To celebrate the fourth year of Pringles partnering with Movember, the Talk-Thru cinema is unlike any other typical cinema night, designed to help encourage more men to open up and talk during the film. The London event welcomed guests to bring along a friend for a catch up against the backdrop of the comedy, Hot Fuzz, all while enjoying some Pringles and chatting to each other.
A third of men (31 per cent) in the UK admit to feeling lonely at least every week with over 2.8million1 feeling lonely every day. This is despite over half of men (51 per cent) believing they have enough friends, according to new research from Pringles.
The study looking into men’s friendships and wider mental health attitudes shows that men are willing to open up more but admit to only feeling comfortable to do so when in the right situation and even then, struggle to share their feelings with other men.
Notably, across the generations, younger men between 18-24 years old are more inclined to open up with almost three quarters (73 per cent) admitting to having a meaningful conversation with a male friend. Despite this, only 36 per cent of men meet up to talk on a weekly basis.
Activities are revealed to be the building blocks for male friendships as four in 10 feel they need an activity in place in order to meet another male friend. Men say this helps them open up to friends with almost a third (32 per cent) saying they feel more comfortable to broach difficult topics when doing an activity.
The top activities that men will use to meet up with other male friends include watching (24 per cent) or playing sport (17 per cent), going round to someone’s house (23 per cent) and going to the cinema (14 per cent). On the other hand, almost three fifths of women (57 per cent) do not depend on activity and if they do, they favour more relaxed social settings such as getting a coffee (52 per cent), going for brunch (29 per cent) or group dinners (29 per cent).
When connecting with friends, only two-fifths of men (43 per cent) discuss major life updates with other men compared to 59 per cent of women who do the same with their female friends. However, it looks like the younger generations are starting to buck this trend with over half of 25-34 (57 per cent) year olds claiming to discuss major life updates with other male friends.
Three in 10 (31 per cent) only share good news with their male friends, while money worries and breakups are usually off the table with men saying they don’t actively talk about these with other men (45 per cent and 38 per cent respectively).
To help men start talking even more, Pringles is once again partnering with Movember to encourage them to open up about their mental health and access the tools readily to kick start these important conversations.
With going to the cinema revealed as one of the preferred activities men do together, on Monday 25th and Tuesday 26th September, the two iconic brands are working together to launch a free ‘talk-thru’ cinema series with rugby legends Mike Tindall and James Haskell, where friends can come and watch Hot Fuzz, share iconic Pringles flavours together, and get talking in a comfortable space.
