MAM
Leo Burnett study sheds light on global male identity crisis
MUMBAI: Leo Burnett Worldwide unveiled the results of a proprietary global study of men’s attitudes and values at the Cannes International Advertising Festival in its seminar, ‘Metros Versus Retros: Are Marketers Missing Real Men?’
The agency interviewed more than 2,000 men in 13 countries to explore the evolving state of masculinity around the world and explain the opportunities and challenges for marketers.
The study was presented by Leo Burnett Worldwide chairman and CEO Tom Bernardin, Leo Burnett Worldwide deputy chief creative officer Mark Tutssel and Leo Burnett Worldwide global planning director – beauty care and director of planning for Japan Linda Kovarik.
This study was done following Burnett’s 2004 Cannes presentation on advertising to women, ‘Miss Understood – She’s Not Buying Your Ads.’
“There has never been a more relevant time to reassess the state of masculinity, particularly as it affects buying patterns and trends in global marketing. While the world has been focused on women, men have been undergoing some significant changes of their own. An equally comprehensive look at men is long overdue, and it was our goal in Cannes to help put things in perspective. The last thing we want is to look back in ten years and find that we have unwittingly created the same clichés that female advertising is riddled with,” said Bernardin.
Identity Crisis
Overall, findings from the Leo Burnett Man Study highlight the disruption of men’s sense of identity due to profound social and structural changes taking place across the globe. The study confirmed that men in most parts of the world are unsure of what’s expected of them in society, with half of those surveyed saying they felt their role in society was unclear. Additionally, a stunning 74 per cent said they believe the images of men in advertising are out of touch with reality.
“As the world is drifting toward a more feminine perspective, many of the social constructs men have taken for granted are undergoing significant shifts or being outright dismantled. It’s a confusing time, not just for men, but for marketers as well as they try to target and depict men meaningfully,” said Bernardin.
Metros vs. Retros
The study revealed the existence of a “New Male Spectrum,” characterised on one end by enlightened, evolved, modern men – or what have been popularly dubbed “metrosexuals,” and on the other end, entrenched, more traditionally masculine “retrosexuals” who cling steadfastly to stereotypical male behavior. Both groups are engaged by the gender debate and see themselves in terms relative to women: either they’re more like women (Metros) or they’re aggressively asserting their difference from women, (Retros).
The agency cautioned marketers against becoming fixated on these men who are adapting – or not – to women’s new power and influence in society. According to the Man Study, fewer than 40 per cent of men define themselves this way: the majority of men surveyed (60 per cent) aren’t caught up in this gender debate and live by a more traditional set of standards for assessing their masculinity.
This larger group is more focused on defining themselves in the eyes of other men, largely by seeking respect and admiration for being successful in their professional life on one end of the spectrum, or their personal, family life on the other. The study dubs these men on the “Traditional Male Spectrum” as Power Seekers and Patriarchs, respectively, and contends they are largely overlooked by popular culture, the media and marketers.
Surprising Findings
In assessing men’s attitudes and values, the study also uncovered some surprising findings.
Men may be more sensitive than we give them credit for: The greatest insult to a man, according to those surveyed, is that “He’ll never amount to anything” (29 per cent), followed by “Everyone laughs behind your back” (24 per cent) and “You’re stupid” (21 per cent).
Men may be less interested in money than happiness: The study participants overwhelmingly said that they’d rather have a job they love (73 per cent) v/s a job that pays well (27 per cent).
Men are torn when it comes to taking care of others v/s themselves: When asked about their ultimate male fantasy, those surveyed ranked “ending world hunger” (No. 1) and “being a world famous sports star” (No. 2) above “being married to a supermodel” (No. 3).
Study Conclusions
In light of these findings, the seminar offered several recommendations for marketers:
Embrace make complexity: There’s more to men than many of the media clichés and stereotypes suggest.
Anticipate male adaptation: Men are adapting all around the world, even in traditional societies and developing markets. It’s part of how they cope with change.
Let the primal man out to play: It’s okay to indulge a man’s sense of masculinity. This encompasses everything from using sex as a marketing ploy to locker room humor.
Grab ’em by the balls: Create smart brand positionings and provocative imagery that register with a uniquely male point of view.
Stop looking in the mirror of today: We need to consider how the changes in society are affecting changes in men. Advertising stays relevant by reflecting the zeitgeist.
Bernardin summarised the presentation as a wake-up call to the industry and at the end of the seminar, reiterated that marketers will miss real men if they don’t tune in to how they are adapting to society’s changes.
He also encouraged the men in the audience to share their attitudes by taking the Leo Burnett Man Study. Additional findings will be unveiled during Advertising Week in New York City in September 2005.
The study was conducted by a team of Leo Burnett planners from around the network in 13 markets including Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, the UK, France, Germany, Italy, India, Russia, the US, China, Australia and Saudi Arabia. In total, 45 focus groups were held in which the agency talked to single men, men with families and older, “empty nester” men.
Quantitative research was conducted in four countries, including the US, France, Brazil and India. In each country a nationally representative sample of 500 men, aged 18-64, was interviewed. Examination of the data included a segmentation analysis, which included over 63 behavioral, lifestyle and attitude statements. Beyond its own research, Leo Burnett conducted interviews and reviewed secondary sources and published data.
The biggest conversations in entertainment usually revolve around scale. Bigger launches, bigger stars, bigger production budgets, bigger platform strategies. Yet one of the clearest signs of market maturity shows up somewhere much smaller. It’s in the words they use every day: title cards, app menus, summaries, promotional descriptions, and push notifications. If all content sounds the same, the line blurs before they even click play.
