Womentum

A Painted Fingernail on the Joystick

July 29

Note: A colleague and I had the privilege today to speak about marketing to women to two groups of high school marketing teachers. They were all gathered in Greensboro for their annual convention and we were one of the breakout sessions. Great questions, lots of head nodding and several teachers who will go back to their classrooms and “preach the gospel” of marketing to women. Thanks to everyone who attended!

Post: As promised yesterday, we’re going to delve back into the world of video gaming. Check out yesterday’s post, “A Long Way From Ms. Pac-Man” if you missed it. There’s a lot to talk about here, and today I thought we could talk about women’s preferences when it comes to playing video games. I’m pulling a lot of this stuff from the Feb. 2005 Marketing to Women newsletter (www.epmcom.com), a great resource.

• Women gravitate toward games with strong story lines and character development. For instance, in “The Sims,” one of the best selling titles ever, gamers develop a simulated family and home, down to designing the furniture and deciding on details of face, clothing and hair. This character-building phase is part of the storytelling. Which leads to
• Women value storytelling over random wanderings through a game. By creating these characters and spinning stories around them, women develop a real connection with their animated counterparts and want to understand how a certain event, like going to college, might impact their character’s development. Which leads to
• Women prefer more realistic and diverse characters. Female characters who are victims, waiting to be rescued don’t cut it. Neither do characters who prance around in skimpy outfits.
• Women enjoy open-ended play that incorporates more conversation and interaction.
• Repetitive violence is boring. Simple games are boring.
• To learn how to play a game, women prefer to know the rules, the objectives and how things work before they start. Men tend to jump right in and learn through risk-taking and exploration. Which leads to
• Women and men have different ideas on how errors are “punished” during play.

So, here’s my really bad, total PinkThink (that’s a bad, bad thing) suggestion. If there are chick flicks, perhaps these should be called dame games. Just kidding. Don’t ever call them that. Or tell anyone that I said that. It’s that bad.

Here’s your homework: Is there an opportunity to build character into your brand? Your product? Sorry, Tony the Tiger is already taken…

A Long Way From Ms. Pac-Man

July 28

I remember when the first video game came out. Pong was as rudimentary as you could get, but it was also a technological marvel. At least in the eyes of a child.

Today, video games are much more realistic, complex, and some would say violent. But there’s no doubt it’s big business - $10 billion. Now I’m not a gamer myself, but there’s a pretty big movement underway to invite more women into gaming, both as a hobby and as a career. The Washington Post (www.washingtonpost.com) pegs the number of female gamers at 39 percent and the number of female game developers and programmers at 16 percent.

That means video gaming and development are still very much a male-dominated world. Which also means that’s a heckuva opportunity for someone to get it right for women. Not to worry, there’s a role model already. “The Sims,” a game that revolves around a simulated family, has sold more than 54 million copies, hauling in more than $1 billion for its maker. According to “Video Games Lack A Female Touch” in the 7/22 issue of USA Today (www.usatoday.com), 55 percent of all Sims sales were to women. There’s also the success of Her Interactive (www.herinteractive.com), that sells Nancy Drew-based games for girls. Initially, no one would stock their titles, but after enjoying success on Amazon.com, retailers who had refused changed their minds. “We were told that females are computer-phobic and that there’s no market for females in interactive entertainment,” said Her Interactive CEO Megan Gaiser.

So what do women want in a video game? Here’s what the experts say. Women want less violence, stronger story lines, character development, an intuitive interface and women characters who aren’t dressed in itty, bitty, teeny, weeny bikinis. The recent flap over the game Grand Theft Auto, in which programmers hid explicit sex scenes and male gunmen receive said bikini-clad bimbos as prizes, hopefully caused some heads to “get it” in the video game industry. We’ll see…

And there’s a role model for the employment side as well. Game maker Electronic Arts sponsors a scholarship for high school girls to attend a computer programming camp at the University of Southern California. There were no takers last year. This year, there are eight girls.

Tomorrow, we’ll talk about the differences in game playing styles for men and women. In the meantime, ponder this: if you’re trying to target women, take a look inside your own company and see how many women are working on developing your product or delivering your service.

Are You A Prosumer?

July 27

I had a client ask me yesterday about the term “prosumer.” I emailed him back a short explanation, and that made me want to dig around some more.

Turns out, the futurist Alvin Toffler coined the term about 25 years ago to describe a phenomenon that should sound eerily familiar – the blending of producers and consumers. But I’ve also seen it recently used as the merger of “professional” and “consumer” – meaning someone who is passionate about, say, photography, and purchases the very best equipment, but isn’t a professional photographer.

