From content to consumption, emotional needs pry male users' wallets

Nowadays, most of the popular people are driven by content consumption, which is an expansion of consumer demand. So what content do male consumers pay attention to nowadays? Let's take a look.

Some time ago, Cloure published an analysis of @七七7’s account and content features in the article “The storytelling “electronic girlfriend” has become popular, who is paying for emotional needs?”, which triggered discussions among many industry leaders and practitioners about male emotional content and consumption.

Contents such as love and emotions have always seemed to be of greater interest to women, which has led to a larger number of contents related to women's emotions and feelings on major content platforms, and more attention has been paid to them.

Men's aesthetic tastes and content demands have become increasingly diverse, and emotional content that appeals to the male group has begun to develop rapidly on content platforms. At the same time, men's purchasing power has continued to rise, and some brands centered around men's emotional needs have also begun to emerge.

What are the characteristics of the content that men are interested in nowadays? What commercial possibilities do their content preferences bring? What opportunities does this bring to content creators and brands?

1. Emotional content for men creates diverse needs

According to public data, male users currently account for 50.5% of all Internet users, and the number of male monthly active users has exceeded 611 million. Among them, young male users born in the 1990s and 2000s have shown extremely high activity.

At the same time, the number of active male users continues to increase, but the growth rate is gradually slowing down, and the gap between them and female users is gradually narrowing. As the number of male users increases, some content centered on male emotions and needs is being presented through a diversified trend.

On July 19, Wuyou Media's first live-action interactive short drama "Love Multiple Choice Questions" was officially launched on the STEAM platform. The story unfolds from the first-person perspective of the male protagonist. Players will play the role in the first-person way to find true love, and move between 7 different female characters to show the diversity of emotions.

The picture comes from the official Weibo account of Wuyou Media. "Love Single Choice Question" is exactly the same as last year's hit "It's Over! I'm Surrounded by Beautiful Women". Both of them target male groups as the main audience. Through the form of short plays + interactive games, they explore the emotional needs of men and help male users find the intimate relationships that may be lost in reality.

In fact, this shooting method with a first-person perspective has already existed, and such videos can often be seen in celebrities’ materials. The purpose is to make fans feel more like they are boyfriend or girlfriend.

Presenting it through short plays and interactive games undoubtedly greatly deepens the interaction between users and characters, thereby increasing the user experience.

In addition to short dramas and interactive games, a series of short videos of "electronic girlfriends" have also appeared one after another, and quickly attracted the attention of a large number of male users.

Take @七七7, who was previously dissected by Crawley, for example. She treats her fans like children and tells bedtime stories in a cute and sweet voice. The highest number of likes for a single post has exceeded 600,000.

According to the data from Relang, the gender distribution of @七七7’s fans is mainly male, accounting for about 92.4%, while female fans account for only 7.6%. In addition, @阿七, @炭炭QAQ and other influencers mainly report their daily schedules, making male users feel like they are boyfriends.

The picture shows the gender distribution of @七七7 fans

In addition, male emotional content is not limited to love, but also includes family relationships, workplace pressure, emotional release, etc. This diverse content reflects the emotional needs of men in different life scenarios and also creates more scenes and behaviors for releasing pressure.

For example, outdoor fishing content has become an important window for young male users to release the pressure of life.

@天元邓刚 is one of the most popular content creators in the fishing category, setting a record of 460 million views for a single video. Most of his content is about pretending to be a novice, "cleaning" big fish for the fish pond owner, and then releasing all the "trophies". Now he has even held his own fishing competition.

According to Rewave data, @天元邓刚’s number of fans has exceeded 36.63 million, with males accounting for 87.8%.

The picture shows the gender distribution of @天元邓刚 fans

In this fast-paced, high-pressure social environment, anxiety and depression are the norm for many people.

Fishing videos have become a "gas station" in the work and life of young men, taking them away from the high-pressure life in reality for a short time and allowing them to take a break. In addition, content such as outdoor adventures and catching fish at sea also have the same appeal, bringing psychological relaxation and satisfaction to many male users.

For male audiences, entertainment is not just the cookie-cutter "electronic girlfriend" that it seems on the surface, but also a way to release the mental stress brought by life and work.

