Linda McGregor is the Principal of All About Eve, a strategic marketing consultancy that specialises in communicating more effectively to females. The remainder of this popular series will be released on the All About Eve website, please click here to be updated of their release.

All About Eve’s Linda McGregor is back this issue with another insightful contribution on successful marketing to females. This month, Linda looks at why women always want more than you think, will scrutinise what’s on offer and provide tips on how your brand can satisfy this female characteristic.

Women wrote the book on wanting it all, often declaring to want everything men want, and then some. But it’s not surprising when you consider how a woman’s brain works – as a super-computer with more interconnectivity and storage capacity than the male brain by far.

Linda McGregor,
Principal,
All About Eve

The female is all about attention to detail and depth, so she:
• looks at more options
• is less content with decisions that are a compromise
• is far more likely to pick up inconsistencies in her cross-referencing

Some major brands have been caught out by inconsistencies between various aspects of the
marketing program:

UK chocolate brand for men, Yorkie

Since 1976, Yorkie had unashamedly marketed itself as the chocolate bar for men, with the famous ‘Trucker’ ads. In 2002 even more macho positioning saw an ad campaign with slogans such as ‘Don’t feed the birds’, ‘Not available in pink’ and ‘Save your money for driving lessons’ and featuring the ‘Not for girls’ tagline.

Fast forward to 2006, the brand was experiencing declining sales in a female dominated category. So a new strategy was to target women with a pink version of the Yorkie. Saying ‘VERY LIMITED EDITION’, the chocolate bar was the same, but with pink packaging and ‘Female language’ such as ‘GET YOUR LIPS AROUND THIS’! Do I even need to talk about the brand offer inconsistency?

Walking the talk
So you need consistency of message, the offer, the communication and the action. Women more than men are looking for consistency between words in an advertising campaign, its claims and then the actual delivery of the product or service.

Here are two examples of brands walking the talk:

Below is a more recent example that further demonstrates the brand’s consistency of message in communications.

Jodie McGregor Flowers
Sydney florist, Jodie McGregor, with tagline ‘Fabulous flowers for fabulous people’ has won awards year after year. Why? Because the brand lives up to its tagline. Apart from the flowers themselves being of a superior quality, the service is exceptional, delivering flowers with cards explaining what’s in the bouquet (offering husbands a hint for the future!) delighting regular customers with gifts on their birthdays, a flower addicts club and much more. With an informative, easily scannable website, the company is ultimately making the customer feel valuable.

Both these brands are putting words into action and explains why brands such as these gain loyalty with women in particular. It also offers an insight into why specialty stores, with their attention to detail, rate consistently higher on positive emotional drivers than supermarkets. And are consistently able to charge premium prices.

When wanting more isn’t always good – how your brand can help
Often women dislike their inbuilt need to review every option. Newsflash: she often just wants to make a quick decision! So be the good guy, the brand that makes it possible for her to do this and yet still feel she’s made the right decision. Add value with your solutions to her problems and you’ll be a hero.

Cancer Council girls’ night in
The Cancer Council gets it right, helping women to stop thinking and start doing, by providing them with the tools to get started with a ‘Girls Night In’ campaign for the charity. It advertises the idea online and in print, then makes it as easy as 1,2 3 to do.

Here are some broad principles to avoid, which will ultimately prevent her from making better, faster decisions:

• anything that aims to sell, rather than helps and informs. At best you’ll just confuse the process. At worst you’ll annoy her and she’ll ignore your brand.
• anything that tells her there’s only one right answer. This might seem helpful as one answer is simpler but it is likely to be rejected as, unless you have that relationship with her, it again comes across as just a sell. You’ve taken no account of her personal needs.

In a nutshell, she’ll always want more, do more and have more, and that, handled correctly and consistently, is your cue to sell more!

Linda

P.S. Don’t forget the remainder of this popular series will be released on the All About Eve website, please click here to be updated of their release.

Thanks to: Linda McGregor, All About Eve, Yorkie, Dove, Jodie McGregor Florist, Cancer Council.
Posted by: Carmen Campbell

Last time I discussed the need to communicate to women differently, with the emphasis on demonstrating a genuine understanding of her world and creating a real relationship, rather than using outdated stereotyping.
Click here to read the last issue.

