Editor's Note: It's a Man's World

For decades, retailers have been actively targeting women of all sorts: girls, teenagers, mothers, working women — you name it. A look around the retail blogosphere in recent weeks however reveals that a shift appears to be taking place. Retailers are making a concerted effort to reach out to men. Consider the following:

• For four days during this year’s Father’s Day weekend, an Ikea in Australia tested “Manland,” a male-only playland created so women could drop off their men for 30 minutes of fun while they shopped for furniture. Manland featured an Xbox 360, foosball tables, free hot dogs, televised sporting events, among other activities. Women were given buzzers with 30-minute timers to remind them to pick up their husband/boyfriend/father/brother.
• In the trendy SoHo, Nolita and Meatpacking District neighborhoods of Manhattan, several menswear stores (e.g., Onassis Clothing, Seize sur Vingt and Billy Reid) have begun lubricating the shopping experience for their male clientele with everything from microbrews to specially made cocktails.
• CVS and Procter & Gamble (P&G) have developed a prototype aisle designed to make it easier for men to find and purchase grooming products in the pharmacy’s stores. Dubbed the “guy aisle,” the initiative was launched in September in CVS stores in Charlotte, N.C. and Tinley Park, Ill. The guy aisle features products targeted for men’s grooming needs from brands including Gillette, Old Spice and Head & Shoulders.
• P&G also created a “Men’s Zone” in select H-E-B supermarkets earlier this year. These stores-within-stores carve out aisles specially tailored to meet men’s grooming needs. In addition to featuring products from P&G and other manufacturers, the Men’s Zones have touchscreens that highlight new products and grooming tips, as well as flat-screen TVs that broadcast sporting events and other programming of interest to men.

What’s going on here? In my opinion, retailers are just doing what they do best: identifying trends and opportunities in the marketpalce, then taking steps to monetize them. In this case they’ve identified men as a target market and are finding ways to meet their (shopping) needs.