The Power Story
WBM Editor in Chief Carol Ratelle Leach talks to Marti Barletta, author of Marketing to Women: How to Understand, Reach, and Increase Your Share of the World’s Largest Market Segment.
Women's Business Minnesota, October 2004
You’ve heard the statistics (possibly from a Women’s Business Minnesota sales
representative): Women now make 85% of all consumer buying decisions. The majority of corporate purchasing agents and managers are women. And women entrepreneurs account for 70% of new business start-ups.
Marti Barletta, president of The Trendsight Group, was among the first to recognize this enormous marketing opportunity. She discusses its potential and pitfalls in her new book and, here, with WBM Editor in chief Carol Ratelle Leach:
CRL:
You write that, historically, it was men who bought the big-ticket items. When and why did that change?
MB:
Mostly because women started bringing in the big bucks. There were really very few women in the workplace at all up through the 60’s. In the 70’s women started going more into the workplace; still mostly in the traditional occupations, but more and more women were choosing jobs in highly paid industries - namely the ones that were dominated by men. Women these days have been taking home the majority of college degrees for quite some time, and a larger percentage of the paycheck.
CRL:
I don’t think I’d seen before the statistic you cite on single women, that they earn two percent more than single men.
MB:
I don’t know why more of us haven’t seen all of those statistics. The general media seems to be fascinated by what I call the “poor story” of the women’s market. And yet there is an equally - and to me, to my mind more provocative because nobody else is telling it - power story about the women’s market.
CRL:
Well, that’s our mission here at Women’s Business Minnesota.
MB:
That’s great.
CRL:
Thanks. Now, tell us how you see female shoppers as different than male shoppers?
MB: A lot of different ways, and it really depends to a certain extent on what category we’re talking about. But the main thing thing is that women and men have a really a 180 degree opposite from each other idea of what the big picture is. To men the big picture means that you look at the broad strokes. You look at the important stuff. You get all that meddlesome detail out of the way, and you only look at the big skeletal elements of the situation. Whereas for women that doesn’t even begin to be the big picture. For women the big picture is a comprehensive, thorough, in-depth understanding of what the situation is.
There are so many little touch points of evidence about men being more single-minded and focused and women being more multiminded and integrated. The way men process is more single-minded; women have a really hard time doing that for the most part.
Men are looking for a solution to a problem. “Okay, I’ve gotta buy more insurance” or “I’ve gotta buy a new car” or “I’ve gotta buy a new pair of black slacks.” They may have in their minds some three criteria about what kind of black slacks they’re looking for. If their black slacks in the past have been permanent press and had cuffs in them and cost less than $80, they figure they don’t really need to change their black slacks. “This works. This solves the problem. It’s black slacks.” They go to where they always buy their black slacks, and the first pair of black slacks they find that meets the three main criteria, boom. “Buy the slacks, go home. Problem solved. On to priority two.” Because they do things in order of priority, one thing at a time, generally speaking. And obviously I’m talking in black and white terms. It’s not every man...
CRL:
It seems to be enough of them.
MB:
Of course there are shades of gray on all of these things. But when women go to buy a pair of black slacks, in the first place they aren’t usually thinking of it in terms of a pair of black slacks. They think of it in terms of, “I need something to wear to the office party on Friday.” And the thing is that women are looking for the perfect answer as opposed to just a solution to the problem. It’s the beginning of the learning process. You find out that this pair of black slacks makes your legs look thinner, which is a good thing for most of us.
CRL:
Yes.
MB:
And this pair of black slacks has a few little dressier details, which means you could wear them not only to office parties, but out Saturday evening. And this pair of black slacks is made out of stuff that doesn’t wrinkle when you pack it; and since you wear black a lot of times when you present and travel, that’s a good thing. And you start thinking, “Boy, you know what’d be really great would be a pair of black slacks that makes my legs look thin and is a little dressier and is made out of stuff that you can pack without wrinkling!” And off you go, looking for...you never know, right? You never know if that pair of black slacks exists or not if you haven’t done your
due diligence and gone to look.
Women expect to learn during the shopping process. Women think more in terms of, “Well, here’s my life situation and I need to do some learning about that. And I think I probably want an SUV, because I’ve never really thought of myself as a minivan person. But when I go to the dealer and I think I probably want to look at Toyota and Nissan, I guess.” But then I go to the dealer, and the dealer has a minivan across the showroom that’s actually not too bad-looking for a minivan, you know? It’s a new one, and it’s not too, you know, and so I go look at that. And the next thing I know, “Well, I’m looking mostly at SUV’s but I’m also looking at this one minivan.” Now if my husband is along for this process, this is a step backwards as far as he’s concerned. “We’ve already decided we’re getting an SUV. Why are we opening up the door to more complications? We should be eliminating options, not adding options.” Women expect to change their minds, because they expect to learn things through shopping process. Men don’t
expect to change their minds; they expect to find the thing that meets what they set out to find.
