MARKETING TO WOMEN

   

shopping during the holidays

Op Advertising Age las ik een interessant artikel van Mary Lou Quinlan (auteur van; Just Ask a Women) genaamd “Women’s Hidden Holiday-Shopping Secrets Revealed
Retailers hopen op een meevaller in sales tijdens inkopen voor de feestdagen. Deze hoop is gevestigd op vrouwen: “they remain at the mercy of those whose wallets matter most; women, the power shoppers who always make or break the holiday.” Om achter de beweegredenen van vrouwen te komen om te shoppen voor de feestdagen voerde Quinlan onderzoek uit onder 2000 respondenten. Ze hanteerde hierbij begrippen als ‘hele waarheid’ en ‘halve waarheid’.

Uit het onderzoek bleek dat:
1.1 Halve waarheid: Retailers sporen het koopgedraag aan, waardoor sommige vrouwen op het laatst toch nog veel aankopen doen voor de feestdagen.
1.2 Hele waarheid:49 procent van de vrouwen gaf aan dat ze door de recessie minder extra aankopen zullen doen naast de aankopen die ze al gedaan hebben.

2.1Halve waarheid: Volgens 61 procent van de vrouwen zou de recessie geen invloed moeten hebben op het geven van cadeautjes tijdens de feestdagen.
2.2 Hele waarheid: 80 procent van de vrouwen is van plan dit jaar minder uit te geven aan cadeautjes tijdens de feestdagen. 80 procent zal dit jaar minder uitgeven aan cadeautjes tijdens de feestdagen. Hoewel de vrouwen de traditie graag in ere houden, en de kinderen nog steeds wel cadeautjes zullen krijgen, wordt er dit jaar bezuinigd op cadeautjes voor volwassenen (partner en familieleden).

3.1 Halve waarheid: De vrouwen geven allemaal graag cadeautjes die tonen dat ze om de ander geven.
3.2 Hele waarheid: Ondanks bovenstaand punt willen de vrouwen niet veel geld uitgeven aan deze cadeaus. 29 procent van de vrouwen met een inkomen tussen de 50.000 en 100.000 dollar geeft aan niet de volle prijs te willen betalen voor een product. 43 procent van de groep geeft aan alleen aankopen te doen met contant geld om extra uitgaven te beperken.

4.1 Halve waarheid: 81 procent zegt dat ze graag attente (passende) cadeaus geeft.
4.2 Hele waarheid: Zeker 1 op de 4 vrouwen geven graag cadeaubonnen vanwege het gemak (hoeft niet geruild te worden en kost weinig moeite om mee te nemen).

5.1 Halve waarheid: De vrouwen zeiden het zat te zijn om te bezuinigen en te sparen en dit jaar tijdens de feestdagen veel geld uit te gaan geven.
5.2 Hele waarheid: Hoewel 91 procent van de vrouwen het met bovenstaande stelling niet eens was, verwacht Quinlan samen met Marshal Cohen dat de vrouwen zichzelf toch zullen verwennen met cadeautjes tijdens de feestdagen: “After a year of denial and an avalanche of friends-and-family offers, women will find a way to treat themselves along the way, even if it’s under de guise of choosing their own presents so their families won’t screw up.”

Ik ben erg benieuwd naar het shopgedrag van Nederlandse vrouwen voor de aankomende feestdagen….Zullen zij door de recessie de hand op de knip houden, of vinden ze dat hun gezin, familie en zijzelf wel een extraatje verdiend hebben met Sinterklaas en/of kerst?

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Nike trainer app especially for women

I just installed the Nike trainer app on my iPhone. It’s interesting to see that the app is especially made for women. You can check the app on their website (if it ever loads). The program shows several exercises (unfortunately limited to fitness studio / aerobics like workouts, but I suppose that’s the biggest sport among women) and a sports calendar, as well as a possibility to invite buddies and compete with others. To me it’s no surprise that Nike especially targets women with this ad, as they know by now that women are a very interesting target group. According to this study, only the US market for women’s athletic apparel was worth $23 billion in 2000. I haven’t heard later research, but I don’t doubt the figures will be higher now.

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Marianne van Leeuwen on February 26th 2009 in Marketing to women

Women and sports

Being a sports fanatic myself, I have been keeping track of the news around women and sports for a while, and that’s a lot. The number of medals for Dutch women at the Beijing Olympics clearly showed that women have to be taken seriously, also in the top of sports.

In some sports disciplines, women are competing on the same level as men, or even winning from them. I recently watched a documentary on Laleh Seddigh, also known as the ‘little Schumacher’, competing with men in the Iranian 1600 GT class. Wearing a headscarf and with the permission of her husband obviously, but anyhow. Her struggle for emancipation, demanding the right for women to race, turned her into a cult icon for Iranian women as well as the world press. However, Iranian race authorities were not amused, and she had to give up her own racing licence. For further reading, here’s an article on Laleh Seddingh.

Another female race hero is Danica Patrick from the US, who won an Indy race last year, something that no other woman achieved before. The enormous popularity of these women makes them an important role model for young women, who have much broader possibilities in the field of sports than their mothers.

Happily, female sports is no longer only aerobics. Today, I read in the Second Sight newsletter: football isno longer a male thing.  The Dutch football league KNVB now has almost 10% female members (more than 107.000) and female football is the fastest growing part within the organization. 

No surprise that sports brands are now catering to female target audiences. If I only count my own yearly spendings on sports articles, this must be an enormous opportunity…

 

 

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Marianne van Leeuwen on October 14th 2008 in Insights & ideas

Some interesting facts about women

I stumbled upon this interesting list of facts about women. The article was published in 2006, so it could be a little bit outdated, but the facts are speak so much for themselves, that the situation has completely changed over the last 2 years

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Marianne van Leeuwen on August 18th 2008 in Facts and figures, Uncategorized

M2W conference

Today was the first day of the M2W (marketing to women) conference in Chicago with more or less everyone working in the field present; that is a lot of American agencies and brands and 3 people from Europe, all from Amsterdam (2 from Bosley and me)… This shows again that the topic of female marketing is not on the European agenda yet.

What struck me was the fact that virtually all lectures where about the changes in the media landscape and the importance of digital media for female marketing. An important insight is that women are now digitally empowered. They are no longer overwhelmed by the amount of content on offer. They no longer need the big internet portals to help them lead the way on the internet, instead they visit hundreds of websites, including many niche sites. They are online for about 13 hours a week, which is really a lot compared to the 3 hours they reserve for magazines (according to Glam Media, an online publishing network targeting women with 64 million unique visitors). So women have shifted from the analog to the digital world, hurray! As a result, they can now decide what’s important to them, on her time and on her terms and brands can do no more than align themselves to that.

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Marianne van Leeuwen on May 9th 2008 in Digital media, Female marketing, Marketing to women