Let's talk about sex baby

A new meta-study conducted throughout 87 countries puts it to rest for once and for all: when it comes to sex, men and women aren't as different as we think.

The study, conducted by the University of Wisconsin-Madison, reports that "men and women are more similar than different in terms of sexuality". They start having sex at almost the same age, they overlap in the number of partners, the frequency of intercourse, extramarital sex and condom use.

But there was one notable difference: reported masturbation and pornography use.
Not so strange, you may think: men simply prefer these "autoerotic activities" to women.

Maybe not. Women are taught from a very early age that "autoeroticism" is bad, socially unacceptable and certainly not discussed. Actually: it simply doesn't exist. So the difference does not lie in the fact that men prefer auto erotic sexual activities more than women do, it just means it is more socially acceptable for men to talk about it than it is for women to do so.

The report also supports some of the more popularly held theories of evolutionary psychology.

This Newsweek article discusses the theories through believers and non-believers.

You can read Tom Jacob's review of the report here.

On selling marketing to women - to men.

Often when I give presentations on marketing to women, I feel as if I'm preaching to the converted, so to speak.
Mostly, the people that attend our workshops already believe in the purchasing power of the female consumer. And mostly, the people that attend these workshops are - you guessed it: women.

Today I came across an article by Holly Buchanan titled "How to sell men on marketing to women". It's a great article by a lady who knows her stuff. And she tackles issues we still face so often today. It's well worth a read!

Another must-read this week is this report by Ad Age, called "The New Female Consumer: the rise of the real mom."
The report focuses on Generation-X and the Millennials, and although the research was conducted in the US, in my opinion still provides some great insights in to the collective psyche of these two generations.

The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Marketing measures much of its relevance and success by doing consumer research. From surveys and questionnaires to focus groups, we want (no we need) to know what our consumer is thinking. But what if the consumer we're asking isn't telling us the truth...? What if the method we're using to get information is no longer appropriate or effective. Chances are that we're then also producing data that does not reflect the truth, or even a part of it!

At Muse Communication we've long said that traditional focus groups no longer deliver the depth of data they should. We have a different way of approaching qualitative research (contact us if you want to know more). This article on Forbes.com, called "Listen up marketers: women aren't telling you the whole truth", touches on a few very relevant points to consider - and gives a few tips on how to improve the information you gain from your research.

If you think your female consumers aren't telling you the whole truth, then maybe its time to look at the way you're asking them...That's where the problem lies!

Social media: the new matriarchy?

An interesting report on social media usage trends throughout Europe.

The bottom line?

1. Internet usage is still largely task-based. News consumption, research & information gathering prior to purchase and staying in touch with friends are the most frequent activities.
2. We research EVERYTHING - from snack foods to holidays - online.
3. Comfortable strangers. The fabric of our social network is changing significantly. In the UK, for example, people stay in touch "face-to-face" with 21.4 people, while they stay in touch online with 49.3 people.

So what about women and social media?
It's definitively a new matriarchy! See "Information is beautiful"



Women now outnumber men on:
Facebook: 57 percent women users.
Twitter: 57 percent women users.
Flickr: 55 percent women users.

When we look at the influence of social media on Generation-Y women's behavior (view the stats here), we see exactly how powerful a communication tool social media networks are becoming...!

Iab Social Media Research October 22nd 2010

View more documents from Tom Smith.

The marshmellow test and what it teaches us

Watch kids illustrate what happens when one pre-activates the "goal conflict mechanism" in relation to eating when an eating opportunity presents itself. Next time you can't resist that donut, you know why: goal conflict!

Here you can find an interesting study conducted at the University of Leuven on " The Effect of Prior Food Temptation Actionability on Goal Activation and Consumption"

Oh, The Temptation from Steve V on Vimeo.

Psssssst: whisper in my right ear!

If you want to persuade someone, it is best do whisper in their right ear, as this article suggests.

Both men and women (72%) prefer to use their right ear when listening to their conversation partner, and a majority of us also hold our mobile phones to our right ears.

Why?
What may at first seem rather strange begins to make sense on closer investigation:
Language is processed by the left-hand side of the brain, which receives its input from the right-hand ear. Therefor, showing a preference for using one's right-had hear to listen to a conversation isn't all that strange!

The $5 Trillion Opportunity.

