Marketing to Women Online

Vitamin W Interviews Holly Buchanan

Recently I talked with Amy-Willard Cross about the problems with stereotyping women in advertisements.   We discussed The Buchanan Test and why so few commercials can pass this simple test for stereotyping women in your ads.

"While the advertisements of some companies such as Underarmour’s, Michelob Light, and Tide Superbowl have passed her test, Buchanan has found that the subservient mother role is the most popular portrayal of women. She points to drug commericials, for instance, in which men are typically shown doing exiciting things like mountain biking, whereas the women were shown buckling children into a car or doing yoga. Do women not do anything else in their lives, she wondered. Hence the origin of the Buchanan Test."

Read the full Vitamin W article "The One Test That Popular Commercials Keep Failing". 

How to Move Beyond Female Stereotypes In Your Ads

Why do so many marketing to women efforts fail?  One word....

Stereotypes.

When you stereotype the people in your ads, you end up with commercials that don't engage your target audience.

Which is why I find it amazing that SO many commercials stereotype women. 

Go beyond stereotypes

I read an awesome article in Ad Week - The Courage to Advertise Without Female Stereotypes:  How Brands LIke Huggies, Tide and Target Go Beyond the Cliches.

The article points out how many women feel advertisers don't understand them or their lives.

2013 Athena Film Festival - Where Is the Female James Bond?

Imagine sitting down for a couple of hours of TV viewing, and every commercial stars positive, non-stereotypical women (aka women outside of the home, in a role other than mother and NOT doing yoga). The shows feature women as the heroes of their own stories.  Time after time a woman comes in and saves the day.  The women are brave, smart, and funny, and while they may look great, they aren't there simply as sexy background to boost the egos of men.  

You walk away from the experience feeling euphoric, relaxed, confident, and valued.  Commercial after commercial, show after show, you think, "Wow, I'd love to be just like that character (her)."

This happens in the real world, like, never.  

Are Today's Moms Longing for a Return to the 1950's?

Mad Men, Pan Am, The Play Boy Club...what's up with all these shows focusing on life in the 50's and 60's? That was a time when women had limited opportunity and sexism was rampant. So why do men AND women look nostalgicly at this era? ( is nostalgicly a word?)

A new study about moms from Women at NBCU might shed some light.

The headline reads, "MOMS ASPIRE TO BE MODERN DAY JUNE CLEAVERS,ACCORDING TO A NEW WOMEN AT NBCU STUDY WHICH PAINTS AN  ALTERED PICTURE OF TODAY'S AMERICAN FAMILY"

Three Things Women Can't Live Without

New research by Women of NBCU found that the three things women could not live without for one month are:

• The Internet
• Showers
• Sleep

Women's Tech Usage Expands

Results from the Women of NBCU research show women are relying more heavily on technology in their lives.

For example, women have higher ownership rates of smartphones and women are more reliant and comfortable with technology than a year ago.

Illustrating that growing confidence was the fact that 75% of women disagreed with the statement "men are more comfortable with tech than women" and the fact that more women have smartphones than men.

The Buchanan Test - Are You Stereotyping Women In Your Ads?

 
Are you stereotyping women in your ads?  Can your ads pass The Buchanan Test? 

(The Buchanan Test was inspired by The Bechdel Test which deals with stereotyping of women in movies.)

Look at your most recent ads targeting women (or women and men if they are both your audience). 

Can you answer "yes" to the following three questions:

1. Do you feature a woman outside of the home?
2. Do you feature a woman in a role other than "mother"?
3. Is she NOT doing yoga?

Ok.  How'd you do?   You'd be surprised how few commercials pass this test.  Like this one from Florastor.

NY and LA - Go See Desert Flower

How often do you walk out of a movie theatre and think, "Every person in the world needs to go see this film."

That's exactly how I felt after watching Desert  Flower.  Desert Flower is the story of Somalian-born Waris Dirie. Born as a nomadic goat-herder, she became one of the world's most sought-after top models.  The book Desert Flower sold over 11 million copies.  This story is beautiful, heartbreaking, enlightening, laugh-out-loud funny, inspiring and one scene is so gut-wrenching you won't be able to breath for 15 minutes afterwards. 

Today Desert Flower opens in New York and LA.  If you live on those areas, go see this movie. Seriously. 

