Marketing to Women Online

Life Takes Visa

How do you take a brand pretty much everyone in the civilized world knows and re-brand it after no one's touched the brand for 20 years?

Visa has recently taken on that challenge.   They replaced "Everywhere you want to be" with "Life takes Visa".   

What I found most interesting was - they have made the web and digital media the focus of the new brand roll out.  In Waiting for Your Cat to Bark, Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg talk about how, for many companies, your website will be the centerpiece of your marketing strategy.  Visa appears to have recognized that as well.

A recent OMMA article discussed Visa's new marketing efforts:

The heart of Visa's new online effort is its microsite, LifeTakesVisa.com. The site hosts about 60 video vignettes (each 60 seconds or less) that feel like well-made home movies. The spots, scattered to look like a collection of Polaroids, illustrate that life takes courage, dads, poets, remedies, spontaneity, trust, and more. Viewers can e-mail the clips to friends. It's a simple concept--post a bunch of videos and invite people to send them to one another--but it's attracted a lot of attention.

So how does this online marketing/branding effort impact women?

Soccer Moms with Tattoos

It was quite a sight – dozens of girls the oldest being maybe 16, the youngest 6 – all lined up chatting, laughing, anxiously awaiting their turn – to get a tattoo. 

Now, granted, it was a theme park and the tattoos were not permanent.   But the reason this image stuck with me was because of a conversation I’d had the day before with an online retailer at the Shop.org conference.   We were discussing soccer mom stereotypes and she threw out a figure of the number of “soccer moms” who have tattoos.   The figure was large enough to truly astound me.

So I did some research. In a recent Harris Poll –

• 36% of 25-29 year olds have a tattoo
• 28% of 30-39 year olds have a tattoo
• The numbers are equally split between men and women

By my calculations, that means there are an awful lot of ‘soccer moms’ out there with tattoos. 

Here’s another interesting figure from the survey – 34% of tattooed adults feel sexier than before getting their tattoos.

Here’s one soccer mom’s story about how she changed her mind from finding tattoos offensive, to getting one herself, and how it affected her life.

Thanksgiving Traditions

One of the things I love best about the holidays is family traditions.   Almost every family I know has some beloved tradition full of fond memories.   For some it may be a favorite recipe passed down through the generations, or an annual gathering at grandma’s house.

My family has a tradition, too.  We gather together in the bathroom and shoot tequila.  I know, it may sound like kind of a strange tradition – but it has sentimental roots.  A whole horde of people and family had come down one year to share Thanksgiving with me in Virginia.   My sister flew in from LA where she and her husband had just decided to get a divorce.  When I asked her what she wanted to do for the holiday weekend she replied – “sit on the floor in the bathroom and drink tequila”.    

The Power of Personalization

Can you lose a sale in two words?   Yes, you can.   What two words could be so horrible they’d lose a sale from a willing, qualified prospect?

“Dear Sir”

That’s all it took.   I was not happy with my current lawn irrigation company and was actively looking for another company to replace them.   And – there in my mailbox one morning was a letter from another irrigation company.  I opened it eagerly because I thought – hah!  They’re marketing in this neighborhood, I’ve heard of them, maybe they’re even offering a special!    I was a marketer’s dream – familiar with the brand, in a high state of need, and ready to act now.   Then that letter spoke two words to me…

“Dear Sir”

That was it – I was gone.  I didn’t even read the rest of the letter.  I balled it up and into the trash it went.   Shoot…..into the trash it went.   Damn small trash can opening….into the trash it went.  There.

My neighborhood is littered with single people, retired people, and families, many with stay at home moms and a few single moms.    For any of these families where the woman was the decision maker, or there was no male at all – that letter probably ended up in the same place mine did.  Why?  Those opening words told me one thing – this is a company run by good-old boys. (there are a Lot of them where I live) They want to deal with “the man of the house”.  They don’t want to waste their time with “little ladies” like me.  Now, that may have been a completely false impression – but all that matters in this case is customer perception.    

Are You Speaking Your Customer's Language?

Are you like me?  When you work with a client and they tell you they're bringing in a "brand manager" does your stomach start to tense - do your eyes roll up into your head - do you want to mumble something about your cat having a contagious skin rash (when you do not even own a cat) pick up your laptop and run out of the room never to return?

