TrendSight: Marketing to Women - She Knows What Women Want

She Knows What Women Want

Saturday, October 15, 2005
By MARCIA BLOMBERG
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HOLYOKE - Mice and humans share 95 percent of the same DNA. So while they're largely the same, that last 5 percent accounts for some pretty big differences - fur, tails, short legs, for instance.

The same thing could be said of women and men, according to marketing consultant Martha Barletta, who presented her insights on "gender-savvy marketing" to about 160 people at the Log Cabin Banquet and Meeting House yesterday morning.

The Advertising Club of Western Massachusetts brought Barletta to the region.

Barletta, president of the TrendSight Group in Winnetka, Ill., based her talk on scientific studies that indicate many gender differences are hard-wired.

Women tend to be more interested in people, she said; studies of newborn babies show girls spend twice as much time looking at faces, while the boys spend twice as much time looking at black-and-white mobiles.

Guys like "things and theorems," and most advertising has reflected that, Barletta said. She pointed to print ads for consumer electronics that focus on the item itself, floating in space, with a list of its features.

No people are shown in most of those ads. The same is true for most automobile ads, which show what she called "ghost cars" with no driver visible.

But Philips Electronics has started to figure out how to market to women, she said. She showed a print ad for Philips video equipment, which shows a woman with the text: "I'll never forget the look on my mother's face the day I was born."

Barletta, with 15 years in advertising, is the author of "Marketing to Women: How to Understand, Reach, and Increase Your Share of the Largest Market Segment."

Barletta estimated that women control global spending to the tune of about $7 trillion, because women make most of the purchase decisions in the home, and are also increasingly well represented in purchasing positions (53 percent of purchasing managers and buyers are women, she said) and other decision-making roles in business.

But many companies still don't understand that.

"The women's market is not a niche market," she said.

Many businesses are chasing the youth market, too, ignoring women in their prime who are well-educated, wealthy, and likely to inherit money from both their parents and their husbands as they age, she said.

"People are leaving beaucoup bucks on the table" by ignoring people over 54, she said.

Barletta's presentation was "fabulously helpful and entertaining," according to Edith L. Lockwood, communications specialist in Women's Markets at MassMutual Financial Group.

Lockwood said she knows the statistics on women's buying power, but found Barletta's focus on how women differ from men most important.

"Every woman in here knows what this woman is talking about," Lockwood said.

Sponsors of the workshop were The Republican, Hampden Bank, BusinessWest, lshd advertising , MassLive.com, Eastfield Mall, The Women's Times, Strategic Mail, Reminder Publications, Hadley Printing, 106.3 Smooth FM WEIB, The Valley Advocate and Bidwell ID.