The Hindu Business Line : Men, the elusive consumers bookmark

Men take a SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) approach to shopping, says Mark Tungate in Branded Male: Marketing to Men ( www.vivagroupindia.com). “Get in, do the job, and get the h ell out.” Tempting men to hang around rather than taking their usual hit-and-run approach is, therefore, becoming a popular strategy for retailers, finds Tungate.

A stroke of genius, though, is what BHV did in Paris, by turning an empty warehouse into a male fashion and grooming emporium: the vast basement has DIY (do-it-yourself) equipment of all kinds, where men spend happy hours ‘fingering drill bits and comparing grades of sandpaper’; and there are four floors of clothing and accessories, thus obtaining ‘a monopoly on manly activities in that part of town.’

A corollary insight, however, is that when in need of directions, men can be demanding. “No less than 45 per cent of the men surveyed said that they’d abandoned department stores because ‘no-one was available to assist them with their purchases.’ When they finally needed advice, the only visible employee was operating the cash register.”

Recommended read for the weekend.

Unclogging communication

The Heart of Change: Real- Life Stories of How People Change Their Organizations
John P. Kotter and Dan S. Cohen

Our channels of communication are overstuffed with most of the information being irrelevant or only marginally relevant. So, it helps to do some unclogging, advice John P. Kotter and Dan S. Cohen in The Heart of Change: Real-Life Storie s of How People Change Their Organizations ( www.tatamcgrawhill.com).

Drawing inspiration from Yahoo.com, the company came up with a two-pronged solution: An employee Web site where the company pushes out information every day for employees and then as in My Yahoo! allowing employees to tailor the information they see on their desktops.

Filled with takeaways that can be tried out.

Let not thinking tank

You Only Think Twice: The Definitive Guide to Better Thinking Skills for Indian Executives
K. R. Ravi

In You Only Think Twice: The Definitive Guide to Better Thinking Skills for Indian Executives ( www.jaicobooks.com), K. R. Ravi narrates many anecdotes. Such as this one, in a chapter on numb ers, about an entrepreneur friend of his who had read a huge one-page advertisement issued by a State Government proudly announcing that 100 per cent of the villages in the State had been electrified.

“He rubbed his hands in glee at the prospect of setting up a chain of Internet cafés across the rural areas. I wished him good luck but cautioned him to take such claims with a pinch of salt.”

What happened then? A week later, the entrepreneur was thankful for the caution. Because he found that electrification, according to the State Government, meant the laying of wires; “there was no power supply.”

Ravi alerts executives faced with numbers that there is a whole new profession out there called ‘ecospinning,’ which involves selection and interpretation of information to suit one’s preconceived opinion.

D. Murali

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