Men Buy More from Manly Men

A n international research team led by Tobias Otterbring, now at Aarhus University, tracked purchases people made at a home-furnishings store in a midsize Swedish city during one weekend. When a tall, athletic-looking male employee stood at the entrance, male shoppers spent significantly more money than usual and more, on average, than female shoppers did. The conclusion: Men buy more from manly men. Professor Otterbring, defend your research. Otterbring: The presence of this physically imposing guy in a store uniform as soon as people walked in the door did seem to change the way that men shopped. When he was there, the average bill for male shoppers came to about $165—more than double the average of $72 that women spent during those times and much higher than what either men or women spent when the employee was absent, which was $92 for men and $97 for women. The average price per item men paid was also higher—$18, versus about $10 when the employee wasn’t at the door, which was also the same amount women paid per item at any time. My coauthors and I did this study in conjunction with the Service Research Center, CTF, at Karlstad University. Interestingly, in later research we found that the effect was even greater for male customers of short stature. We think this is because the physically fit male we used activated the classic male competitive instinct. We know that tall, athletic-looking men typically have greater success in economic and mating markets. So when male shoppers saw him, we suspect, they sensed a rival and responded by signaling their own status: They opened their wallets. Men spent twice as much as women did when the fit male employee was present. HBR: And female employees—or less imposing male ones—wouldn’t inspire the same reaction? Previous research has shown that men are indeed more inclined to try to prove their superiority when exposed to physically attractive women. We wanted to explore intrasexual competitive behavior instead. There were, of course, other store employees around during our field study. But we only compared purchases made when this particular male employee was present against those made when he was absent. We suspected that smaller male employees wouldn’t elicit the same effect and found support for that theory in a series of later lab studies. Shorter men just don’t seem to trigger the same evolutionary urge to show off. Why wouldn’t the women also spend more money in the presence of a physically dominant guy? In an evolutionary sense, it’s been more advantageous for women to play up their beauty and health than to highlight their status and wealth. Maybe if we’d conducted our field study in a cosmetics store, we’d have obtained different results. At the same time, research has shown that women respond to intrasexual competition, too. For example, after looking at pictures of attractive women, they’re more likely to favor weight loss pills, extreme exercise, excessive suntanning, and other beautification behaviors. Images of stronger-looking guys caused men to prefer larger logos on clothing. Could it be the timing of the employee’s shift that mattered instead? Men spend more in the afternoon than they do in the morning? We controlled for that by having the employee work after lunch on Saturday and before lunch on Sunday, so he was present at different times on different days. What exactly did he look like? How tall is tall? How muscular is muscular? He was taller than 95% of the American male population, which is also tall in Sweden, and had recently finished competing as a professional track-and-field athlete, so he was perceived as significantly more physically dominant than an average man. And in our follow-up lab experiments, which involved manipulating photos of men to appear either more fit or not, we found that seeing the images of stronger-looking guys caused men (but not women) to prefer larger logos on their clothing. We later determined that this effect was driven by the shorter male study participants, not the taller ones. How does all of this play out for male shoppers who are gay? We didn’t measure or control for sexual orientation in our studies. But given the random assignment of study subjects in the settings we used, we would expect that the number of gay men would be evenly distributed across our experimental groups, and so shouldn’t have strongly influenced the results. I can’t say for sure, but I’d think that gay men could feel the same sense of rivalry as straight men, even if they’re competing for different types of mates. Should retailers that want more business from men change their hiring criteria then? Only “The Rock” look-alikes need apply? If you’re a company selling status-signaling luxury goods—like cars, watches, and clothes—it’s certainly an idea to consider. You probably wouldn’t see the same effect in stores selling more-functional, utilitarian items, however. I’d also note that the big, tall person doesn’t have to be an employee or even physically present, as our lab studies on logo preferences, which used photos of men in both uniforms and street clothes, showed. So we see implications for not just retail hiring but also advertising and marketing. Manly men appear to influence short male shoppers the most. You mean companies can drop the slim male models and short male actors and hire more NBA or NFL stars to sell cars and clothes? You already see some of this: Tom Brady in ads for Movado, Aston Martin, and Ugg; Roger Federer for Rolex and Credit Suisse. But isn’t there something a little amoral about hiring spokesmen or staff whose main role is to make customers feel bad about themselves so that they spend more? Well, I’d say that the psychological mechanism is an increased drive to compete with people of the same gender, not decreased feelings of self-confidence. But retailers will have to decide for themselves whether it’s a good strategic move to, say, assign a taller male employee to handle the account of a shorter male customer. Maybe that would drive more sales in the short run. But it might also cause the short man to leave the store feeling unhappy and not come back, which wouldn’t be good for business. Personally, I would never encourage any organization to hire staff members simply on the basis of looks. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be aware of these superficial biases and understand how heavily they can influence consumption.

Men Buy More from Manly Men

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