The visible approach to marketing to women.

By Lisa Johnson and Andrea Learned

The two main methods for reaching consumers of either gender we call the �visible� and �transparent� approaches to marketing-plus a third or �hybrid� approach that combines the two. Each of these options can be highly effective in reaching women in particular. The success of one approach or another depends on the product or service, the profiles of your core women customers, and the ways in which they want to be reached.

In some cases, it makes a lot of sense to adopt the visible approach, distinguishing your product from the many others on the shelf by directly calling out �for women.� In other cases, the best way to resonate with women requires marketing to them transparently-by delivering the product or service in a way that works with women�s information gathering and purchasing processes, but that doesn�t single them out as a special group.

Finally, the third marketing option connects with your female customers in a hybrid way through a combination of the two approaches, which usually means calling out �for women� or creating a special women�s initiative for a particular product or service within an existing brand.

You just can�t avoid wrestling with the decision about how to best reach the women in your market. There�s much to consider, as we show throughout this book�s exploration of a woman�s buying mind and what influences it. What we do know is that your brand must do all it can to align itself with its female consumers� existing perspective of your product or service. Only by meeting women where they are, can you gain their trust and then be able to give them a new view of your wares.

In this chapter, we explore the visible approach, in particular; and we also touch on how you can include more visible elements when marketing to women within a traditional marketing campaign, resulting in a hybrid approach. Though we suspect that in coming years there will be fewer occasions to effectively utilize the visible option, it�s certainly worth touching upon. Your marketing brain should be aware of all the choices, so you can make the best decisions for connecting with your women customers.

�For Women� Only

Visible campaigns are clearly designed and presented �for women.� There will be no question. Such a gender-specific focus may jump right out at you in the name of the product, like French Meadow Bakery�s �Woman�s Bread�; or it may be clearly a women�s-only product like a health supplement for menopausal symptoms (there�s just no avoiding that specificity).

Well executed, a visible approach can streamline the way to women�s buying minds and deliver a truly customized brand experience. The most successful current �for women� approaches may be those for female-specific nutrition, body care and beauty products. Just think of the �women�s formula� statements on the packages of nutritional supplements, or consider the Gillette Venus razor campaign, as examples of effective visible marketing to women.

Stamping �women�s formula� on your vitamin bottle will help guide women to the shelves reserved for �women�s wellness� offerings at drug and grocery stores. Still, with media coverage of nutrition and diet increasing in the past ten or so years, women are that much more likely to have already read up on the nutritional needs for their particular life stage. These well-informed consumers will be very conscious of including the appropriate elements in their diet, so they�ll love the extra guidance they find at the grocery store shelf.

And then there are the newer shapes of women�s razors that do speak, purposefully, �for women.� There is just something about giving a razor a new, more feminine curvy shape and pastel color that means so much to women who�ve been using their husband�s disposables for years.

In the case of Gillette�s Venus razor for women, even before naming it and thus making the marketing campaign visible, the product would still have resonated with women. Without the girly name, the Venus� marketing approach would have been more transparent, because the color and shape of the product-and its improved ability to maneuver in the usually hard-to-reach areas on a woman�s body-still tell the story on their own. Whether the marketing approach is visible or transparent, women everywhere applaud razor manufacturers who have became cognizant of the many curves and odd angles women encounter when they shave-and that, on its own, reflects a greater awareness of women�s buying mind and consumer needs.

visibly marketing nutrition for women

Whatever the product, from a breakfast cereal to a power bar, there is now a massive market for specific products that meet gender-unique nutritional needs.

The brands that entered the nutrition-for-women market likely based their decisions on U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) findings, like those from 1996: Less than half of all women ingest the recommended levels of vital nutrients, such as calcium and iron.

It has by now been well documented that diet plays a big role in the prevention of osteoporosis, heart disease and cancer. Then, too, accommodating women�s busy lives has further impelled the development of quick ways to fit solid nutrition into a woman�s daily routine. By talking with women early on in the development of a nutritional product, you�d likely understand the best way to customize the product and packaging to zero in on women�s concerns. Changes might include:

Provide a good portion of each day�s calcium requirement to prevent osteoporosis.

Add nutrients and soy protein to boost protection against heart disease.

Use promotional copy that espouses the product�s essential nutrients specifically for a woman�s diet.

Maintain your established logo and brand, but possibly include a female graphic element.

Package the product to reflect a woman�s mobile life, for example, in individually wrapped portions or smaller containers (environmental concerns aside).

As women�s health has gotten more and more coverage across all media channels over the years, few women have escaped the realization that they have unique nutritional needs. Creating a product branded �for women� that provides key gender-specific nutritional elements utilizes a visible approach to its utmost beneficial effect. Making it easy for a woman to learn about and find your product through visible ad campaigns, package design, shelf placement and product naming will further enhance your sales.

In specific cases, women embrace those brands that were developed to meet their gender-specific needs, highlighting �for women� or �for her� in their title and packaging.

The Hybrid Approach: Specifying �For Her� Within an Established Brand

There are those cases in which a new product or service line, created within an established overall brand, would benefit from calling out to women that it was developed specifically for them. Consider your local well-known bank as an example. Everyone knows �Downtown Bank� has good customer service, offering the best interest rates with free checking; but now Downtown wants to package its information and develop seminars specifically to address women�s financial needs. The bank certainly wouldn�t redo its logo or reposition itself to become �Women�s Downtown Bank.� Rather, it may develop a Web site section called �Financial Services for Women� and start offering �for women� seminars on financial planning for retirement and on gender-specific issues, such as earning less but living longer than one�s male spouse.

