Branding the MAN

Mission impossible right? Menswear, in general, is probably the part of the industry that'd got maybe, a little bit lost.

Unfortunately, men are our chosen consumer for the new Fragrance brief. I can't say that I'm surprised that we've found a gap in the market to promote men's fragranced products, as quite frankly, they don't really care.

We all know the disappointing wiff of Lynx all to well - their cloak of pong that follows them EVERYWHERE. Guys, we don't want to suffocate in your presence. As much as this project is about smell, the most concerning thing that we discovered about men's buying habits of fragranced products is that the products involved in a beauty routine, just aren't purchased.

Sure, they may have a break out and go to buy some magic spot healing cream, but they literally do just that - they buy into function, not into the brand, the morals of that brand, the packaging... barely anything. They look for solutions to the problems, which is all well and good until you discover just how much they're missing out on: how much they are missing the point.

The average bloke basically doesn't have a clue.

Since the post 80's 'Buff Revolution' the definition of masculinity has changed, and in turn, so has the modern man. Men's bodies were fetishised as much as women's, and suddenly it became an art to look flawless. This ideal is still around, somewhere, but tools such as Photoshop and Snapchat filters have made these goals almost unreachable. So in a sense, men gave up.

Without going all political about inflation and the actual mess that is capitalism, the things worth buying just aren't realistic anymore. They're not affordable, they don't cater to a man's needs and they almost never consider targeting such a difficult demographic like the male one.

"Today, men's fashion is less about the fleeting trends.. than it is about the awakening of a man's self-expression and self-creation."

If this can be written in 2009, then how can we revive this now? Where is my self-expressed and self-created man?

We will have to do a heck of a lot of research, but I'm sure we can draw him out of the woodwork. Something will resinate with a male consumer without having to force him too much to take notice of what we're trying to say. If we ever figure that out that is.

(Insights taken from 'Branding The Man' by Bertrand Pellegrin)