For more information, visit the desert flower website.  Be sure to read the Director's Notes from Sherry Hormann.  She shares this story about casting the film.

During the casting for the role of Waris in London, a 40-year old woman from Mali entered the room. I looked at her in disbelief but then, in a friendly tone, the woman began to speak out what I could not bring myself to say. “I am not your Waris, I know, and I’m much too old and I can’t act either.  I work in a factory in Glasgow but I took the day off today and took the train here to tell you how important this film is for Africa.

The film is even more important for women...and the men who love them.

 

 

International Women's Day - Personal Thoughts

  

 
March 8th is International Women's Day.

It's important to look back and celebrate how far we have come.  (and by "we" I mean both women and men).   Yet there is still so far to go. 

In my work on understanding the differences between  men and women, I study the messages that we're sent, the images of what it is to be a man or a woman.  I see how we're portrayed and the language and images we are bombarded with in advertising, the media, on TV, in magazines and movies.

The messages that men receive aren't great.  Even today, the definition of what it is to be a  man is extremely narrow. But women have it even worse.  Be sure to read What  I Learned About Marketing to Women at the Athena Film Festival for an up to date look at how women are portrayed in the media today.

The assault starts at a very young age.  In her book A Woman's Worth, Marianne Williamson talks about women who try to reclaim their "lost girl."

The lost girl is still within us - the girl who wasn't allowed to blossom, the girl whose natural childhood instincts were unnaturally capped at puberty, the girl who was squelched in fear of the woman she would become.  We were treated with suspicious looks at the very moment someone should have been turning up the applause.   Our natural impulses were thwarted and distorted.We don't know how to be women because we were taught it's not OK to be girls. 

Ask any woman in your life to read that passage and you'll see just how widespread this feeling is. 

There is hope

But here's why I'm hopeful about the world in general and women in particular (the fate of the two is inseparably intertwined).

For as long as I can remember, women have become less of themselves.  They have tried to alter their themselves to be what they think society/other people want.  But women are finally coming to the realization that that is simply not working.

I see a seismic shift.  Today, instead of becoming less of themselves, women are becoming more of themselves.  They are coming more into alignment with their authentic selves.  They are finally giving voice to their true feelings. (just look at the explosion of women bloggers). 

The more women come into alignment in one area of their life, the more they notice when something is out of alignment.  I think that's one of the reasons women are so stressed out right now.

   “Stress may be as much a question of a compromise of values as it is a matter of time pressure or fear of failure.”

    Harold Kushner Living a Life That Matters

So on International Women's Day, I want to send a message to the women of the world:

• Be more of yourself, not less of yourself
• Define your values - what is the one thing you absolutely will not compromise on?  Stay true.
• Make your voice heard, especially when someone says that you are something you are not.
• For the love of God, stop tearing down other women.  Yes, if instead of piling on, you stand up for her you may lose the approval of men.  Get over it.  It's inexcusable when men are misogynists.  It's unforgivable when women are. 
•  Support your daughters.  They start out as such bright lights with such big dreams.  Tell her not to listen when the world says she is not enough. Fill her with the self-confidence to continue to shine brightly when the world scolds her and pressures her to dim or diminish everything that makes her feel worthy.

I'll leave you with this quote from Marianne Williamson also used by Nelson Mandella:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Happy International Women's Day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Halloween and The Future Of Women's Leadership

 
You're probably wondering what Halloween has to do with the future of women's leadership.  But I saw something today that gave me tremendous hope for the future and the role women will take in shaping it.

I'm often asked to speak to women's groups - women business owners, women in the finance industry and women in corporate management.  A question everyone asks is,"What will the future hold?  Will we see more women in leadership positions?  And how do we get there?"

My answer is, we will see more women in leadership roles.  All generations will contribute to the progress.

Women Respond to Real Images in Marketing

I want to talk about stock photography.  We all use it - I do as well.  Some of it is quite good. But some of it is.....how do I put this politely....so obviously fake it is ineffective.  One of my favorite sites is Bad Stock Art.   They featured the above image from a search for "nurse" with this caption:

She must be a specialist – with the special ability to hear through her eyeball.

I so wish this were an isolated incident, but I come across this kind of stereotype, cliche crap all too often.

Images convey emotion

Images are used to display emotion in ads.   Look at the images you use.  Do they inspire the emotional response you want?   Do women respond to the emotion, or lack thereof in your images?