John Galioto says he is no metrosexual. He did go to a Utah spa not long ago, but he was lured there by the prospect of hiking and rock climbing more than by the promise of massages and pedicures. Although he did indulge in a few massages when he was there, Galioto says he has not made the leap to lotions and facial peels. He is willing, though, to spend a few extra dollars on quality hair products.
"Just because I'm sensitive and get massages doesn't mean I'm a metrosexual," said Galioto, who took the spa trip last fall during some time off after leaving his job as a vice president at a consulting firm.
The lines are blurring between the men who work with their hands and the men who have their hands worked on. Galioto, who is 39 and lives in Manhattan, displays many of the traits that market researchers find more prevalent in men today.
Although women are often the focus of intense market research, men have rarely received such scrutiny of their buying habits, researchers say. Now businesses from brewers to cable television stations to skin-care companies are taking closer looks and finding that the fashion-obsessed metrosexual man with a library of lotions is just part of the equation in men's consumer behavior. Today, men increasingly blend traditional macho attitudes with a heightened focus on their appearance, market researchers say. They are more in touch with their emotions but still want to be addressed as men. They are breaking new ground and need some direction.
Mary Meehan, executive vice president and co-founder of Iconoculture, a trend tracking agency, said that those born after the mid-1960s were changing the definition of what it means to be a man. Men who came of age starting in the 1980s, after the feminist movement, have more opportunity to define themselves as they see fit, and their identities range across a broad spectrum, from the metrosexual to the beer-swilling football fan.
"There is more freedom today for men to be whoever they want to be," Meehan said.
Many companies have been rethinking their approach to men. Even beer companies, long the standard-bearers of traditional male attitudes, have noticed something different in the brew. The Miller Brewing Co said that its research found that men were not content with the bikini-babe frat-party image of much beer advertising.
"Men are tired of being depicted as Neanderthals, as if they have no mental capacity and can't make choices," said Tom Bick, senior brand manager for the Miller trademark.
In his research, Bick has found that men are more able to express their feelings, and are more willing to see women as people -- not just party accessories.
As a result of this research, Miller has reworked its new television commercials, which focus on Miller's beer as an intelligent alternative to other beers and portray its drinkers as people who stand apart from the crowd. In one ad for Miller Lite that started during the winter, people in a long line fall into one another like dominoes until one person steps out of the line and orders a Miller. It was an effort to align the brand with a sense of individuality.
That approach resonates with the market research done by Lowe & Partners Worldwide, an advertising agency that is part of the Interpublic Group of Companies. Joan Dufresne, executive vice president for strategic services at Lowe, said that many men were moving away from a party-boy vision of maleness put out by magazines like Maxim and FHM.
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