Gender Marketing encounters, interview n°3

Interview with Hubert Hémard, Deputy Managing Director at Monoprix

4th November 2011

Agence L / Womenology
What is the core target of Monoprix these days? Has this target developed over the last few years?

Hubert Hémard
Monoprix is a working-class store, established in 1932. In the beginning, Monoprix stores were discount stores with clientele from the town centre of the time which was made up of small craftsmen, glaziers, carpenters and light industry. Therefore, Monoprix’s clientele was working class, and the brand came to be. Then this clientele from the town centre gradually became middle class and moved upmarket. Now, the glazier has become a lawyer, the carpenter has become a banker or trader and therefore expectations aren’t the same. In the past, people got up early and went to bed early; today, they maybe get up early but they go to bed a lot later, rites and rhythms have both changed.
Nowadays, Monoprix’s market is 75% female.
Before, women didn’t work much or at all, they looked after their children, and nowadays they work, they spend money on themselves, they can indulge themselves. This change of mentality, this development has created for us a change in the relationship we have with the client. The tone of communication is en rapport with the client, in other words, we always address the client in an intelligent way. We often hear in communication that you should be very direct; our hobby horse is to bring value to daily life, it’s an approach that’s in Monoprix’s genes, to enrich the daily lives of its clients. And this enrichment is about more than just material goods, it’s not enough to just give your clients coffee, it has to be the best of coffees and there has to be a service.
Finally, it’s about adding value to daily life, about being identified as a brand that provides this difference, this happiness, and that therefore gives us a particular tone of communication.

Agence L / Womenology
Are your campaigns perceived differently by men and by women?

Hubert Hémard
The female market recognises itself more in Monoprix than the male market. Men say that they don’t go to Monoprix to indulge themselves but to go do the shopping, because they’re obliged to, whereas women say that they go to indulge themselves and relax. Between 12 and 2pm, women go there to look at make-up and beauty products, but it’s linked to our clothing and toiletries ranges; men are less bothered about those.

Agence L / Womenology
For menswear purchases, do you know if it’s the woman who buys the product?

Hubert Hémard
It’s quite divided, I think it’s about 50/50. Sometimes they buy it together, the man buys functional things like underwear but for anything else, he tends to go with his wife. Meanwhile, his wife makes purchases on her own.

Agence L / Womenology
Have you identified factors of influence amongst men and women in the act of purchasing?

Hubert Hémard
Yes, we see surprising things with Facebook, blogs and the buzz that’s created in forums about a bag, coat or capsule collection that’s just come out; we see the snowball effect, people respond and it’s mainly women who talk amongst themselves.

Agence L / Womenology
You have 150,000 fans on Facebook today. What made you decide to have a Facebook page?

Hubert Hémard
We realised that social networks were having an enormous influence and we thought that it would be interesting to have our own network to be able to say what we have to say. We use it to launch a product, announce the arrival of a designer, explain a new activity and that’s along with the launch of our online food and clothing shop. These days people use word-of-mouth, advertising, the media and social networks… so if you’re not there, you lose out on part of your ability to build relationships with your clientele.

Agence L / Womenology
Is the average female shopping basket more expensive than the average male shopping basket?

Hubert Hémard
I don’t know. We have different segments of clientele: the “in a rush, low-spend” shoppers, students in a rush who don’t have much money and who buy sandwiches, ready meals or pizza for dinner; the “chefs and co”, mums who buy a lot of different products, mostly food-related and that we won’t necessarily find in the clothing department; the “trendy crowd”, that’s those who buy new products; the “authentic” shoppers, senior citizens who come in to chat with the shop assistants. There are also men and women who buy slimming and low-fat products; and the “label readers” who are the second biggest purchasers of organic products. Amongst these different segments, “chefs and co” is the segment with the biggest basket. Those in the “trendy crowd” don’t bring in much money but they set the trends!

Agence L / Womenology
We’ve noticed, in different sectors, that purchase behaviour isn’t the same amongst men and women. Do you notice this difference in your stores?

Hubert Hémard
Yes, we’ve noticed it and as we have a lot of women, we try to respond to the issues raised by our customers, but we also have very masculine products, shaving products for example.
Another example: for the wine fair, we had the idea of inviting bloggers or, in any case, those who talk about wine on social networks. And when they turned up, there were only women of 18 or 20 years of age. We weren’t expecting that, no men turned up.
That reinforced our approach. We want to create the wine collection in the clearest way possible because the woman doesn’t want to get it wrong. Her behaviour is much more accessible and much smarter with wine, she will search for a nice bottle of wine. Monoprix has expanded its range of wines over the last 4 or 5 years to cater for this but we were nevertheless very surprised.

Womenology
Do you have any new things planned in Monoprix stores in 2012?

Hubert Hémard
No, nothing new is planned but there will be notable improvements made towards better people flow, greater recognition, replying more appropriately to clients’ expectations in terms of what we have to offer. We prefer to make worthwhile evolutions, rather than bad revolutions. Monoprix is an agile brand that evolves with its clientele; we’re in a world where we have to constantly be in accordance. We move while accompanying people.

Agence L / Womenology
In conclusion, you have a uniqueness, you speak to ¾ women, you have messages that, without wanting to, target women more through claims, colours, brand identity… so it is nevertheless segmenting isn’t it?

Hubert Hémard
Yes, I’m sure that if we only addressed men, everything would be in black and white possibly. Before you contacted me, I never thought about it in this way, about the differences in how men and women perceive messages, and yet I’ve been doing marketing for a long time!

Agence L / Womenology
Merci

Contact Agence L : Marie-Estelle Wittersheim / mewittersheim@agencel.fr
Contact aufeminin.com / Womenology: Benjamin Smadja / benjamin.smadja@aufeminin.com

Site web de l’agence : Agence L

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