The Best of Both Worlds: Androgyny in Consumer Choice

The marketplace is awash with masculine or feminine brands and products designed to appeal specifically to men or women (Grohmann 2009; Yan 2016). Are such binary appeals truly effective, or might some consumers prefer brands or products that feature a blend of masculine and feminine associations? We define an androgynous choice as a choice in which brand and product design dimensions are associated with masculinity and femininity. For example, Apple MacBook is an androgynous choice because the brand is masculine (a high tech brand represented by Steve Jobs- a male spokesperson) (Grohmann 2009) and the product has a feminine design (light color, thin, and slick notebook) (Lieven et al. 2015). Drawing upon the link between masculinity and femininity with agency and communion (Bakan 1966; Wiggins 1991) and simultaneous pursuance of different motives on dimensions of a single choice (Chan, Berger, and Van Boven 2012), we propose that consumers can simultaneously pursue both agentic and communal motives through acquiring androgynous choices. Furthermore, to maximize their goal attainments, people tend to prefer “multifinal” choices that satisfy multiple purposes simultaneously rather than choices associated with single purposes (Kopetz et al. 2008). Thus, we propose that androgynous choices satisfy both agency and communion and are thus multifinal and preferred over either masculine or feminine choices.