Drugstore.com�s �Healthy Woman� area is effectively women-specific within a well-known brand. The section includes products and information on both traditional and alternative approaches to women�s health, as well as a resource section, called a �Health Guide,� that carries the woman-resonant tagline �knowledge is power.� Items are presented in categories that speak directly to women�s prime concerns, like cardio and breast health. Healthy Woman�s top ten solutions for weight loss, antiaging and more appear front and center on the home page. By delivering the products and information in ways that serve so well the buying minds of women, this visible �for women� approach within the Drugstore.com brand is getting full power from its marketing efforts.

Rejuvenating Effects toothpaste is another product representative of the hybrid approach to marketing to women. Developed as a product within Procter & Gamble�s Crest line, it is promoted as the first toothpaste targeted specifically to women using the slogan, �For a radiant smile, today�s new beauty secret.�

In keeping with a hybrid approach, the entire Crest brand was not given a �for women� makeover. Rather, the Rejuvenating Effects product within the Crest brand is being distinctly marketed as a toothpaste that addresses a beauty concern, which is usually female-specific.

Interestingly, while Drugstore.com�s Healthy Woman area packages and categorizes information and products specifically around women�s health concerns, Rejuvenating Effects toothpaste is more simply positioned �for women� without containing any truly female-specific ingredients.

A hybrid marketing approach may be a great way to test whether women are paying attention to your brand. If they do notice and respond to your visible efforts to reach them, then that may be the time to develop and launch an even more powerful transparent marketing program (see the next chapter for details).

Reality-Based Visibility

When a visible approach, either on its own or as part of a hybrid program, reinforces outdated stereotypes of women and their preferences for the sake of a marketing pitch, it will turn off both women and men alike. Talk about backfiring!

From our own conversations with women over the years, we can report that many feel an almost physical discomfort in response to a marketing effort that discounts them, pegs them as �typical� women, or mistakenly or superficially uses flowers and pastels to reach them. There are so many more exciting ways to reach women.

A good thing to consider, when assessing the value of a visible campaign for reaching your market, is how connected to a woman�s specific realities (body size, shape and health) your product or service may be, and how her emotions around those topics may affect her purchase. For example, golf clubs reengineered for a woman�s smaller grip, swing and size, or specialized bike seats for women, are cases where a visible approach is the best choice.

When products like golf clubs or bike seats present an innovation for women, in an industry where the standard has been shorter or smaller versions of the men�s line, a visible, women-specific campaign helps highlight the change. Your brand�s new attention to a woman�s specific needs for designs and features will positively influence her view of your overall brand, and guide her toward just what she seeks.

Creating visible campaigns without a strong purpose, however, can be risky. Running into a �for women� approach while shopping for a lawnmower or a PDA, for example, might feel demeaning to many. (What, the lawnmower is purple and thus built specifically �for women�?) A woman�s buying mind doesn�t signal that such superficially modified products are gender-specific, so a visible marketing approach would be only distracting, at best, counterproductive, at worst.

Yet, there are ways to develop and market those lawnmowers, PDAs and home electronics that will make them more loudly resonate with women and help them to be seen more clearly through a woman�s buying perspective. We call that invisible approach �transparent,� and will go into that more in the pages to come.

Generational Cues

Previous generations of women may have responded more readily to visible, or �for her,� marketing efforts, because they were novel and seemed to represent a new sense of respect for gender differences. However, younger generations have now grown up in more gender-neutral worlds and so are less likely overall to respond to that approach to marketing to women.

Oatmeal for women? Whatever. Why do I need my own oatmeal? For some reason this approach really turns me off. But you know who would buy this? My mom!
—Lori T., age 28, advertising account manager

The one caveat in marketing to the younger generation is that they can always turn a stereotype on its ear and play against it just for fun. In the early 2000s, the retail marketplace went through a �pink� and �girly� craze, of sorts, in clothing, gadgets and other nonessential products geared toward younger women. This trend was almost a sophisticated embracing of the stereotypes, a sort of �wink-wink, nudge-nudge� way of responding with humor and sass to the age-old paradigm that women love things pink, feminine and flowery.

Furthermore, while some Mature generation women and even some Baby Boom women may not have previously been offended by visible campaigns, the tide may be turning. These older women�s exposure to marketing messages over the years has surely made them more discriminating consumers. And, there is nothing like too-quickly adding �for women� to a product�s name, or painting its package pink, to make your marketing motives suspect.

Integrating Visibility

Quality, price and reputation will mean nothing if a woman can tell you slapped a �for women� sticker on the pastel version of the same old product. If you haven�t developed truly gender-specific features and benefits, or conducted research into how a woman might buy the product, it will be evident to your potential customers. To keep your products and marketing authentic and integrated, you should decide whether to use the visible approach right from the beginning. Let product development in response to women�s real needs dictate your sales efforts and marketing messages.

For example, if the Gillette Venus razor had not been designed specifically for a woman�s body, its more feminine color and name would feel inauthentic to potential buyers, and Gillette�s visible approach would have failed. As it is, the shape of the razor was designed intentionally to fit a woman�s curves, so the color and name integrated well with the design and thus felt authentic.

A woman�s interest in purchasing your product or service will be significantly affected by whether your brand�s marketing approach is genuine, through and through, or a superficial (however sincere) effort to gain her attention. So, choose and utilize the visible marketing option with great care if you want to reach women.

Companies certainly don�t set out to make products that will fail with women. Success comes by making the effort to understand the women customers you are trying to reach before you even create the product. Then, a genuine reality-based visible approach can win new customers and create new markets.

Excerpted from Don't Think Pink: What Really Makes Women Buy? and How to Increase Your Share of This Crucial Market by Lisa Johnson and Andrea Learned. Copyright � 2004 Lisa Johnson and Andrea Learned. Published by AMACOM Books, a division of American Management Association, New York, NY. Used with permission. All rights reserved. .

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