women consumers

Marketing to Moms: Is Abercrombie CEO Brash or Brilliant?

Is Abercrombie CEO Marketing to Moms?

Abercrombie & Fitch CEO: “Only Cool Kids Can Shop Here”

Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries is in the middle of a social media firestorm with his comments that he doesn’t want plus-sized people shopping there. Jeffries is quoted as having said the following in an earlier interview:

“In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids. Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.”

Moms Respond to CEO Jeffries and his Remarks

“As far as Jeffries is concerned,” wrote reporter Benoit Denizet-Lewis in Salon, “America’s unattractive, overweight or otherwise undesirable teens can shop elsewhere.” His comments have many moms up in arms, including Andrea Neusner who wrote the letter below:

Dear Mr. Jeffries:

Thank you for clarifying the reason you do not carry sizes larger than a 10 at Abercrombie. Your customer is an “attractive, all-American kid with a great attitude and lots of friends.” I am a mom of 3 daughters, ages 17, 13, and 10. They are all thin, attractive, all-American kids with great attitudes and lots of friends. They shop at Abercrombie. I believe they are your target audience.

Please find the enclosed clothing, purchased at our local Abercrombie/Abercrombie and Fitch stores. My thin, popular, cool kids will not need them anymore.

Not only will I not let my kids shop at Abercrombie again, I will not let them wear what they already have in their closets. Normally I donate our unwanted clothes, but in this case, I wouldn’t want any unsuspecting thin, cool person to send the message that being exclusionary is OK.

Sincerely,

Andrea Neusner

At the opposite end of the spectrum is the Dove Real Beauty Sketches online commercials, in which Dove commissioned a police sketch artist to draw women as they see themselves, and then as others describe them. The women see themselves as less attractive, while others see them far more kindly. The commercials have gone viral with 52 million hits to date. Its mantra: “You are more beautiful than you think!”

It looks like a self-esteem smack-down: Abercrombie vs. Dove. Mean, bully culture (A&F) vs. a self-esteem promoting, compassionate, we-can-make-the-world-a-better-place sensibility (Dove).

Retailers like H&M, Forever 21 and American Eagle do a pretty good job of exciting fashion customers of all ages and sizes. And they’ve been consistently stealing market share from the floundering Abercrombie & Fitch.

And while his version of marketing genius seems to be stoking the anxiety of youngsters who want to be considered cool by their peers, it’s an anxiety that CEO Jeffries, now in his late 60s, doesn’t seem to have outgrown himself. As Salon put it:

“Jeffries wants desperately to look like his target customer (the casually flawless college kid), and in that pursuit he has aggressively transformed himself from a classically handsome man into a cartoonish physical specimen: dyed hair, perfectly white teeth, golden tan, bulging biceps, wrinkle-free face, and big, Angelina Jolie lips.”

Is Jeffries Actually Marketing to Moms?

Here’s the thing: Jeffries is a businessman, and he can certainly market to whomever he wants. But who does he think is paying for all those A&F jeans and tops? That’s right. Moms. And though targeted marketing is done by many brands, the real issue here is that his remarks are just plain mean, and moms see that. Call me crazy, but it seems that alienating the people who buy his merchandise might not be the smartest thing.

What do you think: Should marketers feel free to market their brands as they see fit? In the end, it’s up to the consumer to decide, even if the concept is outdated.

Marketing to Women: Life After Mommyblogging

Marketing to Mommybloggers

It’s nice to be validated by the Harvard Business Review! As we’ve been saying, marketers seem to have missed – or ignored – the arrival of Boomers, particularly women boomers, online. What do these women want marketers to know? They want them to help women age well: it’s about looks, finance, dreams, work, parents and kids. As Morra Aarons-Mele points out, even the original cadre of “mommybloggers” have reached an age where their kids are older, and their lives and blog content are expanding to reflect that. The fullness of a woman’s life demands a 360-degree view from marketers; her interests cannot be contained to a narrow lens or a defined age group.

Check out this great read!

Marketing to Women? Don’t Forget PANKs!

Don’t Forget to Market to These Women: PANKs.

PANK: Professional Aunt No Kids.

A joint study recently released by Savvy Auntie and Weber Shandwick with KRC Research revealed that PANKs are a “sizeable segment of younger women with disposable income, dynamic influence, and a digitally-connected lifestyle.”

The acronym for this emerging demographic of 23 million women who love children but have none of their own was first coined by Melanie Notkin, founder of Savvy Auntie. According to the study, one in five U.S. women is a PANK and are important because they are:

Big Spenders: More than 76 percent of PANKs spent more than $500 per child this past year, for a total of $9 billion.
Highly Influential: 68 percent of survey respondents said that they’re a role model for the kids in their lives.
Avid Info-sharers: 73 percent of PANKs are likely to provide information about products and services to others, both in person and through social media.

