Advertisers are supposed to be experts on consumer behavior, but you have to wonder sometimes. Though the male demographic was the one that was targeted for the longest time, things have changed. If anything, women spend more money than men, and even when men are spending, they have some sort of input from their wives, if they are indeed married. Some advertisers and companies are good at knowing where the money is coming from, but some others don’t seem to have a clue.
Consumer behavior often dictates the economy. If people feel comfortable to spend, things are very good. There are many different things that can happen to change consumer behavior and sometimes it does not take much. There are exceptions, but when a bad global or national event happens, people stop spending. When they fear for safety or their future, they may horde money. When the unemployment rate is up, people tend to save rather than to spend because they fear for their own jobs. People don’t want to spend when they think they might have hard times ahead.
The companies that do take notice of consumer behavior in woman are the ones that succeed. Though there is still a need to advertise to men, there is just a big a need to get women in on the action. Those commercials that feature half naked women appeal to and work on men, but they turn women off in a big way. I guess if a company is only concerned with male dollars, that will work just fine for them, but the smart company keeps both sexes in mind equally when coming up with advertising strategy and commercial endeavors.
The funny thing about consumer behavior is that it is almost impossible to predict. There are times when experts predict things very well, but they fail just as often. When gas prices shot up a few y ears ago, the consensus was that people would cancel more plans and would drive less often. This turned out to be false. They paid for the higher priced gas and continued on with life. Each summer the prices go up and the experts on consumer behavior make the same prediction and it never happens. That’s what is great about people in general. You can’t predict what they will do in all cases. That is what makes the world an interesting place to live in every single day.
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