On the difficulty of marketing food and drink products to men and/or women

Internet publication

In recent years, food and drink marketers have become increasingly interested in the question of whether there are any meaningful sex/gender differences in the world of taste/flavour perception. However, it turns out that while there are a large number of individual differences in the experience of food/drink, few, if any, fall neatly along sex/gender lines. As such, the marketers of food and drink need to tread very carefully when it comes to marketing food or beverage products specifically at men, or more usually, women. All too often, the brands entering this space soon find their attempts branded crass and/or sexist. Adopting a stealthy or implicit gender-based product development strategy is therefore perhaps more likely to succeed than the explicit targeting of food/beverage-related products in what is undoubtedly a highly-politicized area. That said, the one area where the public appear willing to accept products that are explicitly targeted at men or women is in the case of nutritional foods/supplements.

Authors: Spence, C

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Not peer reviewed
• Host title: Preprints.org
• Publication date: 2018-11-02
• DOI: 10.20944/preprints201811.0029.v1
• Language: English
• Keywords: marketing; food; customization; personalization; sex/gender; nutrition