Real men use the oven to store their sweaters in summer. Myth. Real men get the housekeeper to dust the stove once a month. Myth.

Women want a real man who gets his hands dirty rebuilding the back fence, fixing the car or painting the sunroom. Myth.

The Works has demonstrated that real men like doing stuff in the kitchen, what ‘stuff’ real men like to do and proved how much better real men who do stuff in the kitchen fare when it comes to getting the girl. That’s good news for its client, Sunbeam.

[80% of men prefer to use a blender than a handsaw]

The agency called in neuro-feedback company, MyndPlay, to measure women’s physiological and emotional responses to their male partners doing domestic chores and compare these against more stereotypical ‘manly’ activities such as watching sports, D.I.Y, sawing wood or drilling holes.

The experiment put 20 real life Australian couples into everyday scenarios and measured which man jobs made the woman the happiest and most sexually stimulated. A man doing his barista thing or just baking a cake scored more highly than one using a power drill or sawing wood, for example…which is a good thing because 80% of men prefer making coffee to watching the footy highlights and 75% of men prefer to bake a cake than use a drill.

To make sense of the data, Sunbeam shared the research with relationship educator and sexologist Dr. Nikki Goldstein to interpret. Women don’t always need someone who can fix things or handle power tools these days, she noted. In today’s go-go-go life, cooking or baking can be a more thoughtful gesture than tightening a door handle.

The study, Real Men Cook, now lives on its own website and will run across social media, radio and in-store POS.

“Real Men Cook is a great initiative to kick off working with The Works,” said John Turnbull, general manager, marketing at Sunbeam. “We are really impressed with how the creative agency got behind this human interest campaign.”

Kevin Macmillan, creative partner and founder at The Works added, “This is a refreshing change not just for Sunbeam, but for the category. When I walk in-store it’s hard to find a reason to choose one brand over another. Building some kind of emotional connection intrinsically linked to the product is one way to start changing that. Real Men Cook extracts many human insights and will create positive conversation for Sunbeam on peoples’ mobiles via Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and then right through to the point of purchase.”

Creative Credits 

Agency: The Works

Founder & creative partner: Kevin Macmillan

Creative lead / copywriter: Leo Bajzert

Art director: Leighton Edridge

Creative project leader: Matthew Poulier

Creative project manager: Rhian Mathias

Strategy director: Damien Hughes

Social strategist: Vanessa Hartley