A study by a major global ad agency found that Prosumers share several characteristics. Prosumers
• Get a rush from discovering new things
• Transport trends
• Pursue “timeless” value
• Seek out new challenges and experiences
• Recognize their value as a consumer and expect their chosen brands to do likewise
• Are marketing savvy and use multiple media sources
• Demand top-notch customer service and unlimited access to information

A popular consumer anthropologist (yes, that’s a real job) notes that Prosumers also seek aspects of the social in everything they do. Prosumers, he says, are reconnecting with their core values, including connecting with family and friends. Things like scrapbooking, book clubs, reality TV and even knitting are popular Prosumer trends right now. These are largely women-centered, so that’s why I mention it.

But here’s the most interesting thing this guy had to say:

“The funny thing to me is that the behavior we’re seeing is quite similar to what we saw during our research with a small group of hunter gatherer gardeners in Papua, New Guinea. People there, and Prosumers here, thrive on the meaning and social relationships they imbue into, and receive from, the intersection of people and objects they interact with.”

Hmmm. Perhaps Prosumer isn’t so much a trend as it is a core human value. We want to participate in things we’re passionate about, we want to connect with others who share our passion and we want to feel like we’ve discovered something new.

How can you integrate Prosumers into your business?

Exactly How Mad Are Consumers?

This isn’t new news, but it’s startling nonetheless. People don’t read advertising. They don’t even like it. But they will pay attention to something that interests them.

Okay, no duh, you’re saying. But do you have a sense of how powerful this sentiment is? Let me fill you in. This is from a Yankelovich survey (www.yankelovich.com)

Between 50 and 60 percent of consumers
• feel that most advertising and marketing has very little to do with them
• are concerned with the practices and motives of advertisers and marketers
• feel that advertisers and marketers don’t treat consumers with respect
• are interested in products and services that allow them to skip or block advertisements
• think there should be limitations and regulations placed on advertising

So what can we do as marketers? We can rise to the challenge and talk with consumers in a way that’s relevant, informative and respectful. And how do we do that? We have to know them first. We have to ask them. Watch them. Figure them out. We have to quit only thinking about making the sale and think instead about making the connection.

And since women control around 80 percent of all consumer purchases, that seems like a good place to start.

What will you start doing differently today to connect with your consumers?

Women in Marketing

July 25

I read stuff from all over the place. Mostly, it’s thanks to www.reveries.com, which you should check out if you haven’t already. Reveries.com pointed me to the East African Financial Standard last week, and specifically to an article called “The Female Takeover” about how women in Africa are starting to dominate the marketing field. (www.eastandard.net/mags/fs/news.php?articleid=25532)

I’m often asked if this “whole marketing to women thing” is a North American thing, a developed country thing, or a global thing. As we’ve mentioned here several times, it’s a global thing and here’s another bit of support.

At meetings of the Marketing Society of Kenya, you’re more likely to see female faces than male. Nearly 60 percent of the members are women like the marketing directors of an oil company, a major bank, an interactive media company, and Coca-Cola.

According to the article, “The revolution in marketing has been so systematic and complete that some have chosen to refer to it as the female takeover.”

Yet, Catherine Njoroge of Kenya Commercial Bank, says it’s not a gender thing. “It’s about understanding the role marketing plays in the organization, identifying the competencies needed to perform it and getting the right person to do it.”

Catherine, I don’t even know you, but I have to disagree. It might be a gender thing. The American Journal of Psychology (www.press.uillinois.edu/journals/ajp.html) has reported that there are three characteristics that seem to point to success in marketing – getting along with people, multi-tasking, and persuasion. And, it seems, women have the upper hand on these three characteristics. Women are naturally collaborative, so talking with others, even strangers, comes more easily than it might for men. Women are expert multi-taskers whereas men tend to think and act more linearly. Finally, marketing is about persuasion whereas sales is more about assertiveness. Women tend to want to build connections with others, a skill that requires persuasion rather than aggression.

A South African company has developed a computerized (those cool South Africans spell it “computerised”) to measure the suitability of candidates for a job. Seems that when they tested a male candidate for a marketing job and a female candidate for the same job, it returned very interesting results.

The man was classified as “gregarious, mobile, conventional, accurate, assertive, verbally aggressive, influential, alert, active, competitive, and asks who and how.” The woman was observed to be “inquisitive, logical, shrewd, manipulative, competitive, impatient, energetic, alert, direct, independent, an achiever and asks why and what.”

Hmmm. Wonder who got the job?

You Look Gooood In Those Jeans

If I had my choice of what to wear everyday, it would be jeans. Levi’s 550 relaxed fit, tapered leg jeans. And, many days, that’s exactly what I wear to the office. Okay, not today – I have a client meeting.

Remember when it used be easy to buy jeans? Today there are so many choices, it’s often overwhelming and you simply have no idea where to start. So this brings up an interesting bit of technology that Levi’s (www.levis.com) is using to help design jeans that fit us real people. You know, the ones who don’t look like supermodels?

It’s called Fit Finder and it scans your body in about ten seconds and then prints out a list of recommended styles and sizes. Here’s how it works: You step into an 8-ft. tall cylindrical booth (fully clothed, mind you) and a “wand” with nearly 200 sensors gathers data using low-power radio waves. These waves reflect off the water on your skin, but don’t penetrate the skin, making it harmless. More than 200,000 points of the body are scanned and measured in the ten seconds you’re standing there.

