Marketing to Women #9 – Women Drive Word of Mouth?

Written on July 2nd, 2010 | Short URL: http://abcjr.me/2o

In my reading, I keep encountering the following:

Women talk. A lot. Constantly, even. And way more than men.

It makes sense, right? I mean, there are plenty of studies to support this. The Female Brain, written by Louann Brizendine M.D., cites a statistic that women use 20,000 words a day to men’s measly 7,000. Like the misinterpreted conclusion of Albert Mehrabian, who said that 7% of communication is the words, 38% is body language and 55% is vocal tone (this is true only in the expression of emotions — think of the many possible definitions of a significant other saying “I’m fine”), the 20,000 number spread like wildfire. This is especially true amongst marketers, who grasp for any data they can get their hands on to support a hypothesis.

The problem? It isn’t really true.

Contained in a Boston Globe article that fact-checked The Female Brain is the following:

According to a 1993 review of the scientific literature by researchers Deborah James and Janice Drakich, “Most studies reported either that men talked more than women, either overall or in some circumstances, or that there was no difference between the genders in amount of talk.” The research since that review … follows the same pattern. [Emphasis mine.]

In fact, a study published in 2007 by the journal Science found that, “participants’ daily word use was extrapolated from the number of recorded words. Women and men both spoke about 16,000 words per day.”

So, if words matter more than pop-marketing suggests (Albert Mehrabian has lamented at how his work has been taken out of context) and men talk just as much as women, then what can marketers conclude about gender and word-of-mouth?

In the book What She’s Not Telling You by the team at the Manhattan-based consultancy Just Ask a Woman (Mary Lou Quinlan, Jen Drexler and Tracy Chapman — @justaskawoman), women are driven to tell their friends about new products and services to show that they’re on top of things and “in the know” to reinforce an approval need. So, there you have it, women have a need to share their experiences, good and bad. In fact, the book says:

Women will share the story of a bad experience with four to seven others, but they’ve been known to repeat a really hurtful incident for as long as 23 years.

That’s pretty rough (23 years!). But, what does all of this sharing mean? Is word of mouth is still king of trust? I’m not so sure. A recent article in AdAge published Edelman’s latest Trust Barometer that showed in 2010 only 25% of people consider their friends credible, down from 45% in 2008. So what’s killing trust? To quote the article:

“When you’re seeing so much noise, it’s very easy to dismiss a lot of it, and that’s a problem marketing messages have had for a while now,” said David Berkowitz, director-emerging media for 360i. “Facebook really exemplifies this with the live-feed and news-feed options,” he said. “If you use the live feed and have a few hundred friends, some kind of peer recommendation, whether it’s explicit or not, appears every couple of minutes and sometimes they come in a matter of seconds. If you’re seeing all of that come in, it can be overwhelming.”

That’s where I am cautious about word-of-mouth marketing as the be-all-end-all. I’m not saying it’s ineffective — it’s hugely effective when someone we trust recommends a product or service. But, if it’s true that women have a need to share product “finds” with their friends, and a woman has a lot of friends, that can mean some conflicting recommendations (or, as mentioned above, noise).

I’m also going to throw out an entirely data-less anecdotal opinion that counters conventional wisdom — I believe word-of-mouth might just be more effective for men than for women. Why? Because men are often more direct and solutions-based. We don’t seek many opinions, we ask the one friend we trust to quickly solve our problem. And, in the rare case that a guy friend gives us a lead unsolicited, we often take note and act on it. My hunch is that the conversion rate on recommendations between men is higher than women.

The point of all of this is to say that there are a lot of assumptions being made based upon layers and layers of quoted statistics coming from studies that are, at best, misinterpreted. As marketers, we need to be careful to avoid putting too much faith in data that backs up our own biases (women are just walking gabfests, for instance) and, instead, attempt to devise a marketing mix that identifies spheres of real, tangible influence. Is that a friend? Is that a PR campaign? Is that a mommy blogger? Is it traditional advertising? Social media? It depends on your product, service and budget. All-in-all, this should serve as a warning that word-of-mouth won’t necessarily carry the day for your brand.

Posted in MBA, Marketing, Marketing Management, Marketing to Women | Permalink | 2 Comments |

Marketing to Women #8 – Science Says “Get Back In the Kitchen”?

Written on June 30th, 2010 | Short URL: http://abcjr.me/2m

Sometimes article titles are overly-explosive in order to drive traffic, and I thought, for a minute at least, that “Preventing Homosexuality (and Uppity Women) in the Womb?” over at Bioethics Forum might be one such example. I’m pretty sure my first gut reaction was wrong.

