Womentum

The Positioning Ladder

One of my responsibilities is to track what we call megatrends – ideas and movements that touch most consumers – and no, you can’t have my job. It’s that fun. One of my favorite resources is www.trendwatching.com – a free monthly newsletter that does a great job of finding, explaining and following megatrends and giving us plenty of examples.

In the August issue, I found a great scale that measures where your company/product/service fits on the “position” ladder. With consumers demanding ever more from companies/products/services, it’s a good idea to take a look and make sure that where you think you are hasn’t changed in the face of lightening-quick competition and constantly shifting consumer expectations.

Here’s the short version – listed from the lowest to the highest:

Free Love: cool stuff that’s free. Like Wikipedia. Like a rental car company that gives consumers the car to drive – because it’s rented out to advertisers. With all this cool, free stuff, consumers are increasingly unwilling to pay for things.

Cheap Heaps: the lowest prices with no frills. Think Costco. But the danger here is that consumers will leave you so fast for the discount from your competition that your head will spin.

No Frills Chic: Cheap but well-designed. Consumers can choose to upgrade when they’re tired of the Cheap Heaps. Examples include Target and Song Airlines. I have got to fly on Song (www.flysong.com) soon – have you seen all the options you can choose from?

Mass Class: Used to be middle markets, but pressure from Uber Premium has forced products that used to be considered luxury into this class. Think Haagen Dazs and Starbucks. Anyone can get ‘em now and they’ve lost some of their cachet.

Massclusivity: This is also sometimes called Trading Up. This is the new luxury standard for the masses. Coach handbags. Bulgari hotels.

Uber Premium: Luxury only available to the richest of the rich. The Maybach Exelero (I had to look that one up – it’s a very expensive car).

So here’s an example. In airports, the place to hang out used to be the Business Lounges, you know, the airlines’ club rooms. But not to be outdone, several airlines, including Virgin, are building their own luxury terminal in London – the whole terminal will be upgraded to reflect a higher standard. So now, the club rooms have been demoted to Mass Class, or worse.

Where are you playing? How can you prevent yourself from being demoted? How can you elevate your company/product/service and reinvent it to stay competitive? Big questions that will need your attention in the near future…

A First for Forth & Towne

August 26, 2005

Let the clothing wars begin! On Wednesday, clothing giant Gap, Inc. opened its first Forth & Towne (www.forthandtowne.com) store in West Nyack, NY. The company’s first new concept in more than a decade, Forth & Towne is a direct challenge to Chico’s, the reigning queen of clothing for women over 35. (www.chicos.com)

According to published reports, the store features four clusters, each featuring a different private label brand. There’s Allegory, for more traditional office wear. Clothes in the Vocabulary cluster are less tailored and looser-fitting. Gap Edition styles offers up some of the classics from its sister chain, like khakis. The Prize area displays clothes that are more close-fitting.

Four more stores are slated to open in the Chicago area next week.

Should be interesting to watch…

Water for Water

August 23, 2005

While in blazing hot Scottsdale about six weeks ago, I reached for a big bottle of water at Whole Foods. Of course, there are plenty to choose from these days. Bottled water is big business – nearly $10 billion.

I ended up with a bottle of water I’d never heard of – Ethos Water. What made me buy it? The brand’s promise to donate a nickel for every bottle sold to help fund clean water efforts in underdeveloped nations.

Was the water any better? No, but I felt better for drinking it, and by that, I don’t just mean rehydrated. I felt like I was playing a small part in helping others. Just like I feel in the mornings when I click on www.thehungersite.com.

Here are the startling water facts: A billion people around the world are affected by a lack of clean drinking water, that’s about four times the population of the US, or about 20 percent of the world’s population.

Ethos Water (www.ethoswater.com) is a great story about cause marketing. It’s based on a simple premise: water for water. Started three years ago with the two founders’ savings accounts and credit cards, it’s now on the verge of becoming a national brand. Even while operating on a shoestring, Ethos donated more than $100,000 to projects across Africa and helped with tsunami relief efforts.

Earlier this month, Starbucks (www.starbucks.com) bought the company, and will bring Ethos into its ubiquitous coffee shops one day soon. Starbucks has promised to adopt the cause and has committed to a goal of $10 million over the next five years.

So will I buy Ethos Water when I see it? You bet. And I hope you will, too.

Singular Sensations

August 19, 2005

The US Census reported this week that for the first time, the number of households headed by singles now exceeds the number of households lead by couples. Okay, granted it’s not by a lot, like 0.3 percent. But here’s why it’s important – households headed by couples are who we, as marketers, have typically shown in imagery. You know, the whole Cleaver family. White, middle-class America living in the ‘burbs with a golden retriever and a minivan.

One of the most interesting and economically powerful groups of singles are solo females. With nearly 27 million households falling into this category, we’re talking about everyone from fresh, out of college ambitious young women to single moms to senior women who have outlived their husbands. Researchers say that this group makes about $400 billion in income, up 17 percent from just eight years ago.

