I was not going to blog about Valentine’s Day, but even one who is ambivalent to it is still surrounded by all the Valentine’s Day messages around them and you will have some form of opinion about it, be that positive, negative or neutral.
Surprisingly Valentine’s Day wasn’t so in your face this year. I think the trend of purchasing online has spread even more for Valentine’s Day. I wonder if this is one of the reasons why it wasn’t as aggressive in terms of advertising, in my eyes, this year. You can’t exactly compare Valentine’s Day to a holiday like Christmas. There are no specific set ‘traditions’ as for Christmas, so you have the freedom to make it whatever you like. Yes, of course it is all about marketing! It’s a day when you exchange presents, so we must observe the purchasing patterns. Stores don’t need to completely transform their decorations as the people seeking for the perfect present for their partner will look everywhere.
So, what do people give each other for Valentine’s Day? You can buy flowers or a diamond ring, it’s your choice. There’s no etiquette in overdoing it. You may be the kind of couple who goes away for a weekend, you may go out for dinner, exchange cards, presents, be part of the friends who are single and buy each other small presents or go out… or you may be the bitter single person who devours a bottle of wine by themselves; funnily enough you are making a Valentine’s Day purchase as well just like the rest of the consumers. If you are anti-Valentine’s Day, you are making a statement that no one cares about and actually promoting Valentine’s Day. At the end of the day, we are all involved somehow. And the more we buy, the better (well, for the marketers, not our pockets).
So my question is, if you bought anything this year for your partner or friend, did you buy it online?
This year’s online summary[1] suggested that gender related searches for Valentine’s gifts are much more skewed towards men than women. In the last four weeks, of all the gift searches 209% contained ‘him’ whereas only 8% contained ‘her’. The research would suggest that women find it harder to buy for men than men do for women, but the summary also suggested men might be ‘less organised than women and therefore have to do their shopping offline at the last minute’.
Judging by the statistics, more women are inclined to do their shopping online for men, however most of the time it’s all the websites for women that are more concentrated on Valentine’s Day with products and services targeted at them, to create this Valentine’s Day feel. What are the chances of a man having the patience to go through all these websites, overload of the colors pink, red and white, without giving up after 3 minutes and deciding to go and get some flowers and chocolate instead? Let this thought save the men from the statement above saying they do their shopping offline the last minute; there may be lots of different other reasons behind this.
The other theory: are women secretly treating themselves on Valentine’s Day? ‘Valentine’s lingerie is the fastest moving gift year-on-year showing a 10-fold uplift in searches since Valentine’s Day 2011. The most searched for lingerie colour is black, followed by red, pink and white.’ So the women are ordering presents for the men online as well as lingerie for themselves? Assuming the ‘her’ keyword was associated with women.
I personally don’t think it’s because men leave things last minute. I believe men are more inclined to purchase online, especially for such an event where they may not want to browse the stores (especially if they wish to purchase something they would rather not seek assistance for…). There should be more websites for men where they can find gifts for their female ‘friends’ without it being overdone, however we also need to meet the demand for women who may be seeking websites that are more focused on presents targeted at men, making it more user-friendly for a female, arranging it in a more attractive manner that will make them want to purchase.
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