But should we shout loudly that we’re singling out women, or is this likely to offend? How obvious or subtle is the right approach to women? The answer - both can work but choose the one appropriate for your offer.

Let’s look at both ends of the spectrum:

1. Overt: your aim here is to make it obvious you’re targeting her because she is female, so use recognised, obvious gender cues such as the colour pink.
   
   The tricky bit is judging when cues are acceptable to her, versus lazy or misinformed stereotype shortcuts e.g. all women love to be shown you care, versus showing you care = give flowers.

Linda McGregor,
Principal,
All About Eve

2. Covert: you focus on her needs, not her sex e.g. she’s busy and looking for ways to do more with less time. Often this approach means you hit a male need too, because it’s about need, not gender. This is standard good marketing practice.
   
   However, the covert part comes in the way you then communicate that need and link it to your brand. Think of it as talking her talk, as a friend would – right style, relevant content and language e.g. use a more invitational style to build trust with her and tell stories to bring a human factor into play that she will more easily relate to.

When overt works well
This approach is useful when there is a genuine value or benefit to be gained by her from purchasing the tailored female version of the product. This could be connected to functional delivery, safety, fit and so on. It is based on clear and apparently intuitive insight into her different needs because she is female.

Successful ‘overt’ approaches:

Breast Cancer pink
What started as a clever use of a coloured ribbon to show support for a female focused disease, has become the most successful marketing use of pink. By using a stereotype - women and pink - this cause has harnessed a highly acceptable, positive way to broadcast that you’re supporting women.

Bürgen
With its healthy bread range, Bürgen has clearly acknowledged that women have different health needs. Its Soy-Lin bread openly addresses the specific nutrients that female bodies require.

But this is KEY with overt campaigns - without a strong purpose for targeting a female directly, obvious ‘for women’ labelling is risky as it often points to superficial or created reasons for purchase. The early days of female razors was a point in case:

Gillette
The price of the ‘for women’ item is higher, yet the only adaptation to the product is colour, pink rather than blue. Marketed as tailored to female needs, it seems to imply she’s concerned enough about looks rather than functionality to drive her to pay for a colour premium.

When covert works best
On most occasions. Outside of where it’s accepted that men and women want different things, most women won’t thank you for singling them out for ’special treatment’. Why? Because often there’s a subtle social history that has meant women were considered inferior consumers e.g. owning cars, mechanical or technical gear or, operating in lower status categories e.g. housework versus business. Make the same ‘sell’ as you would to a man but change how you sell it.

This communication approach does require more understanding of the subconscious of what makes the female audience tick. Think of it as two step marketing:

1. Get the offer and message right
2. Get the communication of it right

While it may be more work, boy can it deliver because you build a stronger connection.

Successful ‘covert’ approaches:

Clarks Bad Feet Kids
A great example of effective targeting to mums. No reams of copy about importance of right shoes for growing kids, responsibility of a mum, medical testimonials or biology lessons, all stuff she’s heard before. Just a clear picture painted of the key relevant fact – kids with bad feet. Clarks has understood how to talk her language and make her care about fitting and quality in shoes that last only months thanks to those growing feet.

To sum up
We use the phrase ‘Don’t think pink’ because it’s a label used to describe the fatally bad campaigns that have used over-obvious and inappropriate female stereotypes in ways that simply offend the very women we aim to attract.

But, as with all things feminine, it’s never quite that simple – and sometimes pink is gold!

Linda

(For a full explanation of the key Fundamental Four™ differences between the sexes and how it impacts marketing, see our previous interview)

Thanks to: Linda McGregor at All About Eve, Bürgen, Gillette, Nestle, Clarks, National Breast Cancer Foundation.
Posted by: Carmen Campbell

We could, and do, have endless conversations on the differences between men and women and the implications this has in the communications industry.

So we invited female marketing consultancy, All About Eve, to share its wisdom into the female mind.

Over the course of 2010 we’ll be featuring regular posts from Eve’s Principal, Linda McGregor. Linda has joined us in the past to talk about The Fundamental Four when communicating to females – you can watch her video interviews here.