The Boston Consulting Group recently surveyed more than 12,000 women in 22 countries about their needs, wants and expectations. For those still in doubt as to whether they should be taking women's expectations into account in their marketing strategies, the press release's sub-title may do the trick: "Emerging $5 Trillion Opportunity Exists for Companies that Systematically Understand and Respond to Women's Needs for Time, Value, Emotional Connections."


According to the BCG study companies are failing to meet the needs of women in five key areas:

1. poor product design and customization for women;
2. clumsy sales and marketing efforts;
3. an inability to address women's need for time-saving solutions;
4. an inability to provide a meaningful hook and differentiation, and
5. failure to develop a community around the brand.

Banking, cars, technology: it's still a man's world.
The study also points out that women still feel left out in the cold by many traditionally male industries such as banking & investment, automotive and technology.

o 49 percent of women said investment companies need to do a much better job of understanding and meeting their needs.
o 48 percent of women are disappointed with the auto industry and cars.
o 47 percent are disappointed with banks; 45 percent with life insurance; 42 percent with physicians and 39 percent with car insurance.

We've highlighted the fact that these industries still all too often ignore women in blogposts and newsletter before.

To those companies that are listening: opportunity knocks! Use your window of opportunity before others wake up!

Why we love our hairdresser: customer loyalty from a woman's perspective.

There's a commonly held theory in marketing land that says women are more loyal as customers than men are. (It's one of the reasons many companies have discovered women as a lucrative target audience.) But here's the thing: it's not exactly true.

A recent study by The Journal of Marketing points out that there are significant differences in the type of loyalty men and women display toward service providers. Women are more loyal to individuals (a specific hairdresser, doctor or salesperson), while men's loyalty is toward group-like entities, such as teams, companies or organizations.

These findings support the principles of gender psychology, which hold that women see themselves as part of an interconnected web of specific individuals and thus also place greater importance on individual relationships. Men, on the other hand, view themselves as part of groups and larger societal networks.

So in actual fact, women are not naturally inclined to be loyal to groups, organizations and "group-like structures" such as brands. It does confirm what we tell our clients: it is harder to get a woman to become a loyal customer, but once you have her (and if you foster that relationship in the correct ways), she is more likely to remain loyal.

The implications for marketers, as author Valentyna points out, are:

1. Companies with a large share of female customers should focus marketing and CRM strategies on personal relationships with individual employees. (For brands such as Weight Watchers, keeping coaches happy will ensure that members keep coming back. Loose a coach, you'll most likely loose quite a few members too, for as Valentyna points out: "Female customers should be more likely than male customers to defect and follow an individual employee...")

2. For brands that target mostly men, the study advocates focusing on strategies stressing group themes.

So for those that have ever wondered why women are prepared to travel half a world to get to their favorite hairdresser, there's your answer!

"It's pretty ugly" - how gender drives our perception of design

Working in marketing and communication for over 10 years now, I can confirm that design is indeed one of the most subjective elements of marketing. And exactly because it's so subjective, its also the most difficult element to discuss with a client, let alone defend rationally if they've decided they don't like it.

How do you defend a design, unless you have facts to back it up?
The lack of research on the effects of gender on design made that one of the biggest stumbling blocks, and we had to rely on arguments such as "from experience" and "as a woman I can tell you that...".

But that's about to change with this book "Gender, Design and Marketing: how gender drives our perception of design and marketing" by Gloria Moss.

In the book, Gloria explores gender preferences in drawing, painting, graphics and web design.
It's a book I'll certainly be buying, and one I'll advise all my clients (from R&D teams to marketing) to buy too!

Here are a few very interesting findings:
- We are drawn to images of people of our own gender
- Women prefer designs with round shapes and detailed surfaces, men prefer linear shapes and plain surfaces.
- Women draw faces in a full frontal position, men draw faces in profile.
- Women prefer the use of more colour, especially bright colours.
- When it comes to website design, men intuitively preferred sites designed by men, and women sites designed by women. (And considering the fact that a whopping 78% of all female orientated beauty sites are designed by men, this may mean that these sites are probably performing below par)

But here's the really interesting bit that should make every brand about to actively engage with its female consumers sit up and take note:

Research points to the fact that women are less accepting of male design aesthetics than men are of female design aesthetics.
And that's not only the case in marketing, but also in product design.