PANKs represent an excellent opportunity for brands that are looking to market to women. To gain the hearts and spending power of PANKs, here are some important strategies to keep in mind:

Acknowledge PANKs: Recognize them as a powerful market.
Avoid stereotyping PANKs as non-domestic: While they enjoy their domestic lives, they find their community service and charity work to be equally important.
Develop online campaigns: PANKs are digitally savvy, with 56 percent trusting online reviews more than their own instincts (47 percent). Create social platforms content for them, as their postings are likely to go viral.
Focused messaging: PANKs are proud of the relationship that they have with the kids in their lives, regardless of their “non-mom” status.
Build a base of PANK advocates: Many PANKs will become moms one day. Brands should look to secure their loyalty now.

“PANKs have the time, income and passion for purchasing the best for the kids in their lives,” says Leslie Gaines-Ross, Chief Reputation Strategist for Weber Shandwick. “They are well worth a marketer’s attention.”

Marketing to Women: Emotional Attachment & Brand Loyalty

Brand Loyalty and Marketing to Women

Emotions play an important role in a woman’s purchasing decisions and brand loyalty. We don’t always buy a product or service because it’s the best value for our money; many times our choice is driven by an emotional connection.

Brands often develop exclusive campaigns and programs to build and maintain this brand loyalty. The recent success of P&G’s ‘Thank you, Mom’ campaign focused solely on females, is a great example. Brand loyalty now is a two-way relationship; businesses demonstrate their loyalty by listening to the needs and concerns of their consumers, actively engaging and responding to their issues, and using that information to anticipate market trends. In this way, customer loyalty is a mutually beneficial relationship, rather than a one-way flow of products and information.

The 2013 Brand Keys Customer Loyalty Engagement Index® indicates that brands driving the highest level of emotional engagement were ABC (evening news category) with 97 percent, Amazon (online retailers category) with 96 percent, and three companies at 95 percent– Pampers (diapers), Dunkin‘ (packaged coffee), and Subway (quick-serve restaurants). Other category winners include:

• Credit card: Discover, 94 percent

• Automotive: Ford and Hyundai at 93 percent

• Luxury cosmetics: Clinique, 93 percent

• Natural food stores: Whole Foods, 93 percent

• E-readers: Kindle, 92 percent

• Tablets: Amazon, 92 percent

• Breakfast cereal: Cheerios, 91 percent

• Gasoline: Shell, 89 percent

• Discount retail store: Walmart, 89 percent

• Social networking sites: Facebook, 88 percent

• Airline: US Airways, 85 percent

• Search engine: Google, 85 percent

• Pizza: Domino’s 84 percent

• Car Insurance: State Farm, 82 percent

• Casual Dining: Applebee’s, 82 percent

• Luxury hotel: Inter-Continental, 82 percent

• Bank: JP Morgan Chase, 79 percent

It bears repeating that women are the top marketing opportunity in today’s economy. They make 85 percent of all consumer purchasing decisions, and account for $7 trillion in consumer and business spending. Savvy marketers understand this, and will continue to look at ways to build brand loyalty with this key consumer.

Marketing to Women: Baby Boomers and Beauty

We’ve spoken often about how women baby boomers are the most affluent consumer segment today; yet they are continually underrepresented or (worse yet) completely ignored by marketers. BOOMbox Network conducted a survey with women over the age of 45 to see how they feel about their beauty at this life stage. As the survey notes, it was no surprise to find respondents lamenting about how most beauty brands do a very poor job of communicating with them. Details of the findings are in the infographic below, but some highlights of the findings include:

For women over 50, hair is super important!
They feel more beautiful in midlife than when they were in their 20s
They do not believe most beauty product claims
They do not like the use of younger models or celebrities in advertising targeting them
They define beauty in terms of confidence

Beauty marketers, are you listening to these Baby Boomers?

Marketing to Women This Holiday Season

Marketing to women is worth it.

By now most of us understand that women are the primary consumers in the U.S. today, responsible for 85 percent of all consumer spending. Women’s combined consumer and business spending is fast approaching $7 trillion – roughly the size of Japan’s economy. When marketing to women this holiday season and beyond, businesses need to keep the following in mind:

There is no “women’s market” — there’s your women’s market.

Marketers should not segment women strictly by age. Whether a woman is 28, 39, or 52, she’ll respond more to marketing messages that address her life stage, not her biological age. Unlike previous generations, today’s women are experiencing life in a less linear fashion; women are having babies in their 40s, starting new careers in their 50s, and re-entering the dating scene in their 60s. Marketers need to clearly understand the differentiation in marketing to the different life stages of women, and tailor their messages accordingly.

