products
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