The consequence of looking for the perfect answer is that generally women will look at more options and they will look at a much finer level of detail because - you know what? Most of the things in the category will have the major stuff. And there isn’t much differentiation. As far as marketers are concerned, that’s kind of a bad thing.
CRL:
Now I was interested to read that you do not advocate gender neutral marketing. Can you talk about that?
MB:
I always tell my clients they should never paint the brand pink. There should never be any marketing that says, “This the women’s...” not...I shouldn’t say “never”, but generally speaking marketing that says, “This is a mutual fund for women.” Or, “This is a bank for women’s unique financial needs.” Amost always that will backfire.
CRL:
You write, not pink but transparent.
MB:
Women will generally buy things that are positioned as masculine, and have ever since they were little girls. But, men and boys generally will not buy anything that is girly. Sad to say there is so much of a stigma in our society about being feminine that men won’t get anywhere near it.
Women are very quick to take offense at anything that’s positioned as being for women. I think it must be for a couple of reasons. One is that women have been discounted and dismissed, and the female version of things tends to be the light version. And it doesn’t ever seem to err in our favor. Hair cuts cost more and we have to pay for alterations are the classic examples.
CRL:
Right, and the dry-cleaning costs more.
MB:
And the dry-cleaning cost more. A shirt is a shirt, right? I mean, give me a break. So women are very suspicious of anything that’s positioned as female, because generally the experience suggests that we get the short end of the stick on stuff. The second reason is that sometimes it’s excessive. So, for example, I went over to Sweden and did a presentation for Volvo’s Marketing...
CRL:
Of ponytail fame?
MB:
I got so many reporters who called me apparently looking for a provocative story, which I sort of understand. But I’m still kind of miffed at the direction that they took. Every woman I’ve mentioned it to has gone, “Great!” But the reporters are looking for something to get upset about. And, so, I would get reporters who would say, “Well, what is this car? Don’t you think it’s offensive that Volvo is introducing a car targeted to women and it has, like, a ponytail holder?” And I said, “I certainly do not think it is offensive.” The company talks to the people who buy 68% of all new cars, asks them what they want, and then gives it to them. No, I don’t think it’s offensive at all.
CRL:
Reading about how demeaning and patronizing that was, all I could think of was, “That sounds like a comfortable headset for me.”
MB:
But, you know, Carol, this is a classic example where things went wrong. I met the people at Volvo. You talk about a good intention. They had this car that was designed by a team of women engineers and designers. They’re not the first company to do that; Ford did it with the Windstar. When Volvo did it, they were very confused in their communications. They kept on trying to say, “This is not a car for women; it’s a car designed by women for everyone.”
Now, they had gotten that almost directly out of my presentation, but they had misunderstood it, because automotive would be the last category that I would recommend that they tell anybody that this was designed by a team of women. I would definitely suggest that they get input from women designers, from women consumers, et cetera, because women will give you more suggestions than men will. Women notice things on a finer level of detail. And when they’re the ones who are inhabiting these cars - and I do mean inhabiting - they will be very eager to say,
“Boy, did anybody with fingernails ever drive this car? Did anybody ever have to carry the groceries?” How many times have you climbed into the trunk of your car trying to find the oranges that rolled to the back of it?
What Volvo did is they said, “See, here are the features of this new car.” The seats flip up cinema-style so you can put lots of big shopping bags back there. And then we have extra firm, extra durable bumpers, because, you know, women can be kind of creative parkers. And now, nobody can explain this to me, but the car had a hood that you could not open. Only a mechanic could open the hood.
CRL:
What?
MB:
They had put the fluid stuff back by the gas tank with special valves so that you don’t get your hands all smelly of gasoline and whatever. There was a design thought there, but what it communicated was, “You...poor dumb thing, you can’t.” It was a huge mistake.
What they should have come out and said was, “These cinema seats in the back flip up so you can put a golf bag in the back seat, you can put shopping bags. These bumpers are there because, you know how other guys on the street are always bumping into your car? And the whole hood thing was stupid. If there was a reason for it, they should have said, “The hood is designed as a single piece because that’s safer for the passengers and nobody really needs to get in there anyway because we have all the fluid stuff in the back.”
The way they communicated it was wrong.
CRL:
Can you give some examples of companies or industries that are doing it right?
MB:
A lot of companies are tying into breast cancer research. Those initiatives are generally to get women’s attention. There’s a terrific program to generate test drives; for up to eight miles or something like that, for every mile that you test drive, a dollar is donated to Susan G. Komen.
