Mr Grocery Shopper
For many food and wine businesses, it’s very common to consider advertising to women online before considering men.
Traditionally, this was a great strategy for a lot of businesses before the age of the Internet took hold. In fact, for much of the twentieth century, women were considered the primary grocery shopping in a large amount of households. It was considered just good business to tailor ads to women.
Now, things have changed quite a bit. Studies have shown that men shop for groceries just as often as women do— and that is not likely to change anytime soon. While female shoppers are likely to spend more money on a grocery trip than men, shopping trips are getting shorter and smaller as well. Most grocery trips are made for less than ten items, and that applies to men.
When it comes to digital marketing, grocery and food businesses need to start looking at how they can properly market to Mr Grocery Shopper in a new and rapidly changing environment.
Does your online marketing campaign reach Mr Grocery Shopper?
Think about the biases your advertising campaigns may have. It’s certainly fair to market to women specifically— however, is the some exclusivity in your advertising campaigns that could be overlooking what Mr Grocery Shopper may be looking for?
The majority of the household grocery shoppers in Gourmet Ads are female shoppers. However, there are also large segments of our clients’ audiences that are single men or men with families. We like to call this segment “Mr Grocery Shopper.”
Over the past decade, the household has changed and traditional roles have shifted. Men are now taking on a greater percentage of the household shopping than in the past. Today, in some markets, almost one-third of men are now the principal shoppers in the home— whether they are shopping for themselves or their entire family.
According to Nielsen research, the percentage of female vs male grocery shoppers is 61% female and 39% male. This is strikingly similar to our own gender demographic breakdown for the Gourmet Ads network, which is 62% female and 38% male. This indicates how inlined our audience is with industry research.
If you’re not particularly used to marketing food and wine to men, you’re probably thinking that the Mr Grocery Shopper stereotype is just a guy stacking his shopping basket full of beer, BBQ products, and men’s health products like shaving creams and deodorants. However, this is far from the case— and is indeed a stereotype that could be bad for your business.
So what exactly is Mr Grocery Shopper trying to buy? What kind of products does he use the most and would notice more readily in a digital advertising campaign?
What is Mr Grocery Shopper actually buying?
Across the board, men are buying for the entire household as well as just themselves. Note this snapshot of what men typically buy on an average basis:
- Canned Seafood (61%)
- Refrigerated Juices, Drinks (61%)
- Prepared Food-Ready-to Serve Stew (59%)
- Herbal Package Tea (57%)
- Prepared Food-Ready-to Serve Lasagna (55%)
- Health Bars & Sticks (54%)
- Non-Sliced Refrigerated Lunch Meat (53%)
- Refrigerated Yogurt and Shakes (52%)
- Dishwasher Rinsing Aids (52%)
Targeted ads that involve products in these niches will reach a male audience in a much more effective way than, say, general grocery ads or recipe ads.
Different Advertising Techniques can be used to expand your campaign’s reach with ease. A well-rounded ad campaign takes all genders into consideration when marketing. It’s certainly fine to continue successfully ad campaigns that target women specifically, but mixing it up with more male interest is a great way to broaden your business’s demographics.
Reach Your Male Clientele with Gourmet Ads
Does your online advertising campaign reach Mr Grocery Buyer? Targeting specific demographics can be a challenge, especially for extremely niche food businesses.
Luckily, Gourmet Ads is an excellent solution. Brands, brand advertisers, media planners, and media buyers use Gourmet Ads because our system simply works.
We directly manage publishers and boast highly targeted ads via programmatic marketing. That means that your product advertisements get on the blogs that your customers are using to look up recipes, right when they need that specific product. That includes Mr Grocery Shopper, too. We’ll help you build an ad campaign and find the right places to market online, quickly and easily.
