Treating Women Differently

Women customers behave differently. Is that true?

I was reading an article about what women want and how not to give it to them, and it got me thinking. In it, Alice Adams describes the behaviors that derail gender inclusion. To me, they derail effective work overall, man or woman. Further, they prevent an organization from serving its customers.

Adams lists:

1. Decide not to do an assessment, build a plan, set goals, or establish benchmarks.
2. Task a small group of committed, passionate people with designing and implementing a change initiative—and expect them to succeed without a clear mandate, significant resources, intelligent guidance, or visible support from above.
3. Start implementation without the support of key people.
4. Refuse to assign supervisors specific responsibilities; fail to reward those who follow through.
5. Keep quiet about the initiative, allowing it to be perceived as low-priority or to be ignored altogether.
6. Let negative talk or obstructive behaviors pass without comment or notice.
7. Assume that efforts that are well received in one part of the organization (a mentorship program, employee resource group, or set of educational workshops) will translate seamlessly to other parts of the organization.
8. Do the same things again and again, although they haven’t resulted in the hoped-for outcomes.

That pretty much describes much of corporate life in the experience of many, I'm sure. From this kind of environment, you then have marketers who decide that women are one demographic, one big category they will market to and service as if we all acted, thought, and bought in the same way.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Women are different from each other as people. Treating women differently as customers based upon gender biases -- men and women are different -- and stereotyping them as all the same, continues to reinforce those biases, especially since marketing is about exciting people's emotional reflexes.

There is a thriving industry centered around marketing to women. In social media, there are women associations and groups like BlogHer and Mommy Bloggers. Yet not only are many of the women in those groups different from each other, I know many women who would not even fit into those categories, including me. There are plenty of independent women -- married or not -- who choose not to have children, for example.

Some of them choose to have a career, others don't fit particularly into the career thing, nor they're into having a big family. More and more I'm seeing diversity between individuals, not genders. Especially as we all embrace a cultural movement that has us reprioritize what we buy, we're all influenced by economical, functional, social, physical, and mental considerations.

Are women more emotional than men? I would not be able to make this generalization based upon my experience. Do women spend less time online? Again, another generalization hard for me to make given that my work and that of many friends and colleagues centers on social media. 

If women buy differently, do they warrant a different treatment as customers?

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Comments

[Geoff Livingston]

Yes, and no. I think Banana Republic has proven this axiom to be untrue, but I think they treat women better then us squares ;) This is with their sizing and unique cuts for women.

Seriously though, what kind of a fool treats their customer worse, or as more emotional? Winning business is all about respecting the customer, so if you are going to differentiate, you had better show more attention, more service, better customization. Painting products pink is a fools mistake.

[Kat Gordon]

Paco Underhill's new book What Women Want is all about how women buy differently. Considering that women control 80% of consumer spending, it pays to take the time to understand what works to motivate a female consumer.

One point I make when speaking on this topic is that the majority of women feel advertisers don't depict them accurately. One contributing factor: only 3% of advertising creative directors are women (myself included). Until we have more women creating and greenlighting creative work, we'll continue to be subjected to groupthink from a group that doesn't think the way we do.

[Rosemary ONeill]

Yes the ad world often gets it wrong when they try to play to gender. I noticed the commercials for the new, macho-looking Camaro are fully tailored to men, which might be intuitive....however, at my last movie club night, we all ended up talking about how we were lusting after that car. Sometimes the right thing is to just present the defining characteristics of the product/service, and let the consumer worry about whether it's right for them or not.

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Geoff - I like differentiation in products that shows they have though about how I use them. Clothing retailers are an obvious example of that.

@Kat - good point about creative directors being mostly males. I'm not sure I think like other women though. Often, I have less in common with soccer moms, for example, than I do with male consultants or car lovers. And I have laser focus on exactly what I want to buy, so I go in and come out. I don't enjoy shopping malls, or hunting for a bargain (takes time away from productive work ;)

@Rosemary - love cars, too. Growing up in the land of Ferrari's, Lamborghini's and Ducati's, I do have an affinity for engines. Context can influence us more than gender.