Pink is not a marketing strategy.

Today’s women are not looking for a watered-down version of a male offering that has been feminized with clichéd colors. Instead, they’re looking for solid information, ease of use, stellar customer service, and brands that are looking to build real relationships with them based on their interests, personal identities and problems that they need to solve. Instead of relying on outdated assumptions and stereotypes, marketers must do the hard work to be relevant to women consumers – taking the time to learn what motivates them to order to present their brands in a meaningful way.

Recognize that women think different than men.

All human brains start as female brains, until the male brain is flooded with testosterone. But there they part paths. A woman’s brain has four times as many connections between the left and right hemispheres as a man’s. All of those signals hurtle down the superhighway into her right brain – the home of emotional memory, intuition and experience. A woman not only reads – she attaches feelings to what she’s reading. A woman’s heart is in her brain – tell her a story that is filled with emotion, and explain why your brand is relevant to her. Sounds simple, but many businesses develop and market products without ever asking their female customers what is most important to them and why. Companies such as Best Buy and Volvo have made gaining women’s input a key part of their marketing process, leading to product improvements that both men and women appreciate, along with marketing messages that resonate with both.

This holiday season, Cyber Monday is expected to be the biggest online shopping day of the year, representing a $1.25 billion day. How will female consumers manage their Cyber Monday shopping?

When marketing to women, focus on mobile.

Mobile devices will continue to play a strong supporting role in the online shopping surge, with 52.9% of female Smartphone owners using their devices to do research and make purchases. In addition, social media will continue to be a huge power player in promoting brands as women interact with them across more touch points than ever before. This constant engagement makes it imperative that marketers understand women’s preferences in order to connect with them at the correct time and with the proper information.

Finally, female consumers are more likely to interact with and buy from businesses and brands that a friend has recommended. This word of mouth interaction may be harder to track than hard mobile device statistics, but it should not be ignored.

Businesses should plan their strategies for reaching the female market this holiday season by making sure all sites are optimized for mobile devices, and providing regular personalized interactions. By enabling social media sharing across all platforms, businesses can create an integrated approach to reaching women that will be successful this holiday season and beyond.

Marketing to Women: Money Talks

When the Financial Industry Markets to Women

The Financial Industry and Marketing to Women

Women control $8 trillion in assets in the U.S., and by 2020 are expected to control $22 trillion, according to TD Ameritrade. Consider these statistics:

89% of financial account openings are controlled by women
Women sign 80% of all checks, business and personal
Women take care of 75% of all family finances
66% of women maintain separate investment accounts from their spouses
27% of all millionaires are women

But while women like and need financial advice, they’re not so keen on the financial industry – having expressed that they find this industry the least responsive to their needs out of 32 industry sectors. So how can financial marketers get a piece of this lucrative market?

When marketing to women, the industry needs to understand that they view money and wealth in a different way than men. While men are much more competitive about money management, a woman’s end goal isn’t typically to accumulate money, but to improve her life and those of her family. Financial professionals who want to attract and retain female clients need to speak to women in the language that most appeals to them. For example:

Women like to connect and learn in communities, whether it’s in a casual home environment, or on social media channels
Women want to establish relationships with their advisors, and seek referrals from other women
While men address their finances in a more transactional way, women want to talk through their financial decisions

What have been your experiences with the financial industry? And marketers, are you communicating effectively to this important audience?

Marketing to Moms: Shout Out to Hallmark

Hallmark Markets to Moms

The other day I was in a Hallmark store buying Halloween cards, and it struck me that this brand is a great example of one that really understands and supports a mom’s need for community.

Moms, or all women for that matter, are part of multiple communities, from family and the workplace, to children’s and social groups, to online groups. In order to develop a meaningful relationship with these women, it’s important that brands show support for these communities. One way to do that is to identify a touch point that has emotional relevance to Mom (and her peers) and present it in a way that also provides a sense of validation on her part.

A recent study indicates that 90 percent of women agree that greeting cards can lift their spirits and lighten a heavy burden.

Hallmark acknowledges that not all moms are living the perfect lives so often depicted in the media, and has made it easier to find cards that offer words of encouragement or support with its Encouragement Cards line. This line of cards, addressing a variety of life situations including job loss, cancer treatment, stress, self-improvement, divorce, and caregiving, helps moms support other moms in their communities through challenging life events.

In addition, Hallmark introduced the Kids Encouragement line, providing moms with another platform for showing love, support and pride in their children.

Hallmark’s ongoing innovation shows a keen understanding of how to create an emotional bond with its primary customers, and how even the simple effort of sending a card can create a lasting impression and emotional bond between sender and receiver.