Most of the article discusses introducing hormones during pregnancy in order to reduce Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia, and, by statistical correlation, female homosexuality (or, as the journal article put it, “a dose-response relationship of androgens with sexual orientation”). While I am in no way prepared to discuss the biological underpinnings of female homosexuality, I was a bit surprised when I saw the following quote in the article:

“CAH women as a group have a lower interest than controls in getting married and performing the traditional child-care/housewife role. As children, they show an unusually low interest in engaging in maternal play with baby dolls, and their interest in caring for infants, the frequency of daydreams or fantasies of pregnancy and motherhood, or the expressed wish of experiencing pregnancy and having children of their own appear to be relatively low in all age groups.”

In the same article, Meyer-Bahlburg suggests that treatments with prenatal dexamethasone might cause these girls’ behavior to be closer to the expectation of heterosexual norms: “Long term follow-up studies of the behavioral outcome will show whether dexamethasone treatment also prevents the effects of prenatal androgens on brain and behavior.”

One of the chief researchers, Maria New, of Mount Sinai School of Medicine and Florida International University, was giving a presentation, showed a slide of someone diagnosed with CAH, and said the following:

“The challenge here is . . . to see what could be done to restore this baby to the normal female appearance which would be compatible with her parents presenting her as a girl, with her eventually becoming somebody’s wife, and having normal sexual development, and becoming a mother. And she has all the machinery for motherhood, and therefore nothing should stop that, if we can repair her surgically and help her psychologically to continue to grow and develop as a girl.”

My point in posting this is NOT to incite a riot from any one of a number of camps who have strong opinions on subjects like homosexuality or the use of medical intervention to influence certain behaviors. I’m not a behavioral scientist and I’m just scratching the surface of learning more about brain chemistry and how brain development is influenced by gender. However, I’m a bit surprised that a renowned researcher is using societal norms to help define what she seems to perceive as abnormal behavior, a symptom or the result of a disease.

So what does this have to do with marketing? If members of the scientific community are classifying behavior abnormalities based upon whether or not a young girl is playing with dolls or fantasizing about having a baby, it’s not so much of a stretch to understand why marketers can’t get these gender roles out of their own heads. “Even science says a woman wants to get married and have kids,” the brand manager says, “so our campaign needs to reflect that.” I don’t think we (society, marketers, fill-in-the-blank) need another excuse to lean on stereotypes that are fitting fewer and fewer members of society.

Am I reading too much into this? Am I not sophisticated enough to understand the study? Is this an outlier I should ignore, or is this really the type of stuff that keeps us from being able to understand that different isn’t bad but simply different?

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

Marketing to Women #7 – The Walk of Shame

Written on June 29th, 2010 | Short URL: http://abcjr.me/2l

I got my copy of Bridget Brennan’s Why She Buys in the mail today and hoped to get through it relatively quickly. I decided to take it to the gym with me and make the most of the 60 minutes I’d be on the treadmill. I grabbed my gym bag and left the office book-in-hand.

As I was walking out, I looked down and saw that the front side of the book jacket was facing the outside world, with huge black lettering practically screaming the title WHY SHE BUYS. I felt a little uncomfortable with this, so I flipped the book over, holding it against the top of my gym bag, and put my hand around title printed on the spine. I walked over to the US Steel tower (there’s an awesome YMCA in the basement) and headed into the locker room. When I got on the treadmill, I discovered that the jacket was making it much harder to keep on the reading rack, so I took it off and folded it so that only the white inside part of the cover was visible. Then I spent the next 60 minutes reading.

At some point early in the book, Ms. Brennan discussed how men have been socialized from birth to reject all things feminine at the expense of being thought of as being a sissy or (gasp) gay. I kind of laughed to myself — it’s as if she called me out right then and there for being embarrassed about doing this potentially profitable research.

Think I would have been more enlightened after that experience? Nope. On the way out, I continued my covert ways. Even knowing that it’s silly and even counterproductive, I couldn’t help but worry about what passers-by might think about me reading a book about the big S-H-E. I’m in the process of doing the largest research project I’ve ever attempted, reading as much as I can (three books down, about five to go based on my current purchases/inventory), speaking with leading authors/thinkers in this category and writing about it, quite publicly, on this blog. I have bought tampons for girlfriends without blinking an eye. But I feel awkward about people seeing me with a book about selling to women.

My conclusion? This is a very hard subject for us men to tackle. We’re embarrassed about it, concerned that someone will question our manhood because we’re discussing it. As a result, we’re simply ignoring the impact women have on the market, thinking that we can get by without worrying about their sheer financial muscle. But we can’t afford to, and all of the data says so. How can we possibly adapt and compete if we’re too embarrassed to talk about it in the first place? Have you ever seen a professional sports general manager assure the fan base that he has acquired all of the talent necessary to win a championship only to see the team get clobbered by everyone in the league (*ahem* Pittsburgh Pirates *ahem*)? How can that GM make the right moves and build a winning franchise if he’s too embarrassed to admit mistakes and learn what it takes to be successful? (Hint: He can’t, as us Bucco fans can attest.) Wouldn’t you rather have your favorite team run by GM who is responsive, willing to own up to errors, open to new information and strategies, and comfortable with completely changing his view of what that team needs to succeed?

