Branding Strategy Insider

Marketing Brands To Women

It's an implicit equation that has hamstrung Western civilization for at least 300 years, and harmed the effectiveness of advertising equally. I'm referring to the equation that judges rationality as superior to emotions, with the former being the cherished fiefdom of male executives at major companies and the latter the touchy-feely and not altogether important province of female consumers. But the breakthroughs in brain science over the past quarter century have laid that false duality to rest: we're all primarily emotional decision-makers, and since everybody feels before they think, objectivity is a myth and so is pure, disciplined rationality.

For ad agencies struggling to promote often undifferentiated offers, what a relief. The days of being on-message can now give way to a greater, truer reality. What's most important in 21st century marketing will to be on-emotion, meaning to create the right emotion at the right time, for the right audience, on behalf of the right positioning of a branded offer.

But even with this new freedom to follow their correct instincts (visuals and emotions win), the ad agencies have plenty of work of their own cut out for them. After all, as a law suit from the NAACP alleges, ad agencies have problems with diversity. For instance, as reported by Advertising Age of the 58 Super Bowl spots where the identity of the creative team could be affirmed, 92% of the creative directors were white males.

Here's some help for them in overcoming blind spots:

Marketing To Men

Men are, well, men. They live in the 'now.' They are concrete thinkers that like to consummate, finish. A male axiom is "complete what you set out to do." Men are interested in power and in looking good, even more than being good. In short, that's the nature of beauty for the beast.

You cannot market to men the same way you market to women. It's not a simple transformation of changing colors, fonts or packaging. Men and women are different biologically, psychologically and socially.

Of course, when it comes to attractiveness, both sexes want to garner attention, but each for different reasons. For men, looking good is looking strong, confident, authoritative, adventurous - a standout. Men concentrate on looks to the extent that it signals something about what they do, have done or can do. Regardless of how much a woman wants to attract in the contest of beauty and brains, their focus is on hope and details, and they concentrate on how appearance reflects their inner be-ing.

Consider four fundamental gender differences and their impact on marketing:

How Brands Should Appeal To Women

In my work as a cognitive anthropologist I study how the mind works, how people "make meaning," how people form attachments to things (brands), and how people make decisions. Decisions like how to select what to invest in, whether stocks or mates; why and under what conditions, people prefer Coke over Pepsi (or vice versa), Charmin over Cottonelle; why a person believes in one God over another.

In that search I have inadvertently uncovered something about viva la difference: WOMEN CYCLE, MEN CONSUMMATE.

Marketers need to understand the implications of this difference.

The male is oriented to the present, the concrete, the visual, the "hit," the win, the "me." Evolutionarily speaking, the male must bring home the bacon. No Dilly-Dallying. No excuses. The male is in the now and, above all else, is a pragmatist.

The female is oriented the conceptual, to underlying dynamics, to the relationship between things, and to stability over the long-term. The female understands and sees patterns over time.

Brand Transformability In A Down Economy

In an economic downturn, there may be a tendency to give up on new ideas and thinking, and just hunker down, until the worst is over. But, what if this is really our chance to examine new possibilities? If freaking out doesn’t make your numbers improve (and - at this point - you can lead a consumer to your product, but you can’t make her buy), what might happen when you use that brainwave space to identify and integrate consumer trends you never actually noticed before? Perhaps amazing things.

Take Reena Jana’s quick hit Businessweek article and video with David Rockwell, architect/branding expert/set designer, as an example. He commented on hotel design, which has been on my mind a bit lately too. One of Rockwell’s thoughts: what about holding cooking classes in hotel kitchens? Such design thinking is worth a little hotelier attention these days, given the convergence of trends in staying home, cooking more, and being with family. What else, physical space or otherwise, is primed for such “transformability,” as Rockwell called it?

Cooking classes in a hotel kitchen could serve consumers and add value on so many levels - but without this “what now” sense of doom we feel, such ideas might never surface. Given extreme limitations, creative thinking is forced to be that much more bold, even as the solutions become more streamlined.

Here’s another example of transformability, in my mind: Consider how Subaru is handling the current “discount” season, with their “Share The Love” philanthropic campaign. Rather than promoting money-back at loan signing or one of the other typical year-end strategies for a car dealer, they kept within the tight parameters, learned more about their consumers and thought quite differently. What their research found was that a charitable donation would very much resonate with the types of people who’d be considering a Subaru buy right about now.

Marketers Blind Spot Revealed

Studies show that marketers have been missing a huge part of the population. Could it be? Apparently, having so shifted their focus toward women, marketers have lost touch with the male consumer -- but there are several "secrets" to reaching them that will save the day.

Nanette Byrnes's cover story for the September 4th, 2008 issue of BusinessWeek goes to some length to point out how men are evolving as shoppers and how there is much more nuance to their buying habits than marketers had perhaps previously considered. The article's sources and ideas are definitely worth note, still, should it be big news -- especially to business readers -- that not all men feel included by the term "metrosexual," or that the new generation of dads is doing a lot more household shopping?

Such press coverage reminds me of the big swing toward a women's-market focus that emerged roughly eight years ago. At about that point, the business media were all over the "astounding" research that women, in general, were not being well-served as consumers and that marketers had a long way to go to really address the nuances therein. In my mind, the pendulum swing then was not from serving male consumers amazingly well to serving women (at all), but from marketing based on huge assumptions about how people buy to a wisely more narrowed focus on core customers with a much deeper understanding of how purchase decisions are influenced. This could only be progress.