[Kelly Feller, Intel]

Valerie,
I love your post and it appears to be quite timely. There is growing discussion about the lack of diversity in the technical community, from female representation in tech firms to women presenters at technical conferences. I recently wrote in Huffington Post about how technical vendors and brands are missing out when they target women via stereotype marketing--focusing on domestic roles women play and technology as fashion. Would love your thoughts on this. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kelly-feller/despite-appearances-girls_b_687070.html

[Yvonne DiVita]

Here's the scoop - everyone is different than everyone else. But, in the world of advertising and marketing, groups of one sort or another, are as much alike as they are different.

Harley Davidson bike riders - men or women, are marketed to differently than the men and women who love Mini-coopers.

Musicians - male or female - are marketed to differently than computer nerds.

Women make up a very large consumer group. A very large, diverse group. Because women, as a whole influence the majority of spending, it pays to try and understand them.

Mommy bloggers are also pet bloggers - and each faction is different, but the same. Within those groups, the individual women vary as much as our United States vary - but are part of a collective whole.

Does this warrant a look at women as a group when considering your marketing approach? Yes - you need to first recognize that women are influential, that they are diverse and connected, that they are social and vocal, and then... you need to say, which women are inclined to buy my product? And which women might be inclined to recommend it?

To ignore this power that women, as a whole, have... is just bad business. I reminds me of the 1970s when Moms were told to raise their sons and daughters the same, because they were children and gender shouldn't matter.

Well, it did then and it does now. IMHO

[Yvonne DiVita]

I have to add this link - which pertains to my final point in my original comment and the reason I still believe gender differences matter: http://steveblank.com/2010/08/30/boys-rules-girls-lose-%E2%80%93-women-at-work/

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Kelly - thank you for sharing the link to your post on this very same topic. And for the links to resources in the post. Interestingly, I wrote this post Saturday, before I saw Arrington's post and there was a resurgence of the topic. A while back I wrote suggestions for women to take a more active role in pitching themselves as speakers. I do wonder... is the whole system run from a male POV?

@Yvonne - age groups as well. Thank you for bringing it up. I personally find it hard to identify with American women and people who have not been exposed to different cultures, for example, because we were brought up in such different environments. Perhaps I notice this more with women because I have that expectation that I should identify with this group? And thank you for sharing the link to that rich discussion. Welcome back to the comments!

[Stephen Denny]

Limiting this conversation to the question of marketing will be a small exercise in restraint, but worth the effort.

I have found that the male/female demographic split isn't the one that usually matters the most - I tend to agree with the comments Yvonne has made, above, in that regard. Geography, "urbanicity" and even racial splits often have more nuance and insight.

[Joy-Mari Cloete]

"Until we have more women creating and greenlighting creative work, we'll continue to be subjected to groupthink from a group that doesn't think the way we do."

Not necessarily. We need more people, men and women, who realise that people are people, no matter their sex.

[peter]

Hi Valeria,

About 10 years ago I ran a CoF meeting on indigenous story telling and business at our state museum.

The meeting was led by a local aboriginal elder ( long story the elder we'd organised couldn't make it and the security guard ( who happened to be an elder also) stood in.

The curious thing he did was to begin by telling a local story and then divided the group into "mens business" and "woman business".

He then asked the groups to discuss what they had heard.

What emerged was that the men and woman understood the same story very differently.

He then implored us to respect men's and woman's business and to confuse the two at our peril.

In light of this its interesting to read your comment:

"More and more I'm seeing diversity between individuals, not genders. Especially as we all embrace a cultural movement that has us reprioritize what we buy, we're all influenced by economical, functional, social, physical, and mental considerations."

Anyway it was a great night.

Peter