Marketing to Women #3 – Another Round of The End of Men

Written on June 14th, 2010 | Short URL: http://abcjr.me/27

I suppose when someone writes as provocative a piece as Hanna Rosen’s The End of Men, there are going to be some interesting and equally-well-written rebuttals. A representative sample:

• Further Thoughts on Hanna Rosin’s “The End of Men” (Refreshingly, written by a man)
• The End of Men (Fair feminist smackdown of the concept of “The End of Men”)
• It’s Not the End of Men (Another well-written rebuttal)

My thoughts after a weekend marinating on the subject and discussing it with several women (including Mama C.) — I’d agree that the article was a bit breathless and lot Chicken Little. However, I don’t think that the rebuttals address what I believe is the core truth:

Women are a force, not as a rapidly-rising contingent of workers but as financial equals (the true democracy) in a game where brains are favored over brawn.

That, my friends, is a shift that will have a ripple effect across society. Will it be a zero-sum game as Hanna Rosen presents it? Will it be a fantastic (and seemingly unprecedented) adaptation by both genders? Will we see an accelerated pace of redefined gender roles? Will everyone go along and get along? Are we moving from patriarchy to matriarchy, are we keeping things in place but forcing women to try to be all things to all people, or will we develop some hybrid where the “archy” doesn’t really matter anymore? There are so many questions to ask, many of which will only be answered by time.

As marketers, we don’t have the luxury of waiting to see what the market wants to do. We have to come up with ways to launch products and build campaigns in the midst of this change (I’d challenge that we often have direct responsibility for shaping this change, but that’s a more complicated topic). And, maybe two data points does not a trend make, but Newsweek published an article on the same day as The End of Men came out declaring “The Richer Sex: Companies had better cater to women“. It’s a light read and not particularly groundbreaking (gratuitous mentions of Louboutins, Sex and the City, technology adapted to women’s seemingly insatiable interest in stylish products and the faux self-esteem-boosting Dove Campaign for Real Beauty), but it shows that this might just be “the next big conversation”. It can be debated that this is a good thing (often, “the next big conversation” focuses on the superficial, missing the bigger picture), but it’s finally on the map.

Here’s what’s kind of scary — with the lone exception of the guy I mentioned above (loved his breakdown of men vs. women, masculinity vs. femininity, and patriarchy vs. matriarchy), I don’t see men participating in the conversation. In my search for books written about marketing to women (I bought three), I couldn’t find one written by a man. Are we afraid to talk about it? Are we willing to simply let women take the lead? Are we putting our heads in the sand? Or, as I’m discovering, is talking about it taboo, considered a threat to our masculinity?

My two-week trek has elicited some interesting reactions. My female friends (often reliable for these types of conversations and the main reason I can now spell ‘Louboutin’ without Googling it) are loving it. Others seem to think I’m a fetishist, gay, desperate for a date or just weird. The looks of horror I’ve gotten from men and women alike when openly discussing the U by Kotex campaign were/are priceless, especially with my marketing professor announcing to the entire class that I’ve now become captain feminine hygiene. But, regardless of the potential hit to my dating prospects, I believe passionately that men have to join this conversation or we’re going to come at marketing problems from the wrong perspective and ultimately lose the war for women consumers. As my good friend Meghan Skiff recently wrote, no one can afford to allow themselves to become irrelevant and, if they do, they shouldn’t have a seat at the table.

In other words, man-up guys. We hate to lose. And as scary as it might be, it looks like the only way to win in this new game is to learn more about women than we likely ever wanted to know.

Posted in Marketing, Marketing Management, Marketing to Women, MBA | Permalink | 1 Comment |

Marketing to Women #2 – The End of Men

Written on June 11th, 2010 | Short URL: http://abcjr.me/26

Women comprise 51.4% of the U.S. population, but make or influence 85% of all purchasing decisions. (MayoSeitz Media)

This was the statistic that got me started down this road. It got me asking questions: What of those decisions are made by women and what of those are influenced? Whose money is it? What is the final purchase result? And, to some extent, what are men buying in the 15% of instances that they’re making the decisions by themselves?

Some of those questions were answered in an article published yesterday in The Atlantic Monthly titled “The End of Men”. The thesis should scare men and women alike as there is a gender inequality 180 that could be as damaging as the chauvinist tendencies of most of history. PLEASE read the article — it is well-written, fascinating and disturbing.

Why is it the end of men? Ronald Ericsson, a now 74-year old biologist who devised a way to separate sperm to help people to select the gender of their children in the 70s, is quoted in the article as saying:

“Women live longer than men. They do better in this economy. More of ’em graduate from college. They go into space and do everything men do, and sometimes they do it a whole lot better. I mean, hell, get out of the way—these females are going to leave us males in the dust.”

The article goes on to explain how the world is changing to favor the skills/talents/demeanor of women. This is demonstrated by a few key facts/statistics:

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Posted in Customer Service, Marketing, Marketing Management, Marketing to Women, MBA | Permalink | No Comments |

Marketing to Women #1: U by Kotex

Written on June 3rd, 2010 | Short URL: http://abcjr.me/25

I threatened you that tampons would be my first women’s marketing post. Might as well go big or go home, right? Why not tackle one of the things us men are most challenged in discussing on the first go ’round?

