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David Beckham for Emporio Armani-underwear ad
The article below points out the new un-tapped market and trend in the beauty industry. Women have been the object of sexual exploitation in the media since the invention of marketing. For the past decade or so, men are being used more in marketing to tap into the new market made available by the dispensable career-working woman.
As a result, we men are getting messed up with our self images in a similar way that most women have been experiencing for decades. With the new invention of “Metro-sexual” males in the 90s, there was suddenly more acceptance and more services catering to men unlike ever before.
Salons for men (not barbers); spas with menus for the man only (facial, manicure pedicure…); make-up for men (Jean-Paul Gaultier and some high profile cosmetice companies are coming out with lines.) The cosmedic industry has answered with cleansers and creams to an untapped market that has high potential and could be very profitable! After all, we’ve seen with track record in sales with the billion-dollar industry for women.
D&G ad campaign
“Metrosexual man, the single young man with a high disposable income, living or working in the city (because that’s where all the best shops are), is perhaps the most promising consumer market of the decade. In the Eighties he was only to be found inside fashion magazines such as GQ, in television advertisements for Levis jeans or in gay bars. In the Nineties, he’s everywhere and he’s going shopping.” 1994 / Mark Simpson via wikipedia
Should men be using skin care or make-up / concealer / lip chap cream? An interesting question is this: Why is it a non-question these days when one asks these questions? In comparison, 30 years ago people would flat out have said “no” and laughed at you. Today it poses an interesting question and all due to the power of the Advertiser.
The article below lists some of the coming trends. We should start seeing these trends creep into North America markets in the coming year from Asian and Europe, who always seem to know how to be ahead of us on most of things.
notice how the woman are fully dressed and the guy is the sex object.
Men spend up for the sake of looks
by: Naoko FujimuraTOKYO: Japanese men are buying more cosmetics made specifically for them, even as salaries fall, unemployment rises and the population shrinks in Asia’s largest market for beauty products.
Mitsuru Yonekawa, a spokesman for Nissan who was named one of Tokyo’s most handsome men by a lifestyle magazine, has added a step to his morning grooming ritual to combat flaky skin.
Mr Yonekawa, 32, uses a 1800 yen ($22) bottle of Otsuka Pharmaceutical’s UL-OS skin milk before heading to work. .
‘‘I try to look neat so I won’t give a bad impression,” said Mr Yonekawa, one of 82 men featured in Hanako magazine last year. My skin is losing moisture. I didn’t need anything when I was in my 20s.”
Otsuka sold 993 million yen worth of UL-OS in the first six months it was on the shelves.
Sales of men’s skincare products in Japan jumped 17 per cent to 17.5 billion yen in 2008, compared with a 0.2 per cent drop industrywide, according to the most recent Trade Ministry data.
Japan accounted for about 10 per cent of the $US333.7 billion ($370 billion) global market for cosmetics and toiletries in 2008, according to London researcher Euromonitor.
Dsquared2 Ad Campaign
College students are more interested in moisturisers, cleansing scrubs and beauty salons than they are in cars, according to a survey last year of 1600 men and women by the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association, which wanted to find out why sales last year plunged 9.3 per cent to 4.6 million vehicles, the lowest level since 1977.
”More and more men are becoming feminised,” said Koichi Ogawa, chief portfolio manager at Daiwa SB Investments.
”Their desire for better looks is getting stronger.”
Toshihiro Nagahama, the chief economist at Dai-Ichi Life Research Institute, said: ”More and more men from teens to the 30s are making a fashion statement.”
Otsuka, known in Japan for its sports and energy drinks, entered the men’s skincare market in September 2008 with UL-OS, pronounced ”uruosu”, Japanese for ”moisturise.”
”We aim to lure the middle-aged men who aren’t used to skincare products,” an Otsuka spokesman, Tadashi Kirai, said.
”There is more potential for the men’s skincare market because more than two-thirds of men have never done any care.”
via Globe n mail / Sydney Morning Herald
other interesting article: Lipstick on your fella via guardian
Diesel Ad
