Marketing to Women Online

Burger King's Crown on Too Tight

By now you’ve probably heard the “flap” over Burger King’s new www.coqroq.com website.  See the complete article in ad age. 

The Web site's double entendre name, along with the lyrics, demeanor and the sophomoric presentation of the fictitious heavy metal group, projects the illusion of something designed to offend the sensibilities of mainstream adult America

Many of the sexual double entendres have been removed and I was unable to find the famous picture of the teen girls with the caption "groupies love coq”. Feathers have been flying that the site is offensive to women.  I just wonder how "groupies love coq" made it through the whole approval process and actually went live on the site.  It looks like they removed it very quickly.

I'd really like to know what the strategy was behind the venture.   If it was to create a PR buzz – Burger King certainly succeeded – but how is it helping to promote or even define the Burger King brand?  It’s so far removed from all things Burger King.   

McDonalds, on the other hand, has been slowly and consistently recrafting their brand.  Their “I’m Loving It” commercial campaign has a hip feel to it.  It manages to be “real” without being offensive.  You walk into their restaurants and instead of seeing a list of credit cards and “We Proudly Accept the Following Credit Cards” – they show the credit card logos with the slogan “Yeah – we take ‘em”.    They are speaking in their customer’s language, but still not going so far over the edge they are offensive.   

Another way McDonalds is recrafting their brand?  Hiring no less than P. Diddy, Russel Simmons, and Tommy Hilfiger to design employee uniforms. Does this fit into the strategy?  Will uniforms worn by employees affect how the public and especially the employees feel about the brand?   I think it will.

Will Burger King’s coqroq have a lasting effect on the brand?  Will it have any effect on the brand?   Will it have a negative effect on the brand?  Without knowing what the strategy is behind it, I can’t answer those questions. 

I will say from a usability point of view – the website is a nightmare – the dark colored fonts on black background are almost impossible to read – the navigation elements are not intuitive at all.  Though I must admit, I do kinda like the band member names  – “Fowl Mouth” and "Free Range" are my favorites.  I’m not saying it’ not creative, just wondering if it’s effective.  What do you guys think?

Ann Taylor Persona

I was reading one of my favorite blogs – Brand Autopsy when I was delighted to see a post about a major woman’s clothing retailer who had joined “the enlightened ones” – they were using personas to gain a better understanding into their customers and to develop new marketing and merchandising.   

But just as I was starting to do my happy dance (a spontaneous act of joy which a friend once remarked looks like a butt spasm), I did a double take – they created a persona – singular.   

To arrest the sales decline at Ann Taylor, the company has hunkered down and refined who the Ann Taylor customer is. The company’s marketing and merchandising teams have created an Ann Taylor persona, a richly articulated description of the prototypical Ann Taylor customer. Every marketing and merchandising decision at the company is now made based upon the Ann Taylor persona, appropriately named … Ann.

Ann is a married 36 year-old working mother of two children with a household income of $150K. She leads a busy, sophisticated life and her idea of dressing down at work is wearing a velvet jacket with jeans.

In comparison, the Ann Taylor Loft customer is a married thirtysomething with children, works in a laid-back less corporate environment, and has a household income between $75K and $100K.

Ok – so it looks like maybe they created two personas - one for each Ann Taylor division.   But I just have to ask – how many tens of thousands of women shop at each division?   Can you really condense tens of thousands of women into one persona?   And can you say Stereotype?   Both are “married”.    (of course – there is no such thing as single women out there) Both have children.   (2.4 just didn’t sound right so they made it 2).

News Flash - 27% of all households are headed by a single female.  And unmarried childless women have way more time to shop than their “married with kids” counterparts.   Even if the majority of Ann Taylor customers are married with kids, do you want to ignore everyone else?

I’m sure these personas go way deeper than the quick snapshot presented here – but I do find the information interesting – age and household income.  I’m not sure how much age really tells you – I think life stage is far more important.   I wore Ann Taylor when I was younger and trying harder to impress people.  But now that I’m older I don’t get dressed up as often and prefer Ann Taylor Loft – so I’m the exact opposite of their personas. 

And how do you address merchandising with one persona?   Take Ann Taylor Loft - Part of your audience is a skinny group of flat chested fashionistas who want the latest halter top, and another is more typical heavier women who has breasts and still wants a sexy top, but wants one she can actually wear a bra with.    

One can live on the Internet and barely watch TV, and the other can watch TV every night but hardly ever go online – how do you determine which media channel is the best to reach her when you only have one persona?

I don’t want to sound too negative here. I applaud anyone who will do persona work. And I’m sure Ann Taylor will see some big improvements from their persona. But I’d challenge them to go one step further – create several personas and address each the way she wants to be addressed.   The more you speak to the average, the more average your message becomes.