"Although both men and women assign higher scores to own-sex designs compared to opposite-sex designs, men interestingly ascribed higher scores to female-designed products than the women do to male-designed products and this is further evidence of the fact that, given a choice, men have a greater tolerance of the female design aesthetic than women do of the equivalent male aesthetic."

I'm off to order it right now.

Much ado about what women want - online.

There's much ado about marketing to women online at the moment.
Articles on what women do (and don't do) online, what's lacking and who's being left out. It seems there is still quite a way to go before we agree we have it figured out.

The article "Men are from Facebook, women are from Twitter", published on CNNMoney.com talks about the different ways in which men and women use the internet. Reading it left me disappointed - some very stereotypical general top-level findings that boil down to "a little bit of this, a little bit of that and a lot of nothing".

Then there was this article about Women over 50 using the internet as primary news source (yup, my mom included!)

The article that raises the most interesting point is this one, by Wall Street Journal columnist Christina Binkley. In it Binkley asks:
"Are online marketers so youth-conscious -- because it feels right -- that they're ignoring lucrative markets just when they're most needed? The Internet is neither new nor young. The fastest-growing segment of Facebook users is women over 55, according to the Tracking Facebook blog. And the underlying assumption that young people are still the Web's most fertile market doesn't hold up to scrutiny."

Food for thought this week!

In Brands We Trust (And the winners are....)

I couldn't help smiling at the results of the Readers Digest "Trusted Brand 2009" results for Belgium when I saw them today.

Have a look who's the leading in the "Banking/Building Society" category. Fortis. Admittedly, the field work for this survey was done in August 2008, so things have changed a tad since then.



When it comes to marketing-to-women it is interesting to note that Nivea (and not Dove!) is the big winner throughout Europe and the most trusted cosmetic brand amongst Belgian consumers. Nivea has been very actively working on promoting the brand and engaging with its prospective consumers - both male and female over the past few months. (they clearly understand that if you can first convince the woman, it is then much easier to get the men along too!). You can see some of the activities they've done in Belgium recently on my friend Caroline's social media blog here.



Although there is no overall winner there are a few brands that rise above the rest across multiple countries.

The most nominated brands across the common categories are:

􏰀 NOKIA - For the 9th consecutive year Nokia is the most “Trusted Brand” of mobile phone handset in every country – no
change since the study was first published in 2001.

􏰀 NIVEA - continues to be the brand of skin care that most people trust (winner in 16 out of 16 countries).

􏰀 VISA - Similarly there is no change to the line up of trusted brands in the category of credit card. In 14 out of 16 countries Visa retained the pole position.

􏰀 CANON - remains the trusted brand of camera in 13 countries.

􏰀 KELLOGG'S - is the trusted brand of breakfast cereal in 10 Western European countries and Nestlé predominates in 4/5 of the CEER countries + Portuga.


About the Trusted Brands Survey:
The "Trusted Brands" is an annual consumer survey, involving over 23,000 people in 16 European countries. The survey’s primary objective is to find out which brands Europeans trust the most in a range of consumer product categories.

The reports per country can be found here.

Survey: Help Us Better Meet Your Business Travel Needs

Ad!dict Creative Lab is a global think-tank that brings together over 4,000 creatives from around the world on innovation and design challenges that need a broader perspective.

They're currently doing a survey on business travel. More specifically: the likes and dislikes thereof with seasoned business travelers. Over the past few decades, women have also become frequent business travelers, and as such, it is important that we share our likes and dislikes - from a woman's perspective!

The team at Ad!dict would really appreciate it if you could take the short 3-minute survey here.

As soon as the project wraps and the findings & recommendations are made public, we'll share a selection of them here! So, stay tuned in the coming months...!

No Sex Please, We're Women.

I was recently asked by De Morgen's weekend supplement WAX, to write an opinion piece on the use of gender stereotypes and nudity in advertising. I called the article "No sex please, we're women".


No Sex please, we’re women.

I’m a woman and I don’t like sex. I want everything around me to be nice, perfect and clean and I want it to be completely politically correct. And above all: no sex, please.

That at least, is the way I understood women to want things after reading a press statement by the European Parliament’s women’s rights commission stating that all stereotypes in advertising should be outlawed and a few days later being confronted with a recent study by KU Leuven about the effects of nudity in advertising.

It’s interesting to see how our lawmakers and ad-makers alike still grabble with what it is that women want.