After all, good, basic, effective marketing involves narrowing the targeted segment to its utmost passionate core and then really digging in to get to know them as well as possible (aka -- lots of work). All men everywhere were never "Leave It To Beaver"-type working husbands/fathers, but, for several decades, that was the default ad campaign depiction. These days, all men everywhere are not stay-at-home dads (though those guys are getting a lot of press), but remain - now as then -- an interesting mix of different types of people with different priorities and lifestyles. Just as it is for women! Who knew?

Defying Gender Stereotypes: One Ad At A Time

When I am asked for examples of great marketing to women efforts, I generally list past campaigns by American Express, Home Depot, Apple and Kleenex.  At face value, those brands are all non-gendered - but track their tactics and messaging and you see a lot of women’s influence. Therein lies the best practice case study:  defy gender stereotypes in execution of your campaign, even as you are guided by women’s ways of buying to develop it.

What about the now infamous Dove example, you say?   Even though that brand is an obvious award-winner in reaching women in a whole new way, its best practices may not translate as much as they should.  Their products are so obviously for and about women that I’m not sure a lot of other industries can see the applications for their own marketing.  And, that’s why ad campaigns that really reach women well, and seemingly inadvertently, can be such powerful teaching tools!  One of those was recently reviewed by Barbara Lippert for AdWeek: the new Hoover vacuum spots.  As she puts it:

At last, a vacuum campaign that defies gender and every stereotypical demographic; this new work for Hoover, from The Martin Agency, offers a fresh and funny take on vacuuming by separating humanity into two clear camps: clean freaks and the not so neat (OK, slobs.)

The 'Radical' Customer Advisory Board

One of the six guidelines to transparent marketing in reaching women, as laid out in Don’t Think Pink, is: to build customer feedback into your process. Over the years since DTP published (and, to be clear, my co-author and I were by no means the first to tout the value of such feedback), the idea of a somewhat structured board or panel of customers (gender-specific or no) seems to have slowly caught on for improving brand connections.

Women-specific advisory boards seemed to come first. Perhaps it’s because women, oddly, and even as recently as ten or so years ago, were seen as some sort of “whole new market,” enough that “radical” new methods had to be put into use in order to understand them.  And yet, market researchers the world over are now realizing that everyone - male or female - is willing to engage in brand conversations (and will spill the goods when asked direct questions).

According to a MediaPost article by Phil Leggiere, companies like Chrysler are really starting to mine their CABs for key consumer insights. As Emily Gates, Chrysler’s Group Account Director for auto and entertainment verticals put it in that piece: For customers, the value is in having a real voice in the decision-making process and a chance to speak directly with key members of the brand team.

Women aren’t the only ones who respond to being asked for their opinions, even if they might be those who engage most quickly in comparison to men. They are certainly getting used to being the “it” or most sought-after customers these days.  Still, anyone who has a vested interest as a consumer would likely be thrilled to be invited into regular CAB participation (as long as the activity feels substantive). It would seem to be basic human behavior to respond to being “desired,” as it were…

The “New” Info Shopper Is Gender Neutral

I recently read a Wall Street Journal article by Mark Penn in which he describes the “new info shopper.”  The only thing “new” about this information-gathering, deliberate consumer for me was this: that buying ways formerly seen as feminine are becoming more gender neutral. 

It’s true. These days more men are taking this not-so linear buying approach - for technology, groceries, cars and more. The great news is that - if you’ve been studying up on marketing to women these past few years - you should have the advantage in reaching these men.  Serving women well, in fact, has never necessitated alienating men in the process (are you surprised?).  Instead, you will likely serve them better too. 

The emergence of this “new” info shopper shows that this is all the more the case. Smart brands have learned how women dig for more information behind their purchases, and take in varied, non-linear cues along their buying paths. Because of this, those brands are delivering more background content and are easing the entire customer experience for all of their customers.  

The evidence of the male info shopper can’t be denied. As with so many consumer shifts, this information-gathering trend within the male market began with the usual urban, coastal suspects. Men in those environments have long been the first to enter into new realms, so their becoming more engaged and active shoppers - initially for “beauty” and “fashion” products - is no different.

According to Penn’s research, as he wrote in the WSJ:

Marketing To Women

Venus and Mars are not in this galaxy.  Rather, what we’ve got here are a lot of amazingly economically powerful women looking for products and services that meet their criteria. In fact, studies show that women buy or influence the purchase of 80% of all consumer goods in the U.S. Women today are, and likely have been for many years, buying riding lawnmowers, consumer electronics and boats, for example. They make 80% of the home buying decisions in the $180 – $500K price range according to a recent David Power Homes study, and they are likely to play a significant role in a lot of other big ticket purchases (like autos), in addition to the usual purchases of apparel, groceries and so on. Just because women aren’t directly involved in a particular consumer transaction doesn’t mean they aren’t strongly behind the buying decision.

So get out of the orbit where women are confusing and men just don’t understand. The women you’d like to reach are your wives, daughters, mothers and friends; and the common man actually can learn to serve them better.

Two For One
Here’s the deal: Focusing on male consumers, as has been the traditional approach, will deliver a customer experience that is not likely to be up to par with women. So — your effort- to-sale ratio is just a direct one-to-one.

That’s fine, and it has been pretty successful for you so far, but consider the results when you focus on women’s ways of buying: