Men Put Money Where Their Hearts Are
By George Anderson
Research from the customer loyalty research consultancy Brand Keys shows that, when it comes to demonstrating love and affection in retail purchases, men are more romantic than women on Valentine’s Day.
Regardless of which gender gets the most romantic award, Brand Keys’ president Robert Passikoff said the holiday is growing in importance for retailers because the criteria for who should receive a gift continues to expand.
“More and more gifts being exchanged between friends and family, all in the name of St. Valentine,” said Mr. Passikoff. This trend, he added, “turned Valentine’s Day into a major retail holiday about four years ago.”
One of the factors that has increased the gifts given on Valentine’s Day has been gift card redemption.
“This year we’re seeing consumers report higher after-Christmas redemption rates of gifts cards going for purchases for the closest major holiday, Valentine’s Day. The event gets bigger every year,” he said. “And this year the average price placed on love is $113.00.”
The $113 average is driven, according to Brand Key’s’ research by the average $145 put down by men. By comparison, women spend an average of $81 on the holiday.
Brand Key’s Top 10 List of Gifts includes:
- Greeting Cards – 80 percent
- Dinner/Entertainment Events – 55 percent
- Candy – 45 percent
- Flowers – 43 percent
- Gift Certificate/Card – 35 percent
- Jewelry – 25 percent
- Stuffed Animals/Balloons – 15 percent
- Lingerie/Clothes – 13 percent
- Perfume/Cologne – 10 percent
- Books – seven percent
(% of total people who said they were giving gifts)
The National Retail Federation pegs the average consumer spending at $100.89 for Valentine’s Day, with men spending more ($135.67) than women ($68.64). Total spending for the holiday this year is expected to reach $13.70 billion compared to $13.19 last year.
Moderator’s Comment: How will Valentine Day sales this year compare to 2005? Which retailers have impressed you with the most unusual or innovative advertising
and/or merchandising programs for Valentine’s Day in the past? –
George Anderson – Moderator
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9 Comments on "Men Put Money Where Their Hearts Are"
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Let’s just cut to the chase here. It’s all about sex. Men are less inhibited when it comes to shopping these days, and they know if they don’t fork up a good gift on Valentine’s day, they’re cut off. Men spend more because the holiday is MUCH more important to women.
Has anyone looked at the choices of Valentine’s gifts for men lately — boxer shorts with hearts, ties with hearts, hearts with candy, roses, or stuffed animals? And how many of these are truly gifts that men desire? I wonder why women spend less money?
I think Don’s dead on. Add the never-ending marketing search for the next gift-giving event to spin up, and Valentine’s day is locked in the cross-hairs.
Men make more money than women, so it’s not surprising they spend more. Furthermore, among the top items are candy, flowers, and dinner, and these items are traditionally paid for by men for women. The great opportunities for department and specialty stores would be gift cards, clothing, and fragrances, given by both genders. The biggest obstacle to increasing St. Valentine’s Day gift giving? People are still paying off Christmas.
To make this grow, make it easy to buy, and remind people early and often. For example, http://www.redenvelope.com has saved my butt many times. They send reminders around key holidays, and you can also register birthdays and anniversaries on their site, and they e-mail you two weeks before the date, with another reminder 4 days before the date. With a couple clicks of the mouse, I’m done, and relieved. I’ve rarely been forgetful over the years, but once or twice when I forgot it was really, really unpleasant. Probably the best advertising message for guys would be: ‘DON’T FORGET, OR YOU’LL BE IN DEEP TROUBLE!’ That wouldn’t be romantic, but I’m sure a lot of guys would relate.
Yes, business will increase over last year (weather permitting). The smartest small retailers (to disagree with our worthy moderator) do not use the word advertising anymore. They are marketers and they avoid the traditional media like the plague (with noteworthy large spender exceptions like furniture stores). They promote their stores through fun events and activities, workshops, seminars, fashion shows, trunk shows, food and drink, charitable and community events and revolve these activities around their merchandise and the calendar. They use their databases in creative ways to drive traffic to their stores. It is not about Valentine’s Day per se, it is about leveraging every opportunity to make a more inviting and interesting store.
At the risk of sounding cynical (moi???), I do declare that all this Valentine’s Day stuff is not at all about romance or love but the fact that more marketing is aimed at men to impress them with the benefits they might receive from giving some sort of Valentine’s Day gift. The comment about using gift cards supports my cynical viewpoint – it doesn’t even cost them anything because they can give something that was already given to them. This means, to me, that men are more susceptible to thinking they can buy love than women. So what else is new?