European lawmakers, under the watchful eye of Ms Svensson, on the one hand, call for a ban of all gender stereotypes in advertising. A woman cleaning the kitchen, a man polishing his car. Svensson wants us to realize that these images play up (or down) to stereotypes about the role of men and women - and in doing so undermine equality between the sexes. I agree with Svensson when she says that "gender stereotyping in advertising straitjackets women, men, girls and boys by restricting them to predetermined and artificial roles that are often degrading, humiliating and dumbed down for both sexes".

Boys should be allowed to play dress-up with their dolls without Dad having a heart attack. Girls should be allowed to come home with a blue eye after a scrap in the schoolyard without Mom becoming hysterical about the reputation of her little girl. Women should be able to admit to enjoying one-night stands, and men should be allowed to cry during Sex in the City.

While I agree with Svensson that stereotypes can help confine people to boxes they don’t fit into, I don’t support her solution to the issue. The recommendation that governments police the advertising industry by creating regulatory bodies to monitor ads and introduce a “zero-tolerance” policy against stereotyping and degrading imagery fills me with a faint sense of George Orwellian dread. I wonder how the concepts ‘stereotypes’ and ‘degrading’ will be defined for me, and by whom.

What if the government doesn’t like the ad for Opium perfume featuring a stunningly naked size 42 Sophie Dahl in a pose suggesting masturbation? Provocative? Yes. Degrading? No. And will they disapprove of the legendary Diet Coke commercial featuring a bare-chested male construction worker? This ad too plays perfectly to a gender stereotype – but it worked oh so tantalizingly well...




Having grown up in South Africa during the apartheid infested eighties, it may be my fear of an overbearing authority speaking, but the question of who will decide what is acceptable or not, and whether these definitions will change with the government of the day, keep me awake. Government-sponsored media control not only affects freedom of speech, it also strips us of our personal responsibility as individuals to help effect change. That is much worse for society than stereotyping a woman fawning ecstatically over her whiter-than-white washing.

The problem with the acceptability of stereotypes lies in this: many stereotypes are in part based on reality. Is a stay-at-home mom a stereotype or a reality? Is a young, muscular construction worker a reality or a perpetuated reality? Distinguishing between reality and what is perpetuated as reality is a very grey area I would rather not have policed by the government du jour.

Which brings me to that other famous grey area in advertising: nudity. A recent study researched the impact of nudity on economic behavior and found that – surprise, surprise: nudity works. Well, at least it does for men. When it came to the way it affects women’s behavior, answers became a lot more vague. From “…een belangrijke groep vrouwen is ook gevoelig voor beelden van schaars geklede mannen” to “…[vrouwen] zijn even goed opwindbaar, en zullen wellicht ook veranderingen in hun economisch gedrag vertonen, maar dat zal eerder gebeuren in situaties waar de seksuele prikkel via de tastzin wordt geleverd in plaasts van via het oog.”

I’m still trying to understand these findings. Which women exactly fit into this “belangrijke groep vrouwen”? And if, as the study says, women are sensitive to images of scantily clad men, then what about me liking the Opium ad featuring a squirming Ms Dahl?

…And God forbid we consider the implications of women being more affected by a sexual impulse delivered through touch. I’m just not ready for a sensual fondle by the sales assistant at the local Zara!

But seriously: does nudity in advertising affect women? Yes, it does. I know the stereotype says that women don’t like sex or that women are not affected by nudity, but the reality is: we do and we are! We like our Diet Coke Man as much as we like our naked Sophie Dahl. But for us, nudity for nudity’s sake doesn’t work. It must add value to the message. If it sells us an empowering emotion, if it makes us giggle, if it holds up an inspiring, sensual mirror, if it conveys unabandoned freedom or playful eroticism, then yes, we are affected.

So instead of heading down the slippery slope of government-sponsored media censorship or silently allowing misperceptions about women to persist, here’s my recommendation: let’s support Ms Svensson’s suggestion that the advertising industry instead give prizes to companies who do the most to break down what it sees as gender 'straitjackets'. But let’s also take up our own responsibility as individuals and speak up about what we will and won’t accept, what we like or don’t like.

Do I like degrading images of women? No, I don’t. But I like the fact that some government could be deciding for me what is acceptable and what not much less.
Shouldn’t we as women and consumers be wielding our own conscience and using our wallets to show the advertising industry and big business what we do and don’t like, what we will and will not tolerate? For although it is a government’s task to draw global boundaries, it remains our individual responsibility to stand up and count in shaping positive and constructive images that accurately reflect our society.

