Gender aesthetics determine customer choice

Via Brother Henry

What determines whether a product is a best-seller or a veritable flop? The answer, it seems, could have a lot to do with the integrity of the product design. Specifically, much can depend on whether the item has been successfully “gendered” — that is, it displays properties that can be classified as either masculine or feminine.

This is the conclusion from the latest piece of research from three academics at St Gallen in Switzerland — Miriam van Tilburg, Theo Lieven, and Andreas Herrmann — and Claudia Townsend, assistant professor of marketing at the University of Miami School of Business in the US.

Consumers are more likely to buy a product if it displays either feminine design characteristics (light-coloured, slim, lightweight, with curved lines) or male ones (angular, robust, heavy, dark-coloured), says Prof Townsend. Those products that combine aesthetics from both groups are less likely to be attractive, and therefore less likely to sell.

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