Stop using pink to market to women: Jack Morton

There was a time when gadget manufacturers assumed that the only way to get a woman to buy a tech toy was to paint it pink, stick Swarovski crystals on it and emblazon it with Hello Kitty imagery. However, the study suggests that this approach will now likely backfire.

“Women expect brands to engage them on their own terms, but as our own research has revealed, that’s not happening: 91 per cent of women globally feel that advertisers don’t understand them,” said the report. This is significant given that women command 65 per cent of global spending.  

‘Beyond Pink: Marketing to women 2012’ was based on an online survey conducted among 2,400 consumers drawn equally from the US, Brazil, China and India between 29 September and 10 October 2011.

One of the first sterotypes that should be dismissed on the basis of the research is that women are not as tech savvy as their male counterparts. In fact, studies have proven that women embrace technology that help them be more efficient and that once they do, they are likely outpace men using features that save time or money. The study found that 68 per cent of QR code scanner users are women, 75 per cent of women have downloaded an app in the past six months and 27 per cent visit Groupon regularly.

Ease-of-use and functionality are key. If a device is both easy to use and powerful enough to do all a woman needs it to, it becomes indispensable. When it comes to tech, women are far more practical than their shiny toy loving counterparts with 77 per cent saying their consumer electronics make life easier compared with 69 per cent of men. Today, 80 per cent of women are interested in consumer electronics.

Online, women outstrip men in social networking with 89 per cent of them maintaining a social networking profile, with an average of 268 friends each. Women also spend 40 per cent more time social networking than men while they’re online.  

Women also spend more time playing online games than men at every age above 25. In fact, 75 per cent of women have at least one gaming app compared with 67 per cent of men. There are differences though: while women prefer puzzle, card, arcade and board based games, men prefer action, adventure and sports games.

When consuming content, lifestyle, home and parenting are still the female favourite, but women also consume more content than men about banking, personal finance and financial advice. The one content space men still consume more than women? Porn sites. Forty-six per cent of men view them compared with 34 per cent of women.

So how should marketers reach out to these tech savvy, financially empowered ladies? Not by targeting them based on old-fashioned stereotypes, said Jack Morton. “Studies show that advertisers should forgo pink and women-specific messaging when trying to get women to donate to breast cancer causes,” it recommended.

Women also dislike being patronised. Brands that assume they ‘know what women want’ may be taking a risk. In 2008, painkiller brand Motrin launched what was supposed to be a ‘we understand your pain’ commercial targeting moms, the result was a fiasco. Among other things, the TVC was seen as “patronising and disrespectful of the practice of babywearing’. Moms took to social media and the company eventually pulled the ad and apologised.

Contrast this traditional top-down TVC approach with Reebok’s EastyTone 2011 campaign in India. Hte brand launched a humorous campaign which launched a cultural movement, ‘Tone your butts’. Reebok created TMS: Toned Messaging Service, a sharable mobile phone feature and a contest encouraging women to film online videos of themselves showing off their fitness routines.  Comedy aside, Reebok delivered value with fitness tips. User generated video uploads numbered in thousands and click-throughs were twice the industry average while sales increased 12 times.

So when can you use pink? Providing the colour isn’t the main selling point, women respond well to products (in any shade) that have superb design tailored to their needs. A startup named for its intial focus group of four mothers, 4moms, decided to redesign the baby stroller to better fit today’s busy mom. The Origami Stroller features power folding/unfolding, daytime running lights and even an iPhone charter, received rave reviews from moms and the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show where it launched.

P&G Venus Razors did more than colour a man’s razor pink – they angled the handle to suit the curves of levgs and created razors that would hold up in the shower. The key, however, was to help women understand the thinking behind the new razor design and exactly why they would improve the quality of her life and shave. A campaign focused on just that created some significant results. P&G now holds over 53 per cent of the female razor and blade market.

Ultimately, women expect brands to treat them like their friends. While they certainly aren’t sitting around waiting for a sales pitch, 61 per cent of women expect to hear back from brands within one day. The brands that can be in touch while also being sensitive to her needs are the ones she’ll buy from on an ongoing basis, said the report.