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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 17, 1983)
Wednesday, August 17, 1983/The Battalion/Page 13 m olitary life l gan akW :naesinil to how( led theirs Advertisers: Don’t ignore single male householders ° [T' 7 ^ United Press International See T NEW YORK - Single men l?i Rore domestic than m days kM'rr : y 0ie ’ but Sti11 3 lGn g Way f t 1 ° m d Lnilt: jccu.nbing to fears of yellow , , K build-up or nng-around- '■'" 'hf! e .collar. ntemeK! So sa y S Judith Langer, an [an aide jj n j on researcher who inter- nts ewed single men in search of lbere a ues to their attitudes on home * e dtteataKousework. Advertisers should pay more se chief t!jh, t j on to the single male ms toldtkljeholder, said Langer, who ibcomn 3(e{ j t h a t nine million Amer- a ' an men live without female if bound -c rn sharp d litners to share domestic ; l>ooka: jores — nearly twice as many as :ionally ittijjraJe ago. veen Read “What’s interesting and dif le- 28, b'. n t is people aren’t waiting for ibered carp. marriage to take their homes se riously,” she said. The men, she added, ‘‘sounded a lot like women in many ways.” One big difference, however, was that male householders had little sense of domestic guilt, Langer claimed. “Women are still struggling with a lot of guilt, trying to live up to mother’s standards — the perfect household, spotless floor, full meals even if you’re eating in front of the television,” she said. “For men that’s just not an issue.” Men tend to approach house hold chores from “the other di rection,” moving from total noninvolvement to a sense of pride in their homes, she said. “They don’t worry if the house cleaning’s perfect, but a lot of men these days do want to look To lure men to try new items advertisers should stress sampling, in-store demonstrations and trial-size packages rather than price- cutting, since men are far less likely than women to switch brands to save money. respectable.” Langer says she personally doesn’t approve “of using guilt as an advertising tactic” for either sex. But less idealistic advertisers had better accept the fact, she said, that “whiter than white wash isn’t an issue for men.” To get her data, Langer inter viewed groups of men, age 21- 55, in Boston, Chicago, Nashvil le and Los Angeles. They in cluded both divorced and never- married men of various ages and income levels. “It’s not intended as a statistic al study,” she said, describing the interviews as an “in-depth approach to Find out a little more about people’s feelings, and buying patterns.” While male householders are getting used to the idea that “real men do laundry, real men cook,” they are still somewhat ill at ease and self-conscious about domestic tasks they never have tackled before, she said. “Most women know how to sew on a button. A lot of 35-year-old men are confronting this for the First time.” Some advertisers, the Langer report said, “exclude men com pletely.” A detergent tailored for “Fine washables” works as well on ski wear as fluffy swea ters. But men may miss the mes sage that the brand was meant for them since the commercials “always show women’s under garments,” she said. Male shoppers are habit- bound, Langer suggested. “Some even continue to buy their ex-wives’ brand long after the divorce.” To lure men to try new items, she said, advertisers should stress sampling, in-store demonstrations and trial-size packages rather than price- cutting, since men are far less likely than women to switch brands to save money. “Many men said they were uncomfortable in supermarkets, which they perceived to be hec tic, crowded, confusing places frequented by women who re sent their intruding,” the report said. “Most also were reluctant to ask where things were located for fear of seeming ‘dumb.’” Since men tend to dislike food shopping, they were inclined to visit only a single store on a shopping trip, favoring conveni ence stores and easily located brands, she said. To combat that, Langer re commended bold advertising, dramatic packaging that is easy to read, and in-store promotions that clearly identify brands. m Cm s Singles’ food costs double family’s the CIA d anyM Hit qualif* lying it IKil I United Press International NEW YORK —- People who ye alone have good reason to , implain about their high cost nn,il t,ivin z until a recent research report in- . gates they pay almost twice as 1f)V wd 1 per capita for food as lar 1W11 13 u ■ households: $30.67 per Bita per week, compared with 16.83. These Figures represent was chitltjeaverage weekly food costs of von, Fras one person and four-person expelled imily from 1977-1982. hisyearati The report for the Newspap- n r Advertising Bureau, Inc., in- Rtes inconvenience and lack conclude [motivation are more to blame sion of lan 0 f shopping sophisti- er Inteli^ cation, carelessness or a spend thrift mentality. Part of the problem probably is food waste, said Stuart Tolley, NAB’s vice president for re search. Most food is packaged for larger households who are still the food stores’ best cus tomers. “Packaging in small quanti ties costs more, when it is avail able,” Tolley said. “It is also like ly the one-person households have higher rates of food spoil age, since they must often buy in larger quantities than they can use for a single meal.” He suggests food industry and food advertisers pay more attention to singles’ needs and wants — since they now repre sent the fastest growing type of household in the United States. Between 1955 and 1980, the number of one-person house holds in the United States grew 263 percent, while the total number of households in creased only 72 percent. In the past decade alone, the number of one-person house holds grew by 64 percent, the bureau report said. Singles are not just the young and never-married. The 558 main telephone interviews con ducted for the bureau by Hayes, Nedved and Associates of Sewickley, Pa., included adult food shoppers of all ages and the divorced and widowed. About 50 interviews were completed in 11 metropolitan areas across the United States: Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Jacksonville, Fla., Kansas City, Mo., Los Angeles-Long Beach, New Orleans, New York, Philadel phia and San Francisco. area is second, with 742,839 singles households and the Chi cago area is third, with 604,303. Census figures show the New York area is No. 1 in singles households — 1.062 million out of a total 3.504 million house holds. The Los Angeles-Long Beach A iM: y M- Ham Kam Restaurant 3805 S. 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