And, so, women are motivated to make the effort. With a performance car, like BMW, that can be a huge influencer.
CRL:
Why is altruism so important to women? And how do you use that as a marketer?
MB: Altruism is important to men and women, but it’s a little bit more important to women and they’re a little more inclined to act on it. Men are organized in their minds somehow, evolutionarily, to focus on, “My job is to take care of myself and mine, my family.” To the extent that women are just baffled by it sometimes. Men feel like people should take care of themselves. It’s not a ridiculous concept. We’re a very individualistic society here in the States, we can all relate to an individualistic idea, but men are way over on one side of it compared to where women are. Women are more over on the side of all for one and one for all, and there’s lots of win-win situations. If we all help each other out a little bit, it’s better for everybody - better for me and better for you.
Women expect the companies that they do business with to be good community citizens. At this point, most companies do have good community/citizen initiatives. I call it the Corporate Halo. It may be philanthropy in the sense that they’re giving money, or it may be that they allow their employees to participate in programs without having to take time off.
Would anybody actually buy a car solely because they happened to donate to Susan G. Komen? Probably not. But in most categories there is very little difference amongst the products and companies these days. Altruistic stuff, although it’s farther down the list - it’s not the reason, it’s not the most important reason why you would choose a car, or buy from a particular investment company, or go to a particular store - it is something that matters to women, and it is a point of differentiation versus what the other companies are doing.
CRL:
Another point you make is the importance of the 45-plus year-old woman. You describe them as“experimental, daring, adventurous, mentors, opinion leaders, brand advocates willing to spend their own considerable disposable income...”
MB:
Even when I was young, most didn’t expect to survive 20 years beyond retirement, which people routinely do these days. The advances in medicine and treatment caught people very unprepared from a financial point of view, and there was this whole cadre of elderly poor. Because women tend to out-survive men, the majority of them were women. There were also the “victims,” as I think of them, of divorce. They were left with almost nothing in the way of resources. So, I think that that is where this residual stigma or impression that older people are not a good target.
In advertising agencies it is still absolutely routine to hear people talking about target markets from 25 to 54. You would think that everybody in the country dies at 55. [You seriously] would. I’m not kidding. This has been on my radar screen since I started this work. When you read the marketing press - Brand Week, Ad Week - every single week they will refer to the (and it’s always called the same thing, too) “highly coveted target market of men 18 to 34.” And at that point, I just can’t take it any more, and I do hurl publications across the room routinely. Because I think, “You damn fools! What do you want this target market for? These people have no money and they don’t buy for anybody but themselves.” This is the dumbest market I can imagine going after. Men 18 to 34 buy nothing but beer. Beer and McDonald's. Those are the only two categories where they’re significant purchasers of anything.
And, so, I am just baffled by all of these car companies: They see that their average buyers is in their 40s and they say, “Oh, my God! Our buyer base is going to die off.” Well, you know what? There’s a statistic that says that that over a lifetime the head of household buys 13 vehicles. Of those seven are purchased when the head of household is 50 or older. The majority, the majority…
40 to 50’s is where the baby boomers are right now, and they are, over the next decade, moving from that into the 50’s and 60’s. That is where any population is its richest, because they are at their peak income earning years and they are in their peak asset accumulation years, too. Hopefully they managed to get the kids off to college and survive it, and they are now thinking,”Gotta accumulate some wealth if I want to retire.”
After people retire, their income goes to nothing because they’re not working any more.
Somehow marketers decide that, because household income is low, that means these people are poor. Wrong! They quit working because they didn’t need to any more. Marketers need to look at assets and net worth in addition to income. They are so habituated to looking at income that, duh, that never occurs to them. So, that’s one thing.
There’s a fabulous book by a friend of mine, David Wolfe, called “Ageless Marketing,” that is very closely aligned with the types of things I talk about in my book. He talks about how people’s mental processes change. For example, he says that older people are more experimental on brands than younger people are these days. That’s a change.
Older people tend to make decisions more on intuition and emotion and experience. Younger people respond very well to rational sales approaches because they don’t have any experience to go on. But older people are like, “Okay, I’ve bought five cars in my life, you know? I have a good feeling for what I’m looking for.”
Younger people also tend to respond more to celebrity-based advertising, because they are at the Maslow Hierarchy of Needs stage where social identity is very important. Celebrities tell them who they’re identifying with when they’re using advertising. Whereas older people are like, “Yeah, celebritiy-schmelebrity. I figured out who I am and I’m happy with that.”
CRL:
And this intriguing “fifth-decade hormone flip?”