Levi’s says it’s using the data it collects to build a database of “real customer measurements” that will help the company create the perfect fitting jeans.

Three thoughts: One – there is no such thing as THE pair of perfect fitting jeans for everyone. Two – snaps to Levi’s for asking their customers to provide input into the design process – very consumer-friendly. Three – why has Levi’s suspended their create your own jeans program?

The question for you, my friend, is this: when’s the last time you invited your customer into the design process?

No Age Limit

For those of you who read this and think to yourself, "I bet all this stuff is really just happening with younger women," I offer this anecdotal evidence that it's not.

My mom bought a new car yesterday. She's 63. Here's how it happened. She told dad several months ago that it was time for her to get a new car. Now she's not that particular about what kind of car she drives - she just wants some comfortable, basic transportation that's safe and gets good mileage – so she did a little bit of research into what was out there. She researched what was a fair trade-in price for her old car. She talked with me about the car buying experience - I bought one last year, she last bought one in 1990.

So, off she went to the local Chevrolet dealer, talked with Bob the sales advisor, and decided on her car. She called Dad, who came to meet her, and she showed him what she wanted. They signed the papers, and bam, she drove her new car home.

Still think it's a young woman's world? It's a woman's world, alright, but there's no age limit.

I Am The Greatest (Girl)

As promised, here's my snap of Muhammed Ali from my sighting at O'Hare Airport last week.

This got me to thinking about Title IX (well, the article in the Wall Street Journal last week might have helped, too).

Title IX is the law that outlaws sex discrimination in schools that receive public money. It's been used mostly in the realm of high school sports - creating new teams for girls and giving them funding at similar levels as the boys' teams. Today, more than 3 million girls have participated in school teams and female college athletes number around 160,000.

Since the law was passed 33 years ago, women have benefitted from the law in ways other than softball. Back in the 1970s, many universities and graduate schools restricted admission for women to something like 10 percent of the entire class. Yikes. Today, roughly 60 percent of undergrads are women and half of all law and medical grad students.

This access to higher education, to competitive situations, to team building, has contributed to the success of women in the workplace. Now most of the time, competitiveness is labeled as a male attribute, but take a look at Mia Hamm and tell me that women aren't competitive. It's just that we work differently from men to achieve similar goals.

Picture Perfect

As some of you may know, I had to take an unexpected trip last week to Phoenix. So there I am, stuck at O’Hare Airport for an hour and a half, and I notice one of those zippy little carts that whizzes people around the terminals. Only this one isn’t moving. And it’s surrounded by all these people. And they’re taking pictures. Turns out the passenger in the zippy little cart is Muhammed Ali.

Now I’m not a fan of boxing, but hey, this was a serious celebrity sighting and I know my uncle is a big Ali fan. So I dug out my digital camera and grabbed a pic. (Sorry I can’t post it today – it’s not downloaded yet – maybe tomorrow.)

That’s a long way around to start talking about digital cameras. See, women spent about $55 billion on electronics gear in 2003 (men spent about $41 billion) and are involved in almost 90 percent of all electronics purchase decisions. Nearly 30 percent of all households owned a digital camera in 2003, and guess who’s snapping the pictures? Women.

In last week’s Wall Street Journal (www.wsj.com), in a front page story titled “Kodak Sharpens Digital Focus On It’s Best Customers: Women,” we got a look inside how Kodak has turned the tide on its freefall by turning it’s attention where it makes the most sense. When filmed ruled the world, women took about two-thirds of all pictures and ordered the most prints. But with the advent of digital photography, men emerged as primary users – and many images ended up like my Ali picture, stuck on a computer.

But women want prints that we can send to our friends. Prints that we can post on the fridge. Prints that we’re wiling to run into a burning house to retrieve. Kodak (www.kodak.com) has long understood the emotional power of pictures – remember the Kodak moments campaign? – and took a smart tack. Women, the company discovered, have the skills to download and print photos from their computers, but didn’t want to mess with all the wires. So Kodak developed a docking station the prints lab-quality photos straight from the camera.

And guess what happened? Kodak’s now the leading provider of digital images. They’re selling cameras. They’re selling stand-alone printers. They’re online, in drugstores and of course, right there at home with the printers. To borrow a phrase from another popular advertising campaign, Kodak is everywhere women want to be. Smart.

Kodak’s CEO, Daniel Carp nailed it when he said, “Throughout history, women have been the keepers of family memories.”

Now that’s a great consumer insight to base your strategy and creative executions on. What would happen if you turned your attention to providing superior products and services to your best customers? Do you know who they are? Do you know what they want?

Now that would be an interesting picture to develop.

PS: I'll try to post the Ali photo tomorrow...

Where am I? What time is it?

Monday, July 11

Today's thought: jet lag sucks.