Monday Morning Memo

Ok, it's no longer monday morning, I know. But it's still monday, so it's still memo time! Here's a quick round-up of what's happening out there that caught my attention over the past few days:

About social Media, gender and a storm in a cyber teacup:
There's loads being said on the value (or lack of it) of social media out there right now, this post on Lipsticking being just one of them. What else is interesting on social media & gender? This McCann study is worth a read, as is this study on the effects of age and gender on blogging.
Definitively read the post on social media on my good friend Caroline's blog!

Boomer women online
For those interested in how the boomer generation uses technology, the internet and social media, read this post over on Lipsticking and bookmark 'The Boomer Blog'! It has loads of interesting information!
Interesting fact: 80% of boomers use computers, one third of them go on-line every day! (US statistics)

How are buying decisions made?
An interesting post well worth a read (check out this chart that documents the basic characteristics of life development stages!) Helpful reading in understanding what drives us as humans (and consumers) during various life-stages.

Spilling the facts (cause marketing - part 2)

As most of my friends / peers / clients know, I'm a big fan of cause marketing.

Why?
Because all the 'push' communication we put our there - the ads, the press releases, the direct mailings, the tv spots, you name it, are perceived by the public (and that's us too, folks!) as just that: pushy.

Now don't get me wrong: at Muse Communication we of course also help create all those communication tools for clients, so I'm not trying to be 'holier than thou' here. But over the past few weeks my mind has been brewing on the question: "what does the future of effective communication look like?" I'm not gonna answer that question just yet. My thoughts are taking shape and when it all makes sense, I'll be sure to let you know right here.

But back to cause marketing and why I think it is such an important business tool.
Cone Inc recently announced the findings of its 'Cause Evolution Survey'
Although the survey was conducted in the US, I think we can safely transport its main findings to consumers in Europe too.

Here are some key findings:
- More than 65% of Americans say they consider a company’s business practices when deciding what to buy.
- 85% of Americans say they would switch to another company's products or services if a problem with business practices was uncovered.
- 92% acknowledge they have a more positive image of a company that supports a cause they care about.
- 87% are likely to switch from one brand to another (price and quality being about equal) if the other brand is associated with a good cause! (now if that doesn't illustrate how cause marketing can help convert prospects into customers!)

Today’s informed consumers are now asking, 'Is this a good company?' and 'What does it stand for?'"

I think cause marketing is an often underrated, under-utilized yet potentially pivotal part of a brand's communication. To put it in plain business terms: the ROI of a carefully chosen cause marketing program will prove positive beyond a doubt in many ways: both in terms of new customers and proud employees, to name just two.

Oh, there is one very important prerequisite though: your cause marketing effort must be a part of the brand ethos and not just it's marketing plan. For if your customer (and prospective customer) even gets so much as a whiff that the cause you are supporting is no more than a clever PR stint, you're doomed to loose all credibility. Food for thought not only for marketing managers...

Female Fever

This TrendWatching report give a pretty detailed overview of the exponential growth in the number of 'marketing to women' initiatives in various industry sectors.

Looking at the various products aimed at women being launched in so many different industries, my first thought was "wow! Companies are finally waking up to the enormous (sales) potential of marketing products specifically designed for women."
But as I kept reading, my frustration kept growing. It seems some stereotypes - very irritating stereotypes, by the way - die hard. As I kept scrolling through the photos and texts on each product I kept thinking "why do I see PINK everywhere? And what's with all the curly-thingies all over the place?" So even though some of the initiatives really hit the spot (check out the ABN AMRO 'Lady Delight'(bad name, great concept) investment fund!) many just 'paint it pink' - both literally and proverbially - in order to attract the attention of female consumers.

A fluorescent pink Swiss-Army Knife? Hummmm...no thanks.
A pink road-side safety kit for women? And exactly why would I want that in pink???
A beer called 'Hoegaarden Rosee'?
Pink taxis, pink shoes, pink yoghurt tubs, pink, pink, pink, pink. Really guys: some of the ideas are great, but the (pink) marketing really kills it!
Its quite an eye-opener to realise many brands are still stuck in the 'pink phase' when it comes to marketing to women.

But ok, Rome wasn't built in a day, they say...so here's hoping we all move out of the pink phase really soon...before I go completely crazy.