Branded Male: Marketing to Men [Hardcover]

Mark Tungate (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 28, 2008

Branded Male discusses the evolution of the male consumer and the efforts of marketers to tap into the underdeveloped male market. Using a typical modern male's weekday as a template, the book considers all the opportunities for marketing to him and the best ways to exploit these opportunities. Through this template, Branded Male examines male-centered branding in areas as diverse as cars, restaurants, technology, fashion & grooming, bars, gyms and books. Tungate also traces the evolution of the male consumer over the course of the past years, providing insight into how marketing experts have successfully targeted men.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

According to Tungate (Fashion Brands), while women see shopping as a leisure activity, men consider it a dull necessity—making them hard targets for eager advertisers. Citing changing historical ideals of masculinity, from the scruffy cowboy to the metrosexual, Tungate describes how men typically engage with brands, using the course of a typical day as framework—from grooming to clothing, car and sex. Male consumer patterns are rapidly changing; sales of grooming products for men in Europe and the U.S. are estimated to jump significantly in the next few years, from $31.6 billion in 2003 to $40 billion in 2010, and the Branded Toolkit wrap-ups at the end of each chapter offer tips for marketing products from alcohol to hotels to these increasingly keen shoppers, paying close attention to the factors that tend to attract men: functionality, authenticity, status and cool. Tungate can't quite decide if he wants to be writing a sociological study or a guide for marketing professionals; he muses at length about the histories of male habits and social behavior, but deviates fleetingly, and almost as an afterthought, into individual branding strategies from companies like Ikea and Dunhill. The book displays useful information, but its absurdly high price and concentration on specifically British consumers might make this a tough sell to the very audience Tungate is trying to reach. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

"A well-researched overview of a particular kind of new modern male." - Choice

See an excerpt on the American Educational Foundation website!

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Kogan Page (April 28, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0749450118
• ISBN-13: 978-0749450113
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #966,636 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding Book Packed With Info, July 28, 2008

By 

Mel Odom (Moore, OK USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Branded Male: Marketing to Men (Hardcover)

I have to admit, I'm one of those tough sells Mark Tungate writes about in BRANDED MALE: MARKETING TO MEN. I hate shopping and see it only as an evil necessity. I don't buy trendy, and I hate the whole corporate look because I'll never look like the models that parade around in that attire.

Women have a rougher go of it than men do because our society pushes them into constant upgrades. Men tend to roll along stuck at whatever pinnacle they reached shortly after graduating high school. Generally men buy clothes when they gain weight (of course, the clothes are SHRINKING in the dryer), ruin a favorite shirt, or run out of necessities like tee shirts, socks, and underwear due to attrition. Most men have shirts that have birthdays and anniversaries.

Tungate addresses all these issues in a much more elegant manner than I have here, but I think I've summed up his approach. While shopping for clothing or toiletries is a social experience for most women, giving them the chance to catch up on life stories as well as get a supporting vote for a new and daring purchase, men don't gather like that. I've seen men gather to buy shotguns, and generally they go for a two for one to buy a his and his, bass boats, or golf equipment. Even that doesn't require accompaniment, though. Guys just get together after the initial purchase and ogle each others' goods.

I approached Tungate's BRANDED MALE: MARKETING TO MEN with more curiosity than interest. I like to speculate on what markets are going to open up and how advertisers are going to address them. Being a self-employed novelist, I pay a lot of attention to emerging technology, consumer paradigm shifts, and marketing.

Tungate's tour de force covers clothing, cosmestics, grooming, cars, periodicals and books (which offered me some insights I hadn't considered before and found very interesting), and sex. I thought most of it seemed Euro-centric to a degree, or maybe East Coast here in the United States, but it was intensely readable.

I love history, and Tungate brings a lot of history into the book that I didn't expect. I found the marketing aspect interesting, but I was more taken with the history that he delivers. These manifested as brief snippets laced throughout the text that anchored the points he made and allowed me to better understand what he was saying. I'll bet most readers that pick this book up will experience the same thing.

I actually planned to allow myself time to read a chapter a day, basically covering each of the topics Tungate proposes. Instead, I was sucked in by the writing and compelled to keep turning pages. I hadn't expected to be as captivated by the subject as I was (after all, I am male and we have short attention spans and tend not to over think dress and style).

As a novelist by trade, I found a lot of information in the book that I plan on using in my writing. I know I've read a good book when it finds a place on my shelf (and I've got limited space at this point). BRANDED MALE: MARKETING TO MEN is a great, fun read with plenty of information and marketing tips. The text is broken up into a modified block format (each paragraph has a double-space between it that allows plenty of white space) and that layout actually made the book even easier to read.

If you're interested in marketing, or understanding your husband's reluctance to go shopping even when he needs to, Tungate explains some of what's going on. Anyone that's read Alissa Quart's book BRANDED: THE BUYING AND SELLING OF TEENAGERS will enjoy this one as a follow-up. And if you haven't read Quart's book, you're in for two books that are definite eye-openers.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Understanding How to Market to Men, April 26, 2008

By 

Thomas Scotti - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Branded Male: Marketing to Men (Hardcover)

If you are in the business of selling products and/or services to men, you should be reading this book. This is one of best books that helps you understand the man of today. What he wants and where he wants to get it from. I found it very helpful when developing my marketing plans for 2008. Highly recommend this book to business owners, salesmen and marketers of men's products and services.

4.0 out of 5 stars How to Aim Marketing at Men, December 19, 2008

By 

Rolf Dobelli "getAbstract" (Switzerland) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Branded Male: Marketing to Men (Hardcover)

Mark Tungate explores how to market to the elusive, desirable male demographic by following a fictitious young businessman throughout his day. This glimpse of how a prototype male engages with different brands indicates what men generally look for in a product and how to reach them with your marketing. Tungate explores several consumer categories, including grooming, fashion, travel, cars and sex. Curiously, much of his book is off-point, yet his writing detours are appealing and enlightening. For instance, he has a proclivity for outlining the history of various brands, but declines to explain what marketing avenues these labels traveled on the road to branding success. Instead, he brings the subject back on-point by including a helpful "branding toolkit" at the conclusion of each chapter. Although other positioning books might prove more practical, getAbstract suggests that marketers and brand managers will find Tungate's meandering, evocative anecdotal approach more enjoyable.