MB:
This hormone stuff is just like a drug. It changes not just your inclinations; it changes your priorities; it changes what you think is important; it changes how you operate. It changes your ability to navigate, your ability to calculate. Very strange things are hooked directly to hormones.
In their 50’s, men’s testosterone levels drop and women’s estrogen levels drop. And you get a strange scenario by the late 60’s and 70,s, particularly, where women have more testosterone in their blood than men do, on average. Men actually have more estrogen in their blood than women do, because the counter-hormone doesn’t drop; it’s just the main hormone that drops.
Men lose that impulse or urge or compulsion to be more aggressive and thrill-seeking.
Women are unmasked; they’re not suppressing their aggressive impulses and their thrill-seeking to the same extent. Most have fun with it. The research says that that decade (50s) is when most men and women report they are the happiest in their whole lives.
Men feel less driven by this competition, and women are freed somewhat. Yes, of course we adore our families and it’s a privilege to take care of them in every possible moment. But there is a certain sacrificing and suppression of self that’s involved when you are the primary caretaker for the family. When the kids get off to college, you have more disposable income and more disposable time to invest back in yourself, which you really haven’t had for 20 or 30 years. It’s a wonderfully freeing experience for most women.
I think they’ve gotten over it now, but up until maybe 10 or 15 years ago, the press was still talking about, “Oh, these poor empty-nester women.” Gail Sheey (author of Passages) was interviewing these women, and they’re like, “Are you kidding me? Party, party, party!” People have been making up what they think “middle-aged women” should be like, and they are not like that at all. Retirement advertising is particularly prone to this, because they’re all about Golden Age and Golden Years and sitting on a beach and playing golf all day. Most of the research of people who are retiring or are considering retiring - first of all, they’re saying,“Retiring? Well, you know, after I retire, first of all, I am going to be working part-time,” all right?“Because I want to. Because I’m good at what I do. I’ve just peaked out on my skills. Why would I cease to use the thing that makes me feel like I can really contribute? I’m going to get very involved in either starting my own business or volunteerism.” It’s just transferring your work into something that you don’t have to get paid for. Very few people visualize their
retirement as sitting on a beach doing nothing. David Wolfe is projecting this big surge of incredible resource of the baby boomers as they retire--talented, experienced manpower or woman-power that will now be devoted more to social good and volunteerism, because they’re freed up from having to work for pay.
CRL:
How are women as a whole misunderstood by marketers?
MB:
Women are repeatedly pissed off that marketers seem to think that the only attractive women are supermodels. Up until very recently you just didn’t see women with any gray hair or any wrinkles whatsoever in any kind of advertising. And now I’m starting, starting to see women who look like real women, who could maybe live in my neighborhood.
Women aren’t necessarily saying they want to see the average person. But what they are saying is, “There are lots of very attractive people who are not size two, who are not 12 years old, and we like to see them.” Because women connect through empathy more than through aspiration.
Men who live in the hierarchical world view always are thinking that everybody wants to be better than the other guy. This whole competitive, aspirational thing just doesn’t resonate with women the same way it does with men, because our culture, women’s culture, is more of a peer-to-peer culture than a pyramid culture.
We relate and make our connections to other people through commonalities, not through differentiation. Guys are always looking to see how they’re different, because you can’t be better unless you’re different, right? They like to reinforce that a lot: “You know...oh, I’m crazy. That’s just the way I am. I’m really different, you know? I’ve gotta do things my own way.” It’s very important to them to establish that n-o-o-o-o-body else is like that. That’s why guys are always the early adopters of the cool little gadgets. Because that makes them cool. The women connect through, “Hey, that looks like my life. Well, that might be relevant then to what I’m looking for.”
CRL:
You’re speaking at an AMA meeting in Minneapolis on November 4. Can you tell us about that?
MB:
There are always three sections to my presentations; it’s pretty much the way my book is organized, too. Number one, “Here are some things about the women’s market you probably didn’t know, because hardly anybody talks about it. If all you knew about the women’s market was what you read in the newspaper, you probably don’t know much about the real women’s market. So, here’s the power story instead of the poor story.” The second is, “Here are some ways that women are different from men; they really care about different things and they buy and shop differently.” Once you understand that they’re different from men, you need to change the way you’re marketing, because these are the people that have all the money, and you’re not marketing to them in an ideal way. And, so, here are some thought starters on your advertising or your promotion or your retail environment. I usually have 78 different categories where I
touch on to say. That’s part three.
CRL:
Thank you for the preview.
Starting next month, Women’s Business Minnesota will publish a quarterly column on marketing to women by Terri Whitsel.
©2004 Women's Business Minnesota |
RSS Feed