Why this extreme reaction?   Because, and I can only speak from my own experience, brand mangers come in and spout fancy new terms they want to plaster all over the website and marketing material.   

"We want to be known as the human capital management solutions resource"   

"When you think integrated component technology applications - think Brand XYZ."

"We're going to name the new suite of services Technology Synergy products."   

(quick disclaimer - not all brand mangers do this - some of my best friends are brand managers and they're wonderful smart people)

Here's the problem. 

Sex Sells - Truth or Fiction

Sex Sells.  We've all heard it so often it's turned into a cliche.  Advertising is full of sexual imagery and innuendo.  If so many advertisers use sex to sell, it must be effective right?

Does sex sell?  Yes - says a recent study conducted by market research company MediaAnalyzer.   But here's the catch.   The study finds that using sexual imagery in print ads increases purchase intent in men. HOWEVER - it seems to have the opposite effect on women. Using sex in a print ad decreases ad effectiveness for women.  It also found using sex in your advertising actually decreases brand awareness for both sexes.

Before you do anything else  - you've got to go to John Moore's Brand Autopsy blog to check out Attention Tracking pictures that show how men and women view the same ad differently. 

Here's another interesting finding from the report: 

While most men like the ads with sexual themes and do not think they have negative effects on society, women feel the opposite way.  Most women believe there is too much sex in advertising (58%) and more than 40% of all women feel that sexual ads signify and promote a general deterioration of moral and social values, and pose a threat to the proper upbringing of children.

Now - before you go saying those women must be a bunch of conservative or religious prudes - I would caution you not to stereotype.  I know many independent, forward-thinking, freedom loving women who are very progressive, but still hold similar views.    

Does Product Placement Work?

Does product placement work?   If so, why?  If not, why not? And is it ethical?  I’d really like to know the answers to these questions.  So would many advertisers.   If I see a movie character sipping Starbucks coffee – will I go out and buy a Venti skim cappuccino?   If I see James Bond driving a BMW – will I go out and buy a Z3?  If I see a Survivor contestant pouring Mountain Dew down his gullet, will I be inclined to do the same?

Here are some reasons why product placement works:

• You can’t Tivo it out.  It’s ingrained in the actual entertainment.
• It’s not interruptive.  Viewers aren’t annoyed at being interrupted by an advertising message and having to wait to get back to what they really want – the TV show or movie.   
• It’s almost like a celebrity endorsement – if these famous people (or characters) are using the product, they must like it.
• It’s subliminal, so the filters in our brain that normally weed out advertising messages don’t step in to block the message.  It sneaks into our subconscious.

Here are some reasons why product placement doesn’t work:

Word of Mouth - Conference Highlights

Who knew there were so many smart people in advertising?   I just got back from the WOMMA Word of Mouth vs. Advertising conference in NYC.  There was a lot of word of mouth about this word of mouth – and it lived up to the buzz.   My neck is sore from nodding my head so much.  The rest of the crowd was equally as enthralled.  As two of the last panelists commented “we’re well into cocktail hour and you’re still here….why?”

If there was one overriding message to the conference it was this…..the consumer is in control.    You can lie, manipulate, and coax, but the truth will always come out.  WOMMA CEO Andy Sernovitz pronounced:

Ads will never again be free from real people providing real feedback -- and bringing to light the underlying claims of every campaign. Truth always rises to the surface.

So, with this power shift, who controls WOM?  Do consumers control WOM?   Or do marketers control WOM?  And if marketers can’t control WOM, why has a whole marketing industry grown up around it?   

From the insight I gained, here's how I'd answer that question...

Corperate Internet Branding

Ok Ok…before all you spell check Nazis start bombarding me with pesky little notes “Holly…..It’s ‘corporate Internet branding’ not ‘corperate Internet branding’.  Please make a note of it.”  I KNOW it’s misspelled.    Did it on purpose.   So there.

Here’s the thing – if you do your keyword research you’ll find corperate internet branding gets almost as many hits as corporate internet branding.  Corperate internet branding isn’t some low level term an uneducated person is likely to type in.  Could be just laziness, could be there’s no spell check per say in search boxes (though they are pretty good at suggesting the correct spelling in the results they return).  In any case, it’s a viable search term.

My point?  When you’re choosing your best keywords always check misspellings like corperate internet branding.  Just please include them in your tags instead of in your actual text.   

So to the reason I stumbled on this tasty little tidbit……