Wellness, Beauty and Gender-Neutral Backdrops
Do you remember when you started to notice people drinking water in bottles? Since those of us who are Baby Boomers or Gen Xers grew up with soft drinks (or "pop" as we used to say in my Midwestern neck of the woods) all around us, that changeover was extremely odd. Well…, just as the beverage industry likely now revolves around something not even considered a part of the industry previously (drinking water was not "manufactured/produced" back then), so too does the "beauty" industry now seem to be more of a health and wellness industry.
We’ll leave a discussion of the current transition from bottled water to people drinking their own faucet water as fodder for another day…
Anyway -
Because I am on the lookout for any gender-focus shifts in the consuming world, I’m starting to track this sort of randomness. And, I am certainly starting to see more product categories that used to be very "girly" now shift into a more neutral territory. So, the IRI Research mentioned in a recent MediaPost article by Sarah Mahoney came as no big surprise. As reported in that piece:
"Burt’s Bees started a niche trend that is
driving the future of skincare," writes Leigh Anne Rowinski, beauty
industry trend expert for IRI, in her year-end review of the beauty
industry, predicting that health and wellness will continue to shape
consumer demand across all categories of the beauty industry.
In the same way that "beverages" now refers mainly to bottled water as opposed to Coca-Cola, for example, it would seem that "beauty" is shape-shifting into wellness before our very eyes. Now - stop and read that again and think below the surface.
Even given all the female implications of the word itself, and as it represents an industry comprised of (mainly) women-specific products, "beauty" is now perhaps less important than wellness, with its often more gender-neutral offerings.
The health and wellness realm would seem to be a less feminine "backdrop"* for products that can benefit a wide range of consumers, male or female. Lotions and shampoos remain, but their perceived purpose now leans more toward bodily health/upkeep, a non-gendered backdrop. In general, skincare (anti-aging and sun protection, especially) is doing much better, saleswise, than makeup (but there has been an increase in eye makeup sales, interestingly), which seems to follow this backdrop theory (e.g. skin is gender-neutral and more generally health indicative, while make-up is a type of add-on for women, usually).
This shift in perspective or response to a gender backdrop came not from the beauty industry itself, but was driven by consumers. As women’s perspective on beauty changed in recent years (as most exemplified/leveraged by the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty), so too did the male consumer’s perspective change on whether or not such products could ever be for him.
This does not mean that a focus on "marketing to women," as such, should be chucked out the window, as much as it seems to mean that the truths therein are becoming the best way to reach everyone. Make "beauty" into wellness, female-specificity gets less attention, and brands have an expanded number of core customers to serve with relevance. Today, women.. and men, seek more naturally made products that speak to their health and longevity, and that’s not girly.
*I first read the term "backdrop" in relation to gender in Where Men Hide, a fascinating book by James Twitchell. The direct quote: "…interestingly, both sexes seem to take on their gender affect through the company of men. Women become feminine against the backdrop of men, while men become masculine in the company of men."
Along the same lines, Virginia Heffernan wrote a piece for the New York Times Magazine in December, "Stereo Sanctuaries," about which I commented in a letter to the editor a few weeks later. Yes, you do detect a theme in my current research…