So, since I “care enough to send the very best,” I’m giving a shout out to Hallmark.

Bic Pens For Women Have Some Laughing

Bic Attempts to Market to Women

Here we go again. Bic is taking quite a hit for its “Bic Cristal For Her” pens. Shocking that a company of this magnitude doesn’t understand how to market to women. With women influencing 85% of all consumer purchase decisions, why is it that marketers won’t take the time to truly understand this important audience, and put the time into building authentic relationships with them?

The Public Reacts to Bic’s “Cristal For Her” Pens

Women (and men) have been mocking the pens on Amazon.com and Twitter. Below are just a few examples:

“Oh my goodness – where have these been all my life? My hands are tiny, delicate and perfectly formed. I have to admit that they’re more suited to activities such as petit point and kitten stroking than writing; in short, they are nothing like a man’s fat, hairy mitt. Up until now I’ve spent countless hours sobbing that there was no writing implement designed especially for ME. I haven’t actually tried one of these BIC beauties yet as they’re just so adorable all I want to go is gaze at them and lick the pink one from time to time.”

“We’re all joking about this, naturally (a woman using a pen – ridiculous!), but this could have serious implications. What’s next, ladies attending universities? Pens to encourage literacy in the lower orders? The modern world is a mad place indeed.”

“I allowed my wife to write the grocery list with one of my pens. Shortly thereafter she went out and bought a bunch of flannel shirts, cut the sleeves off and grew a mullet. While she was writing her feminist manifesto, I secretly switched out the man pen with a BiC For Her. She’s now back to baking apple pies, vacuuming in heels, and popping bennies in order to keep her girlish figure… like a proper American gal.”

“I had my man read me the packaging details because it was so beautiful I just HAD to know what was inside. I discovered that it contained something I did not ever believe possible. A pen. For me! Now I just need some pastel coloured books so I can learn to read and I’ll be able to use them to write by myself. At last! Thank you, thank you bic. My womb is throbbing at the very thought of holding such a thing! My husband says before long I’ll be able to write my very own shopping lists and cake recipes.”

“Someone has answered my gentle prayers and FINALLY designed a pen that I can use all month long! I use it when I’m swimming, riding a horse, walking on the beach and doing yoga. It’s comfortable, leak-proof, non-slip and it makes me feel so feminine and pretty! …

And here’s a great blog post from LikeARollingStone featured on Huffington Post:

Bic Boss: Jenkins, get in here!

Jenkins: Yes sir.

Bic Boss: I’m thinking we need to go after the female market.

Jenkins: Excuse me?

Bic Boss: Women consumers, man! Women do most of the buying in this country so we need pens just for women.

Jenkins: What’s wrong with our regular pens?

Bic Boss: Aren’t you listening? Women want womanly things — pink and purple and flowery and… I don’t know… what are you doing?

Jenkins: Just writing this all down — pink, purple, flowery. Ooooh, diamonds. Women like diamonds.

Bic Boss: That’s good. Work diamonds in there somehow. Only not real diamonds. Just make them diamondy.

Jenkins: Diamondy, right. Anything else?

Bic Boss: Let me think. What does my wife like? Hmmm, cleaning. She loves to clean. No, that doesn’t help. Uh, she’s reading some book about gray shades. Make sure one of the pens writes in gray.

Jenkins: Shade of gray, got it. Should the other pens write in pink?

Bic Boss: Good grief no. We don’t want to be condescending.

Reaching women more effectively can require some extra effort by marketers – but in the long run it is so worth it.

A Food Marketing Fact: Women Don’t Need Specialized Products

Marketing Food to Women

Food Marketers: Women Don’t Need Special Chocolate Bars

A recent article in BusinessWeek noted that Cadbury has created its own chocolate bar for women. Though packaged in Cadbury’s corporate purple instead of pink, the bar is “lady” because the chocolate and wafer bar is, according to them, “a lighter way to eat chocolate, and the resealable package allows women to consume just a bit at a time.” Crispello is clearly marketed at the weight-conscious, which I believe they are suggesting is an exclusively female domain. And while I love the concept of the resealable package, I don’t want anyone telling me how to eat my chocolate. Or worse, assuming they know better than me how I should eat my chocolate. Identifying this as a “woman’s product” brings us all back to those tired gender stereotypes.

The picture that this type of marketing paints is that women are incapable of doing much, including eating, without help from some friendly corporations. The truth is, we’re actually doing better than OK. Most of us can decide how to eat our chocolate without any help or pre-determined portion control. And while I love marketers that recognize women for the intelligent people they are, this is not the way I like to be reminded that I’m a woman.

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