Page 131 - Harvard Business Review, Sep/Oct 2018

IMAGES OF
status and wealth. Maybe if we’d STRONGER-LOOKING Should retailers that want
conducted our field study in GUYS CAUSED MEN more business from men “Read cover
a cosmetics store, we’d have (BUT NOT WOMEN) change their hiring criteria
TO PREFER LARGER
obtained different results. At LOGOS ON THEIR then? Only “The Rock” look- to cover.
the same time, research has CLOTHING. alikes need apply? If you’re a
shown that women respond to company selling status-signaling Superb.”
intrasexual competition, too. For luxury goods—like cars, watches, and
example, after looking at pictures of clothes—it’s certainly an idea to consider. Tom Peters
attractive women, they’re more likely to You probably wouldn’t see the same effect Author, In Search of Excellence;
favor weight loss pills, extreme exercise, in stores selling more-functional, utilitarian Thinkers50 Hall of Fame
excessive suntanning, and other items, however. I’d also note that the big,
beautification behaviors. tall person doesn’t have to be an employee
or even physically pres ent, as our lab
Could it be the timing of the employee’s studies on logo preferences, which used
shift that mattered instead? Men spend photos of men in both uniforms and street
more in the afternoon than they do in clothes, showed. So we see implications
the morning? We controlled for that by for not just retail hiring but also advertising
having the employee work after lunch and marketing.
on Saturday and before lunch on Sunday,
so he was pres ent at different times on You mean companies can drop the slim
different days. male models and short male actors and
hire more NBA or NFL stars to sell cars
What exactly did he look like? How tall and clothes? You already see some of
is tall? How muscular is muscular? He this: Tom Brady in ads for Movado, Aston
was taller than 95% of the American male Martin, and Ugg; Roger Federer for Rolex
population, which is also tall in Sweden, and Credit Suisse.
and had recently finished competing as
a professional track-and-field athlete, so But isn’t there something a little + FREE
he was perceived as significantly more amoral about hiring spokesmen or staff GIFT
physically dominant than an average man. whose main role is to make customers
And in our follow-up lab experiments, feel bad about themselves so that
which involved manipulating photos of they spend more? Well, I’d say that the Filled with thought-
men to appear either more fit or not, we psychological mechanism is an increased
found that seeing the images of stronger- drive to compete with people of the provoking ideas and
looking guys caused men (but not women) same gender, not decreased feelings of insights from leading
to prefer larger logos on their clothing. We self-confidence. But retailers will have global academics
later determined that this effect was driven to decide for themselves whether it’s a and management
by the shorter male study participants, not good strategic move to, say, assign a taller practitioners. Published
the taller ones. male employee to handle the account by Canada’s leading
of a shorter male customer. Maybe business school.
How does all of this play out for that would drive more sales in
male shoppers who are gay? the short run. But it might also
We didn’t measure or control MANLY MEN cause the short man to leave Subscribe today and
APPEAR TO
for sexual orientation in our INFLUENCE SHORT the store feeling unhappy receive our mini issue
studies. But given the random MALE SHOPPERS and not come back, which on creativity FREE!
assignment of study subjects in THE MOST. wouldn’t be good for business.
the settings we used, we would Personally, I would never
expect that the number of gay men encourage any organization to
would be evenly distributed across hire staff members simply on the Just
.
/year
our experimental groups, and so shouldn’t basis of looks. But that doesn’t mean we Available in print or digital
have strongly influenced the results. shouldn’t be aware of these superficial
I can’t say for sure, but I’d think that gay biases and understand how heavily they www.rotman.utoronto.ca/hbr
men could feel the same sense of rivalry as can influence consumption.
straight men, even if they’re competing for Interview by Alison Beard
different types of mates. HBR Reprint F1805B