And if you dissect the numbers even further, you’ll see that there are more than 17 million solo females aged 25-44, more than double the number of women living alone in the early 1980s.

This group is now one of the most likely to buy a new home – and in fact, 60 percent of these solo women own a home and are purchasing homes at a faster rate than single men.

Single moms are more common than ever, with more than 10 million appearing on the latest Census report. Some reports say that nearly half of all the children born each year are to single women.

The updated Census numbers showed growth in the category of “living with a partner.” That can mean an unmarried heterosexual couple, homosexual couple, or even a roommate. More than 3.3 million households are now categorized in this new “partner household” bucket.

So here’s the reality check for marketers: is your brand imagery stuck in the 1950s? If you’re targeting the masses, are you really showing these solo women images they can relate with? Are you showing single moms? Solo females? Groups of singles that operate like an extended family?

Happy Friday, folks, and more next week.

A Strange Twist

August 18, 2005

Last week’s Tennessee jailbreak – you remember the former prison nurse who married one of the inmates and then shot a couple of prison guards – took an unexpected marketing turn when a reporter interviewed the taxi driver who took the escapees to Ohio.

The couple told him they were going to an Amway convention in Columbus. And that’s when things started to sound a little suspicious to the unwitting taxi driver. He told a reporter (and I’m paraphrasing here, but the gist is right) that the pair didn’t try to sell him anything, didn’t try to recruit him as a dealer and weren’t pushy like all the other Amway people he’d ever met.

That’s what tipped him off that something was wrong with the situation. Not the woman’s leg wound. Not the jail uniform that her husband, the inmate, was surely wearing. Not the fact that they wanted him to drive them 115 miles across a state line.

That they weren’t pushy like all the other Amway people he’d ever met.

Now if I’m Amway, I’m hating this. This is not the kind of buzz you want out there. And it’s not that this is new buzz – it’s been around for awhile about Amway dealers. But the escaped convict story just takes it to the next level.

That’s the power of word of mouth. It can surely work for you, but it can also work against you. Are you taking notice of the negative perceptions that are out there in the marketplace about you and your competitors? Are they true? Can they be remedied? Can they be replaced with more positive stories? Who’s going to be your taxi driver?

Knobby Knees and Thunder Thighs

August 17, 2005

It’s officially a trend. First, Dove used real women for its Campaign for Real Beauty ads (www.campaignforrealbeauty.com). Now there’s Nike with its brand spankin’ new Nike Women (www.nikewomen.com) campaign – complete with J. Lo butts, less than ladylike knees, and linebacker shoulders. Suddenly, real women are the “it” girls.

The copy is bold and freshly humorous. The “big butt” ad reads:

“My Butt is big and round like the letter C, and 10,000 lunges have made it rounder, but not smaller. And that’s just fine. It’s a space heater for my side of the bed. It’s my ambassador. To those who walk behind me, it’s a border collie that herds skinny women away from the best deals at clothing sales. My butt is big and that’s just fine. And those who might scorn it are invited to kiss it. Just do it.”

I love it!

Gloria Steinem, the noted feminist activist, wonders “if Nike would do an ad about a man talking about his butt.” Well, Nike? Get your ad agency right on that one. Let’s make butt-discussion an equal opportunity ad concept.

Nike’s US Ad Director said of the new campaign “Women come in all shapes and sizes, which is no surprise, but when you talk to women in an honest way, they respond.”

And that, my friends, is the secret to Dove’s success and the success the new Nike campaign will undoubtedly enjoy.

How honest and authentic are your communications? How real is the language? The reality presented? If it’s not “10,000 lunges have made it rounder, but not smaller. And that’s just fine” honest, then maybe it’s not quite there yet.

For The Office

August 16, 2005

We’ve spent a lot of time here talking about women as retail consumers – and not so much time talking about the other side of the coin – women as B2B consumers. That’s about to change, starting right now.

Here at Woodbine, we’re probably on the far right end of the bell curve for female-influenced business purchases. With two female owners, a female office manager, and a female business manager, there’s obviously a lot of female influence over our spending. But we’re not all that atypical in the fact that we have a woman office manager. Her name is Lori, by the way. And she’s in good company – the stats say that 51 percent of purchasing managers and agents are women.

There are studies out there in the m2w universe that say that women prefer to use the same brands at work as they do at home. That explains why we have nice smelling soaps in our bathrooms – if you ever go to Lori’s house, you’ll understand why…

Add to that the fact that women start businesses at twice the rate of men, and suddenly, we’re looking at this HUGE B2B market that’s predominantly female.

