What Men And Woman Want -- Online

The title of this post (What Men And Woman Want — Online) is also the title of a research report that I published with Ross Popoff-Walker earlier this year (we had fun picking that title). In that report, we looked at what different consumer groups liked most about their online experiences. Since we had about 5,000 consumer responses, we were able to examine differences across both genders (male/famale) and generations (GenY, Gen X, Younger Boomers, Older Boomers, and Seniors). 

The survey asked consumers to select important elements in their most frequently visited site. One of the interesting pieces of insight came from looking at which consumers selected “it was fun.” Here’s what we found:

• Young consumers are the most fun loving. No surprise; Gen Y (males and females) were the most likely to select “it was fun” from the list. About 40% of those younger consumers thought it was an important element of their favorite site.
• Men become less interested in fun as they age. Gen Y males were slightly more likely to select “it was fun” than were Gen Y females. In older generations, however, females became more likely to say that fun was important. And the gap increases in every age group — growing from a 1% gap for Gen Xers (32% versus 31%) to a 6% gap in Seniors (24% versus 18%).

The bottom line: Consider infusing some ”fun” into your online efforts. It’s important for many Gen Yers and one-quarter of Senior females.