On Making “Marketing to Women” Obsolete

Posted on | December 5, 2007 |

At the end of a recent interview with me (reg. required), an AdWeek editor pointed out the obvious: that my goal as a marketing to women writer/expert seemed to be to make the topic obsolete. And, I admit – she was right. That perfectly describes my work of seven plus years, despite how “off” it sounds.As I write my inaugural post for eBrandMarketing, I mention this obsolescence factor to prepare readers for what may be my more cynical or contrarian perspective on it all (not always, but often enough). I have nothing against all the great research and theories about the women’s market that now exist (in fact I’ve contributed to that resource), and applaud all the steps that a number of high profile brands have put into place. I just think that now is the time to wrap it all in a new, non-gender-specific package.For lack of a better way to put it, let’s consider “marketing to women 2.5” to be the place in time at which we no longer need to go on and on about female consumers as separate from male consumers. Instead, let’s start talking about marketing to everyone’s perhaps more feminine brain traits and how, if we tap and serve those, we are actually just serving the overall highest level of customer expectations (and not “marketing to” anything or anyone…)I firmly believe that in order to get to where we are today, that first inspiration for better customer experience needed to be this “new” women’s market awareness (which started roughly ten years ago). In late 2007, however, there should be no reason a marketer would have to make a case for spending money figuring out what women want. That should long-since be considered a given. Today we simply need to get over ourselves and point out that understanding how women buy is the launching pad to better serving everyone.What I’ve witnessed over the years is a stigma about “women’s” anything, that has less to do with business than it has to do with a culture that still makes men feel like sissies if they come close to doing anything traditionally feminine – like admit they like to make connections with other people, or that they too appreciate web sites that go beyond facts and figures.Still, if women are mentioned as part of a consumer initiative or marketing approach, all the men in the conference room squirm and say, “Oh we’ll just let the women deal with that.” Therein lies the point. Preaching about better serving women to women is preaching to the choir. The people who could really benefit from the knowledge are hesitant to even enter the conversation.Given the fact that men and women have been living, studying and working together for years, I find it odd that gender-segmentation often seems to be the first layer of customer analysis, rather than something to consider later in the game. More and more, customers should be considered individuals that really do respond to the higher standards that women, so far, have had the most success in demanding of brands.So, how do we get men to engage with this incredible opportunity to grow sales with all customers? Take women off the label, but continue the powerful marketing work of being inspired and guided by women’s high expectations. Women’s market truths will never disappear.I’m willing to risk my career over it.

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