With this Sunday being Father’s day, people around the world in 70 different countries will celebrate the wonder of fatherhood by giving a card and/or gift of some sort to their fathers/father figures. Interestingly these gifts honouring that paternal bond are statistically a third less valuable than the gifts given to mothers on mother day, the National Retail Federation in the US states that approximately £146 is spent on average on gifts for Mother’s Day, but only £106 on average is spent on Father’s Day gifts.
So why is this, is it because we love our mothers more than our fathers? Well Dr Lars Perner, consumer psychologist thinks it is because we think our mothers deserve more being spent on them, being the larger contributor to home life, whilst at the same time fathers are less gift orientated, less likely to want to receive memorable expensive trinkets or a bouquet of flowers.
Professor Kyle Murray has identified that although the gap between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day gifts is quite large, it is continuously diminishing with more and more emphasis being put into Father’s Day gifts. This could be because the as traditional gender roles are changing, Fathers are contributing more and more to home life, thus subconsciously gift givers feel more inclined to spend lavishly to show their appreciation on Father’s Day. Companies are not completely oblivious to this fact either, retailers have noticed the trend and the results are evident with marketing and promotions ramping up for Father’s Day as it becomes ‘a more active spending occasion.’ In the UK, £658 million was spent on Father’s Day in 2014, this increased to £684 million in 2015, an increase of £26 million in just one year.
Being in the promotional product industry the science and psychology behind gift giving is not only incredibly interesting but extremely important. When it comes to promotional gifts we find that products with a high perceived value seem to excel when giving gifts at an executive and senior level. Whilst at the same time the more affordable giveaways thrive at events and exhibitions. I think the point this article addresses is that whether it is subconscious or not gift giving is and should be recipient centric, with gifts being based on the individual and what you think would be appropriate for them (budget dependant!) and it just so happens that gifts fathers like, happen to be more budget friendly!