But a recent survey found that half of the businesswomen interviewed said they didn’t recognize themselves in the way women are portrayed in B2B ads. Interestingly, they feel represented in B2B ads – there are plenty of pictures of women in the workplace in ads – but professional women didn’t think these posed stereotypes reflected the multiple dimensions of their days. Why not? Well, here’s one theory: being a professional is only one aspect of our lives and it’s not at all uncommon for us to be also thinking about personal matters while we’re also handling client needs. Men’s tendency to think in a linear way helps them keep work in a neat compartment and keep it from spilling over in to home/personal life. Hmmm, must be nice. Wish I could do that without much effort.

So when you’re talking to professional women with purchasing influence: try to market to the whole woman. She’s bringing all her outside the office sensibilities into the office with her, so be prepared to talk to her in a way that’s not just all-business.

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Online Moms

August 15, 2005

I’m addicted to two things: Burt’s Bees lip balm (www.burtsbees.com) and email. Fortunately, neither one causes any serious health problems or will land my butt in jail. So as far as addictions go, they’re pretty harmless.

Organizers for the upcoming Marketing to Moms conference (www.m2ms.com) say that today’s moms are right there with me looking for their online hit. A staggering 95 percent of women in one of their surveys reported that they’re online at least once a day. They’re spending more time on the Internet than they are watching TV. Screw the soaps – we’re busy tracking our stock portfolios!

And these online moms aren’t just using the Internet for research. They’re also using it to connect with other mothers. This instant community has powerful influence on what moms are willing to try. In fact, another study states that other mothers are the single largest influencer of other mothers. Here’s a personal example: my mom was a professional nanny for about 20 years, so she got all kinds of questions. What do I do when Lia doesn’t want to go to sleep? What do I do when Rachel doesn’t want to eat? What’s the best kind of bottle to use? Should I use cloth diapers or disposables? This is the kind of stuff moms talk about with other moms both online and off.

If you’re thinking the best way to reach today’s women is to advertise on daytime TV, you might want to re-evaluate, my friend. We’re online. We can see what happened on The Young & The Restless while we’re ordering our groceries from Peapod (www.peapod.com).

A Little Mental Wandering

August 12, 2005

A random collection of thoughts this morning.

• Women will switch brands to support a company who supports a cause she believes in. Here’s a cause I believe in – thehungersite.com. You can go every day, click on the button, and a donation of food is made by the site’s corporate sponsors. You can also link to The Breast Cancer Site, The Children’s Health Site, The Literacy Site, The Rainforest Site, and The Animal Rescue Site. Please check it out and visit as often as you can. I start every day with these six clicks and make my very small contribution to leaving the world a little better at the end of the day than at the beginning.

• Gas prices. Good God. Carpool anyone? No wonder women are making more and more of their purchases online…

• Watched “The Stepford Wives” movie on TV last night – missed it in the theatres (but who really goes to movies anymore?) – it’s over-the-top humor made me laugh – all those women in perfect little sundresses with perfect hats discussing the latest Christmas decorating book over perfect little tea sandwiches…

• What’s to come next week? I’m thinking about B2B communications targeting women, women and the net, and looking at some really cool trends I’m reading about on www.trendwatching.com.

Have a great weekend, kids, and I’ll meet you back here next week.

The Sexy Side of Veggies

August 11, 2005

When I watched my first clip of the Vegan Vixen (www.veganvixen.org) the other day, I wasn’t sure whether to be amused or appalled. But as I watched more, I fell more on the amused side of the fence.

Here’s the 411: a group of micro-mini-skirt-wearing California vegans, lead by actress Sky Valencia, has decided to take a more, uh, attention-grabbing approach to getting grill-loving, steak-eating, burger guys to try vegan food. They have a half hour show on some California cable station, but they’re attracting national attention for their antics. One New York article dubbed them “the soy of sex.”

Anyway, their show is loaded with sexual innuendo, bad jokes about bananas and cucumbers, and plenty of Vegan Vixen cleavage. In one episode, they stopped by a local Santa Barbara restaurant and dared a 20-something looking guy to order vegan for lunch. Okay, they cooed it in his ear and offered to pay for it as one of the Vixens rubbed against his arm…and it worked. He ordered a vegan sandwich and told them it tasted good.

But their critics claim that they’re cheapening the vegan cause with their sexy style. Valencia responded this way, “We aren’t trying to convince people like them. We’re trying to convince people who would never dream of watching a vegetarian show. And we think the best way to do that is in a funny way with sex appeal. Yes, you’ve got to be tough, but you’ve got to be sellable.”

Hmmm. As much as I’d like to dismiss anything put out there by a woman who’s using her own breasts to get others to give up chicken breasts, she has a point. I’m not the audience. Men are. And the men they’re targeting – these young guys – well, guess what? They respond to sex.

Which all goes to say, once again, you have to know your audience. The Vegan Vixen have obviously decided that men are their target, and they risk losing some female support along the way. Hmmm, is this sounding at all familiar? Like most of the marketing done for the last 50 years? Women have been expected to support and relate with messages designed for men, and finally, we’re making some real progress – well, maybe in the carnivorous world, anyway.