It’s becoming more apparent as global platforms compete against regional ones in a world that’s increasingly multilingual and mobile-first. A team can spend hours crafting a content slate, but then rush to get the announcing copy out to the world. In a frenzied world like that, a grammar checker can be a lifeline in weeding out bad writing, awkward structure, and unwanted mistakes in content that’s going to be displayed on platforms, banners, and notifications.
The era of generic entertainment language
A strange sameness has crept into digital entertainment. Too many shows are described with the same flat phrases. Too many thrillers are called gripping. Too many dramas are labeled emotional. Too many reality formats are described as exciting journeys. The words may be completely right, yet they don’t stick in the reader’s mind.
It’s crucial to keep in mind that individuals take in material at an unprecedented rate. They are not meeting content through a critic’s essay or a full trailer every time. Often they meet it through a few words on a screen. Those words are doing more work than many teams admit.
Words have become a part of the user experience in a cluttered streaming world. They set the mood, build anticipation, help people make choices, and show them if something fits with their way of thinking, their style, or their daily life. If the writing isn’t very good, the platform itself can start to feel like it’s not very good.
That is a bigger issue than simple copy fatigue. If every title is presented in the same voice, brands begin to blur together. The audience may still watch, but the platform stops building a distinct editorial identity.
Why platform voice now matters more than ever
Entertainment companies used to rely heavily on channel identity, release schedules, or star power to define themselves. Those signals still matter, though the digital environment has changed how users experience them. A streaming app is a living product. People move through it quickly, often alone, often late at night, often half-distracted. They encounter dozens of pieces of micro-copy in a single session.
That makes voice consistency more important than many product teams expect.
A platform that sounds sharp, clear, and culturally aware feels more premium. A platform that sounds overproduced, vague, or repetitive feels less alive. This is especially true in markets where viewers move easily between local television, global streaming, short video, sports, and social media. The standard for attention is high, and bland wording rarely survives first contact.
The strongest media brands tend to understand a subtle truth. Good copy is not only about selling a show. It is about shaping the personality of the service itself.
This happens through many small choices:
● how drama is framed versus comedy
● whether youth content sounds natural or forced
● whether mobile notifications feel urgent or annoying
● whether homepage descriptions carry rhythm or read like database entries
● whether language changes intelligently across regions and devices
These details may seem minor in isolation. Together, they define how a platform feels.
The cost of speed in modern content operations
One reason entertainment language becomes repetitive is simple pressure. Media teams are under constant demand to move faster. There’s more content to create, more spaces to fill, more regions to cater to, and more forms to accommodate. What once might have been a single piece of copy can become a complex network of related content within app stores, smart TV interfaces, social media, push notifications, email marketing, and ad-supported spaces.
Under that pressure, safe language becomes tempting.
Safe language is quick. It passes review. It offends no one. It can be reused across genres with minor edits. The problem is that safe language is often forgettable. It tells viewers what category a title belongs to, yet does little to communicate why anyone should care.
This is where media teams face a real strategic choice. They can keep treating copy as a production step, or they can see it as part of audience experience design.
That second view changes the workflow. It encourages stronger editorial direction, clearer brand vocabulary, and tighter review processes. It also creates room for experimentation. A show summary does not need to sound like a press release. A release alert does not need to sound like a machine-generated reminder. There is space for specificity, texture, and voice, even within short-form platform language.
Multilingual markets reveal the problem faster
This is especially the case in a market where there are a variety of languages and a complex identity for the audiences. A text that reads well in one language can sound clunky in another. A translation can preserve meaning while losing energy. A tagline built for desktop can fall apart on mobile. A youth-oriented campaign may become overly formal when localized too literally.
That is why the best media writing in multilingual environments depends on adaptation rather than simple conversion.
The goal is to preserve intent, tone, and audience fit across versions. That takes editorial judgment. It requires people who understand how entertainment language behaves in real life, not only in style guides.
Some of the most common problems appear in places audiences notice immediately:
● subtitles that are grammatically fine but emotionally flat
● app descriptions that sound translated rather than written
● genre labels that fail to reflect local viewing habits
● promotions that use the same vocabulary across very different titles
When these weaknesses accumulate, viewers may not consciously analyze them. They simply sense that the platform feels distant or mechanical.
The hidden power of better wording
There is a reason sharp writing continues to matter even in a highly visual medium. Before viewers commit time, language gives them a frame. It tells them what kind of experience awaits. It reduces uncertainty. It can even create an appetite.
This is valuable, and it is valuable in a somewhat nebulous way. Well-crafted text can increase click-through rates, reduce bounce rates, increase trust, and facilitate the spread of content across discovery surfaces. It can also be useful for the spread of advertisements by making the overall platform feel more refined.
But the real value is in the culture. Entertainment organizations want to be modern. They want to know how people feel. They want to be able to state that they live in the same place. That is very hard to achieve through templates alone.
The platforms most likely to stand out over time may be the ones that invest more seriously in their editorial layer. They will care about sentence flow in metadata, tone in alerts, nuance in translation, and clarity in every line that appears before the content starts. They will treat words as part of content packaging, product design, and brand building all at once.
In a business obsessed with scale, this may seem like a small idea. It is not. When streaming platforms start sounding the same, language becomes one of the few tools left to restore distinction. A sharper voice can make a familiar interface feel more thoughtful. A better sentence can rescue a title from invisibility. A more human line can remind the audience that somebody on the other side still understands how people actually choose what to watch.
