Ideas from a Hungarian enthusiast

I was sent this article by Harisnya, a Hungarian enthusiast. At his request I have slightly tidied up the spelling and grammar, and at my own request I have split the article into two sections. Harisnya uses the following abbreviations: WPH is for women's pantyhose, MPH is for men's and PH means pantyhose. MPH guy is for men who wear male pantyhose. - Geraden

I. Theory

I consider the following industry participants: designers, manufacturers and merchants.

Designers: want to create a new design that could be licensed to be manufactured. Manufacturers: want to produce something and would license a design for. Merchants: want to sell something that is already designed and produced.

WPH: the market is sinking for years now. Reaction: new designs, particularly new fibers; and designs that re-define PH as a clothing (like toeless PH), and that are re-defining the function of PH, (like moisturising PH, and shape-forming PH). Marketing: to keep middle-aged customers and to get new, young customers. PH is either defined as a kind of makeup or as an erotic/femmy piece of clothing.

MPH: Big companies can lose a lot, therefore they are very, very conservative. If they don’t need to, they don’t move. They have to be forced by the market or by something that they believe is the market. As men neither use makeup nor wear erotic clothing, it would be a hard and costly job to introduce MPH in their mind – or in the classical way: advertisements and other ‘old-fashioned’ marketing tools.

Why are the big producers important? Because only they can get onto the shelves of big supermarket chains and therefore reach the masses. With what? With the fact that they (the guys) can choose between socks and MPH.

So what we can do?

• We can use ‘guerrilla marketing’ – to ‘infiltrate’ through small gaps we find open and relatively costless and reach the masses with the information.
• We can buy as much MPH from Comfilon and others as we can afford, and so make them strong enough to penetrate the market on a larger scale.

But is there a market for MPH? Would they buy MPH if we would produce a billion pairs and put them into the supermarkets?

Yes, if we count the legs of the men (should be approximately the same number as women’s). It could be just the same size as the women’s market – a gigantic one. No, if we count the men who already think they would / want to wear PH. The answer is that we have to prepare the market for MPH. Or, in other words, we should make a market for the product. Sounds funny, eh? But this is the only – only – way to make MPH a socially acceptable thing, I think. There should be a wave in fashion – fashion, as it’s about consuming (think about the merchants!) – for a year or so, when men would wear MPH, and after it would be considered as a rather ‘normal’ thing, “forever”. (Think of the short socks, I think they are called ‘sneaker socks’ – they would be impossible a few years ago for men, then it just happened.)

The question is how to make this “fashion wave” happen.

Let’s step a bit further. I think that the key is to attract women to MPH. Why?

1. Women are the fashion-intensive people amongst us. They look at the trends, they hunt for new designs. It’s they who stop at the store window, not men – so they will be the ones who notice MPH.
2. They are already familiar with PH. They know ‘how it works’ and ‘how to use it’. They might dislike it as well, but they are the ones who see nothing special in it. They know it’s not a bra or anything so gender-specific. We should count on the women for whom PH is positive or neutral.
3. They have no shyness and/or frustration issues connected to PH. A man might think he would loose his machismo wearing PH. The woman could ensure him that he should try it as she herself knows that PH is comfortable and looks good. PH is a trouble only in the male mind.

Let’s simulate a situation. We are in a department store with George and Anna. George says he needs some new socks. He goes to the sock shelf and looks for some. There are some MPH also, but George just doesn’t see them, because PH is defined as WPH in his mind. After a while Anna joins him, looks at the socks he collected, and looks for others on the shelf. She notices the MPH – she thinks its a mistake, then notices that it’s MPH. She takes it and reads through the text – warmth etc. – and then looks at the picture (guy in PH). She shows them to George, who starts an intense objection against them. He is a man and won’t wear PH. Anna says they are for men – they go on and they might not buy. But they know about MPH, and George knows that he would be accepted if he would buy next time. Or maybe Anna will buy at the following occasion, when she shops alone or in female company. Or she will just talk about it with colleagues at work. But the key is Anna, not George.

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