MARKETING TO WOMEN

I reread Trends from Tom Peters and Martha Barletti this weekend, a nice little book covering all the essentials of marketing to women. One part that I recognized all too well is the observation that people always joke and tell stories about the differences between men and women during off-work hours. In that realm, it is accepted as a fact of life. In a business context however, ‘we persistently -and foolishly- shun any recognition of the distinction between male and female cultures.’
This fear of alienating men is the number 1 objection against marketing to women initiatives. To this, Peters and Barletti respond ‘we must begin worrying instead about how thoroughly we have alienated women by ignoring their sensibilities’, as companies persist in their idea of men as the dominant group to market to. They add: We (males) snicker about women’s “shopping proclivity” but persist in reflexively acting as if the “consumer” - for furniture, cars, food, and computers alike - is a ‘he’.
They also deliver some easy to use advice on how to market to women and explain that it’s not all that difficult: ‘We tie ourselves in knots as we go about tying little pink ribbons around some special “women’s brand” - when, in fact, the key to reach women is to honour their complexity’.