So, I’ve been particularly fascinated by U by Kotex since encountering it in the health and beauty section of Target. It was featured on an endcap (I’m particularly obsessed with the endcaps at Target, which often feature some amazing clearance items). The black box with the big ‘U’ and color contrast was a particular draw, having no clue on first sight as to what it was. I saw the Kotex brand, tilted my head, furrowed by brow and said “Really?” out loud, drawing the attention of a couple of women in the section (awkward). Since then, I’ve seen these boxes everywhere where feminine hygiene products are sold, as they’re being displayed in very prominent store placements. At this point, the guy-freaked-out-by-the-monthly-cycle-that-shall-not-be-named was bested by my marketing mind.

The next natural progression was to take a stroll down the feminine hygiene aisle, where I found some fascinating packaging (see above). There’s really nothing to distinguish a brand — category leader Tampax is at the top (I noticed that the logo had been changed since the one on the box used by my mom to store batteries in the closet as a kid — Reduce, Re-use, Recycle!), positioned next to the store brand that has a very similar scheme (the usual tactic when a company wants to sell their higher-margin private label and have it be compared to the market leader), with a bunch of indistinguishable pink and baby blue boxes. Playtex Sport stood out because the women on the box were depicted as having an absolute blast while on their period, contradicting the behavior of every one of my ex-girlfriends while in a similar state. Perhaps the most interesting was Kotex — not only was it on the bottom shelf (retail products and Tequila have a similar rule when it comes to placement on the shelving hierarchy), but it had a generic box design with red flowers. Not sure exactly what subliminal message the flower was supposed to send, but, even in my open-mindedness, I don’t want to spend too much time thinking about it. Kotex obviously figured out that, well, its brand sucked.

Speaking with a friend of mine about the subject, she said that she goes to the aisle, grabs a box of the tampons to which she’s been brand loyal since her first period, and vacates the premises as quickly as possible. “I HATED it when they changed the box on me, because it made me stay there longer than I wanted to”, she complained. So, maybe that was exactly the point in the package design and positioning — keep it simple for women bothered by the experience and help them get the hell out of there.

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Posted in Generations, Marketing, Marketing Management, Marketing to Women, MBA | Permalink | 5 Comments |

My Name is Albert. I’m in Marketing and I Don’t Understand 60% of Consumers. Please Help.

Written on June 2nd, 2010 | Short URL: http://abcjr.me/24

Hi. This is my first meeting at Marketers Anonymous. My name is Albert. I’ve done marketing for years in a variety of industries. I have done graphic design, marketing strategy and implementation, and have done both B2B and B2C. I’ve developed a web site for a matchmaker and have designed marketing collateral for the consumer market. I’ve done all of this without having the faintest clue about why women buy what they buy at the prices at which they buy. I need help and I’m here to say that I’m ready, willing and able to accept it.

I realized all of this after my Sephora post. I got some great feedback (mostly from women) who thought it was HILARIOUS that I was so freaked out/uncomfortable in that environment. I told a few guy friends about my experience and they responded words/phrases like, “brave”, “crazy” and “I can’t believe you’d actually go in there by way of anything but brute force”. It was also reinforced by a story that a friend told me — she LOVES Louis Vuitton and was SO excited to get a handwritten thank you note from her salesperson for buying a handbag. I couldn’t believe that a $3 card would help seal the deal on a $1,500 handbag.

Women make around 60% of the purchasing decisions and I have so little insight into how they see the world. How can any marketer feel comfortable building a strategy when 60% of the market is a mystery? I ask myself things like: Why do women focus so much on the color pink? Why are women willing to endure waxing certain areas that, to me, would be worse than death itself? Why are some women excited about buying designer shoes at a store like Marshall’s while others would rather pay full price for the exact same item at the branded store? Why will some women eat from the McDonald’s Extra Value Menu to be able to afford a $300 bottle of custom perfume from Barneys in New York?

As a part of my marketing class for my MBA, I’m required to write “learning journals”, which I’ve chosen to do as part of my blog. I’ve decided to use the rest of the class (through the end of July) to analyze women and the way companies successfully and unsuccessfully connect with them. My hope is that I come away from the project with a better understanding of what makes women tick (at least as consumers — in other contexts I’ve already conceded defeat).

So, ladies, I’d love to hear your suggestions for things that might come second nature to your decision-making but are completely invisible to us men. Guys, I’d love to hear about the types of things that confuse you/freak you out/make you glad to be a man. Any and all suggestions are welcome (for instance, one of my next posts is going to be about the logic behind the Kotex U line of feminine hygiene products and yes, I really am going there).

Leave a comment, shoot your suggestions to albert@ciuksza.com or DM or @reply me at @AlbertCiuksza. I’d love to hear from you!

(Update: Make that 85% — the percentage of purchases women influence [Thanks Too Busy to Shop!]. This is going to be one hell of an uphill climb for a clueless only child.)

Posted in Marketing, Marketing Management, MBA | Permalink | No Comments |

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