Chaz Browning
SAN DIEGO (TNA) – Looking for women is like grocery shopping. Sometimes you know what you’re gonna pick up before you even leave home.
Other times, though, you get lured in by the packaging. Or maybe it’s a bargain bin discount, past-the-due-date sale, or the Holy Grail of cruising for women: the 2-for-1 special.
Here at The Naughty American, we get excited just thinking about the 2-for-1. We haven’t actually found it, but that got us to thinking about just how men “browse the aisles” when looking for women.
Luckily, the folks at A.C. Nielsen have made life easier for us. The pollsters tracked the behavior of supermarket shoppers and broke their body language into four categories.
We agree wholeheartedly with the Nielsen results and have applied their research to our own findings on male pickup behavior.
Of course, Nielsen didn’t have the pickup scene in mind. We’re a bit shallower, though … and did.
Auto Pilot
Nielsen calls this behavior the “grab-and-go mode,” because shoppers are making habitual decisions. They’re not in the mood to try anything new. “Items such as coffee, cereal, cheese, and margarine … are purchased in auto-pilot mode,” Nielsen says.
We think we know what they’re talking about. Guys occasionally go into “Auto Pilot” mode, and we have places to do it. Here in San Diego, it’s called Adelita’s. In Las Vegas, it’s The Pussycat Ranch. In other parts of the country, it goes by “Asian massage parlor.”
Variety-Seeking
Nielsen says that “consumers seem to get bored with the same choices in certain categories.” They look for a change of pace when shopping for such items as cold cereal, biscuits, salad dressings, and chewing gum.
Hey, we understand. Nielsen calls it cold cereal and biscuits. We call it “marriage,” and “long-term relationships.” We don’t like them either, and are always looking for a little variety. The only difference between supermarket shoppers and men is that the former don’t drive two towns over to buy their salad dressing.
Buzz
The pollsters report, “Shoppers are most likely to be influenced by catchy advertising and new product introductions.” Items that fall into this category are sports drinks and chocolate.
And damn if they aren’t right. In fact, we caught “Chocolate” the last time she came through San Diego. The goods were fantastic, but it was the packaging that won us over. She had a few – er, a couple – enhancements since the last time we saw her. And we were particularly susceptible to the quarter-page advertisement in the back of the local weekly.
Bargain Hunting
According to Nielsen, bargain-hunted items are bought entirely on price comparison and promotions: “Consumers in this shopping mode are on a mission and the mission is savings.” Canned tuna, canned tomatoes, and canned fruit all make up products in the category.
Thank youuu, Craigslist. It’s where guys go when they want to do a little price-sensitive shopping. What did our fathers do without it?
We don’t waste our time in W4M, by the way. That’s L4ME. We like to go straight to the Erotic Services section and scroll through page after page of canned tuna falling all over themselves to post the lowest price.
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Nielsen is onto something with their supermarket findings. While we’re skeptical that anyone in America actually watches “Dancing with the Stars,” we do believe that people buy margarine without comparing brands.
Now, if they’d just do a survey of where to find 2-for-1 specials.