So, that means I have to walk the walk. I need to resist the urge to hide from what might be the most important marketing conversation happening today. If I can’t expect this from myself, I can’t expect it from anyone else, either.

Posted in MBA, Marketing, Marketing Management, Marketing to Women | Permalink | 8 Comments |

Marketing to Women #6 – Many a Truth Has Been Said in Jest

Written on June 25th, 2010 | Short URL: http://abcjr.me/2h

I don’t know why it took me this long to remember this, but the Harvard Sailing Team, a New York City-based sketch comedy troupe, did a pair of videos -- “Boys Will Be Girls” and “Girls Will Be Boys”. While playing on some obvious stereotypes, their execution is both fantastic and unnerving. I figured that, with all the serious discussion, Friday would be a perfect day to lighten the mood. Without further ado:

Boys Will Be Girls

Girls Will Be Boys

So, what’s right about these? What’s wrong? Did anything strike you?

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

Marketing to Women #5 – Too Busy to Shop: Interview with Kelley Skoloda

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

First and foremost, I have to thank Ms. Skoloda ( @toobusytoshop) for being so kind to let me interview her for this project. Knowing that I’m doing this research for my MBA and that my blog isn’t exactly getting 1,000 hits an hour, she was a fantastic sport, even in dealing with my less-than-adequate interviewing skills. I also want to thank Brittney Osikowicz ( @bosikowicz) for the referral (her second appearance on this blog!).

For a quick background on her, I will quote her own site instead of attempting to write her bio myself:

Kelley Murray Skoloda is an author, an MBA and a public relations executive. A partner/director of Ketchum’s Global Brand Marketing Practice, Skoloda is a recognized authority on marketing to women and is the architect of the widely-publicized Women 25to54, a communications offering that offers a better way to reach “multi-minding” female consumers. (More here)

In other words — Marketing Rock Star. Also, a Katz MBA alumna, which makes me feel all the better about choosing Pitt for B-school.

Kelley shed some light on a few topics that have been challenging for me to decode in my reading without some real Q&A (I’ve finished three books with four more on the way). In no particular order:

“It comes down down to how men and women are hard-wired.”

She discussed some specific research that concluded that, at a very biological level, women are hard-wired for interconnectedness and men are hard-wired to make more straightforward decisions. I’d tend to agree, though I know that there is some controversy when statements like this are made. However, marketing is about taking as much available data you have about the target and making do with what you have. Assumptions must be made and I’m willing to roll with that one going forward.

“We have a lot of work to do.”

In the conversation, she mentioned that there are a lot of male brand managers that work on women’s lines. I wondered aloud if this had any effect on the data I mentioned in the previous post (a majority of women feeling “vastly underserved”). Her response was that we a lot of work to do in understanding what women want and need (Note: I’m making the connection between the presence of male brand managers and the perspective of female consumers, not her). However, she also pointed out that companies are making progress simply because they recognize the sheer numbers involved. She mentioned that Kodak hired a “Chief Listener” (her name is Beth LePierre and here’s her summary of her first days on the job), who is focused on ways to make it easier for moms/women to share photos.

It’s more elementary than you might think.

I half-complained (is there such a thing as a half-complaint?) that a lot of my reading has suggested things like, “respect a woman’s intelligence”, “make her laugh”, and “she likes to talk so give her something to talk about”. I said that it seemed a bit rote and awfully elementary — isn’t that all sort of obvious? Yes, she said, but it’s an elementary thing that folks aren’t getting. Take note, guys — some of it really is that obvious. Don’t miss the obvious.

What about that 85% number *everyone* is throwing around?

If you read anything in this space, you’ll find the data point that 85% of purchases are made or influenced by women (I’ve used this myself). How long will this last? While there isn’t any hard data, anecdotal information seems to suggest that men might be more comfortable moving into domestic roles. She mentioned a site P&G launched in June 2010 that is focused on men called manofthehouse.com, described as “a household tips website for the growing number of American men who have become homemakers in a tough job market”. Does P&G have some harder data on this or are they just building a firewall for a potential shift in the market? Regardless, that 85% number might fall as times change.

This is some great insight from someone who’s been in the trenches of consumer marketing to women. I was incredibly fortunate to get her perspective and she gave me plenty to think about as I continue on this path. I strongly suggest checking out her book Too Busy to Shop. Please check out her web site and her blog. Finally, you can order the book from Amazon.com here.

What do you all think about her (and my) conclusions?

Posted in MBA, Marketing, Marketing Management, Marketing to Women | Permalink | 2 Comments |

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