Q. You’ve named this series Don’t think pink, what are you referring to?

A. Basically, Don’t think pink refers to getting it wrong when trying to tailor marketing to female audiences. A lot of the problems we see come from outdated thinking - use of established stereotypes, outdated assumptions and information. All good intentions - but insufficient thinking or expertise into the female mind.

Linda McGregor,
Principal,
All About Eve

The combination of all these things tends to result in clumsy or over obvious campaigns that come across as a patronising pat on the head for many women.

Here are a couple of examples to demonstrate both ends of the scale.

Pink Cabs
Many women feel less than safe getting into taxis alone late at night, especially with male drivers.

Pink Cabs addressed the issue simply and obviously with female only taxi drivers and with the cabs being easy to spot by being bright pink! Great understanding of a need and even greater positive use of a stereotype female colour.

Dodge La Femme
In the 50s, automotive manufacturers identified women as a new target market and wanted a car to meet their needs.

Even when we account for its age, the Dodge La Femme campaign demonstrated a lack of real knowledge about what women wanted from a car - other than the assumption that it would be about looks - flower patterns and pink. Its withdrawal from the market due to low sales only a few years later says everything about its failure to appeal.

Q. So what’s the answer?

A. We like to say think link, not pink! By that we mean think, first of how to connect (link) with her as a purchaser of your brand when constructing the offer and message. Then, and only then, address the fact that she’s female, by ensuring you use a form of communication that talks to her in and on her terms.

Three pointers:

1. Demonstrate genuine and real understanding of her world, through empathy and ideas
   Women spend their lives outwardly focused on how they interact with others. They expect a brand to behave the same way when it communicates – focus on her, then on itself. The other way around is selling AT her, instead of first bonding by proving it really gets her wants and needs.

   Dove’s Real Beauty campaign is a classic example, it tapped into females need for recognition that women come in all shapes, sizes and looks and are not all supermodels.

2. Perform to her needs and wants
   Remember that needs are rooted in reality thus easier for her to put a value against. Wants however, are all about dreams and often highly emotional, resulting in a different decision making process. One comparison would be the purchase of most grocery products versus the purchase of a pair of Jimmy Choo shoes.
3. It’s not just the brand offer, but also how it’s said, when and where
   We often see good messages let down by poor execution. Sensitivity to context is as natural to women as breathing, so they unwittingly demand the same when you’re marketing to them. Due to her brain construct, she joins the brand dots across message, consistency of talk and action, time, mood and words.

Q. So where to from here?

A. I’ll leave you with one thought to get your mind ready for the coming months. Think about marketing to women as a real relationship. It will help you better assess the reality of your campaign and its likely success.

In some of the topics coming up: women and sex; women and humour; why she’ll always want more; relationships vs. transactions; differences between the sister generations and more. Any other burning topics you’d like covered? Just hit the comment button below and let us know.

Until next time!

Thanks to: Linda McGregor, All About Eve
Posted by: Carmen Campbell

Looking for a way to engage women in a man’s game? The Rugby Football Union in England (RFU) has employed some new game tactics, forming an unlikely partnership with publisher Mills & Boon.

The RFU plans to align rugby with romance with a set of rugby-themed novels, in the hope they will inspire women to flock to the rugby.

Subtly and self-assured, the RFU is taking a brave step in its quest to widen its female audience. And for any avid Mills & Boon fans out there, The Prince’s Waitress Wife has just been released in time for the Six Nations.

Thanks to: Mills & Boon, Rugby Football Union, Brand Republic

In this short clip Linda McGregor from All About Eve talks about the first of the Fundamental Four™ differences between men and women – their values. Listen to what Linda has to say about the differences in gender.

The next three fundamental differences between men and women - communication, thinking & decision making and managing her world™ - clearly demonstrate, when it comes to communications, understanding gender differences can offer opportunity to marketers.

Part 2 - Communication

Part 3 - Thinking & Decision Making

Part 4 - Managing Her World

Thanks to: Linda McGregor, All About Eve

Men and women both communicate to exchange information, no surprises there. Why then, do we so often find women appear to have so much more to say? Linda shares with us the important additional element females look for.

Thanks to: Linda McGregor, All About Eve