Chapter 3 Prom In January

Chapter 3 is about the spike in prom related (especially dress) searches starting as early as January contrary to what retailers think. With prom usually in May or late April, January is very early to be shopping. Tancer also examines this phenominon in the UK and shows very similar trends. He becomes alittle crazed about finding out the reason for this early search and gets into myspace as typical personas of teenage girls of different social sectors. The main answer he gets for why this is comes from a man in publishing that says the prom advertising is one of the biggest revenue builders in terms of advertising and so they start advertising earlier to make more money. At the end of the chapter Tancer throws in info on engagments and wedding dresses. He makes the statement that men could possible make one of the largest and most important purchases of thier life (an engagement ring) a week before the engagement while girls search for dresses months in advance. Engagment rings spike around the week before Thanksgiving and he theorizes this is because the guy wants to ask the parents permission when they go home for the holiday.

My thoughts:
-I thought it was weird and smart at the same time to look at myspace for consumer behaviors. However he looked at pictures, notes, etc about these teenage girls. In response, I increased my security on facebook.
-He seemed to be a little too obsessed with this whole prom dress thing. So much so that when he was at the lecture series in the UK they already knew this about him and asked him not to speak about it...which he did anyway. If someone has to ask you not to talk about prom dresses cause they already know you are obsessed with them, isn't that more weird than anything else?
-The whole engagement thing is pretty true. I would believe that men don't take as long as girls do to look for special items but I am not sure that I believe it is for the reason he says. I am sure some of it is but I think it might also be that time of year where people think about togetherness with all of the holidays. The year is beginning to wrap up and it is starting the beginning of the gift giving season, maybe there is more wiggle room on price at jewelers. That topic is still up in the air for me.