2. The reason behind the popularity of content is the expansion of consumer demand

The popularity of content related to men's emotions is inseparable from the rapid rise of the male consumer market. A series of consumption scenarios that were once exclusive to women are being explored by men, driving an increase in demand for male content.

According to public data, the number of male users with online spending power of more than 1,000 yuan has reached more than 150 million in 2023, accounting for 57.2% of the total population, showing the characteristics of high prices and low frequency.

Men's consumption capacity has expanded to all kinds of life and entertainment scenarios. Among young men in first- and second-tier cities, more and more men are taking the initiative to choose skin care and dressing.

At the same time, young men have a higher acceptance rate of dressing and skin care. Among the younger generation of men in first- and second-tier cities, more and more men are beginning to make independent choices about skin care and dressing.

According to Euromonitor data, in 2021, the market size of China's men's clothing industry was 602.951 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 18.04%. From 2022 to 2027, the compound growth rate of China's men's clothing market size may reach 3.43%. In 2025, the men's clothing market size is expected to reach 620 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 18.04%, and in 2027 it is expected to exceed 740.1 billion yuan.

Many brands have begun to grasp the clothing needs of men, expanding their men's product lines or adopting marketing methods suitable for men.

Take Lululemon as an example. Since 2022, the brand has begun to expand into four categories: footwear, tennis, men's golf, and hiking. Later, it signed China's first F1 driver Zhou Guanyu as a brand ambassador, leveraging the attention of male users through sports events that men are interested in.

This year, Lululemon began to open independent men's stores and teamed up with many male fitness experts to promote content. These contents not only provide them with practical shopping suggestions and dressing inspiration, but also meet their needs for improving their self-image.

"Exquisite boys" not only pay attention to clothing and dressing, but also start to search and browse content related to "beauty" such as skin care and makeup. Searching for "men's makeup" on Xiaohongshu, the number of related notes exceeds 600,000, and the number of related notes on "men's skin care" exceeds 730,000, which is only 360,000 last year, more than doubling.

Data released by Douyin e-commerce this year showed that sales of men's skin care products during the 618 shopping festival this year exploded by nearly 150% year-on-year.

The number of male users in vertical categories that once favored women, such as beauty and fashion, is increasing, and the consumer market for related categories is expanding rapidly. Behind the rise of male consumption and content is the mutual penetration of gender consumption.

This means that when marketing products that traditionally have large gender differences, such as beauty products and skin care, a strategy can be adopted that does not emphasize gender differences and advocates the concept of "can be used by both men and women", thereby breaking the distinctions and constraints of the inherent framework and attracting a wider range of consumers.

In addition to the large vertical categories targeting women, niche hobbies preferred by men, such as sea catching, fishing, and mecha model playing, also provide brands with greater room for imagination.

Sky-high priced fishing rods, thousand-yuan camping lights, tens of thousands of yuan fitness equipment... male users are more likely to be "equipment lovers". From product lines to peripherals, brands can try to choose niche tracks that are more closely related to their own brands to seize male consumption preferences.

3. Both content and consumption require moderation and pragmatism

Overall, whether from the perspective of content or consumption, the overall market tends to be "neutral".

Whether it's the national school hunk, the unique boy, the domineering president that women like, or the cute girlfriend, voice actor partner, or even fishing at sea that men like, it's essentially a need for emotional release and companionship.

However, although emotional value is important, the acquisition of emotions should not be too simple and unreal. If users place more and more emotional needs on short videos or even become dependent on them, the illusory emotional bubble will burst and a sense of disappointment will follow.

From a consumer perspective, more and more brands have begun to accelerate their layout in the male consumer market, which makes this market no longer a pure blue ocean.

Although men have a strong desire to consume, their initial decision-making cycle is generally longer than that of female users.

Brands should still return to the consumption needs and consumption concepts of male consumers, adjust and upgrade their strategies according to their needs and concepts, be bold in breakthroughs, and also take into account the capacity and current situation of this market, and guide future development based on market feedback.

Author: TopKlout

Source: WeChat public account "TopKlout"