Lorraine Sanders
May 7, 2013
Recent Data Shows That Style-Driven Startups Have The Power To Shift Tech’s Gender Balance And Bring More Women To The Tech Table. But Is That A Good Thing?
Avivah Wittenberg-Cox
May 6, 2013
This constant frame of gender as a "women's issue" is one of the big obstacles to progress — in both countries and companies.
Lucia Moses
Apr 24, 2013
When it comes to mobile shopping, the gender gap is alive and well.
Christina Bonnington
Apr 12, 2013
In early March, this little gem popped up on my radar: a tablet designed specifically for women. After putting on my feminist hat and spewing outrage at the stereotypical selection of apps splashed across the tablet’s homescreen, I wondered — Do men and women have appreciably different tastes in apps?
Lisa Arthur
Apr 2, 2013
Breaking the glass ceiling is only the beginning. In the C-suite, performance –your strategic vision, how you drive revenue growth, etc. –is what matters most.
SE Smith
Oct 5, 2012
What began as a social movement serving urgent health needs for women has been hollowed out by cynical marketeering. The gradual commodification of breast cancer reflected a failure of the movement, in that it wasn't able to adapt quickly enough to fight the commercialisation of breast cancer awareness.
Stephanie Buck
Aug 1, 2012
A survey conducted by Women’s Marketing Inc. published new findings that shed light on social media marketing and women. We’ve pulled three important lessons from the data, which will help businesses to refine their marketing tactics, especially as they pertain to the female demographic.
Sheila Shayon
Jun 15, 2012
“Myanmar is one of only three countries on the globe where Coca-Cola does not do business. The other two are Cuba and North Korea,” Coca-Cola stated this week. That's about to change. The global beverage giant has not done business in Myanmar, a.k.a., Burma, for more than 60 years, but The Coca-Cola Foundation just announced plans to grant $3 million to support women's economic empowerment job creation.
Marc Hedlund
Apr 6, 2012
The summer batch of Hacker School will be 40 students, and our goal is to have them accept at least 20 women, with Hacker School retaining full control over the admissions process. In other words, 20 times the number of women in the current batch. What will it take to get there?
Ashley Lutz
Jun 22, 2011
It's one of the toughest challenges in retailing: appealing to new, often younger customers without alienating shoppers who have long been loyal fans. When the transition is handled badly, things can go south in a hurry. Ask Talbots, which tried to entice thirtysomethings with cocktail dresses and frilly tank tops and left the pearl-wearing career women who had shopped there for decades feeling jilted.
Jun 7, 2011
While it's no news that girls and women are diving deeper into gaming every day, a new ranking from NBCU shows that brands offering women a way to play are gaining buzz.
May 12, 2011
Influential women are themselves more likely than other women to have their purchases influenced by everything from online reviews to expert endorsements. But they're not always as swayed by the big names you'd expect and often give more weight to media and media brands than to individuals.
Oct 29, 2010
The power of BlogHer's audience can't be denied; in fact, BlogHer's own research shows that women control over 80% of the household spending — not exactly chump change, especially when you consider that we're talking about a $7 trillion U.S. market.
Sep 1, 2010
With brawny athletes wearing its sleek, sweat-absorbing apparel in hard-charging situations, the sportswear maker Under Armour became the brand of choice for young men in their teens and 20s. Now the company is aiming to win over a new audience — active young women. “Women’s apparel some day will be larger than our men’s apparel business, which is our goal,” predicted Kevin A. Plank, a former college football player who founded Under Armour 14 years ago.
The Baltimore company’s new television and digital campaign for women from ages 13 to 24 features several athletes, the most famous being Lindsey Vonn, the Olympic-winning Alpine skier, undertaking rigorous, even grueling, workouts — strained muscles, sweat and all.
Aug 26, 2010
Ladies, if you have ever wanted to wear strappy stilettos with your favorite football jersey, you are in luck. This fall, the National Football League will begin an advertising campaign encouraging you to do just that. The campaign, called “N.F.L. Women’s Apparel, Fit For You,” takes an approach to marketing clothing that is meant to be both fashionable and sporty.
And while jerseys and T-shirts for women have been available on Web sites like nflshop.com and in catalogs, this is the first time the league has dedicated a campaign to apparel for women.
Rich Thomaselli
Jul 12, 2010
Observers are wondering why Canton, Mass.-based Reebok, after successfully readjusting its focus to target the women's market, and making great gains with both its ZigTech training shoe and its Easy Tone sneakers, would get back into the basketball-shoe endorsement business when that sector of the sneaker world is losing market share.
Bob Deutsch
Jun 18, 2010
Even as we pull out of the economic downturn, many people are still curtailing spending because a new meaning of "value" is taking hold. This shift is particularly prominent among what we call the "Post-88s" -- females, age 22 and under -- who have grown up with social media. Their story of self-identity and its impact on value is so distinct from the older half of the Gen Y population that they can no longer be considered as one market.
May 24, 2010
About one-half of online women in the US were fans or followers of a company’s social marketing presence in April 2010, according to a survey from SheSpeaks and iVillage. It was most popular to follow brands, especially in the consumer packaged goods category. Women were less engaged with retail outlets on social sites.
Brian Solis
Apr 30, 2010
Based on data collected and analyzed using Google Ad Planner, I recently discovered that in Social Media, women rule. Across almost every major social network, the balance was revealing and in some cases, profound.
Timothy Egan
Apr 28, 2010
Is there anything creepier than a big, beer-breathed celebrity athlete exposing himself in a night club and hitting on underage girls, all the while protected by an entourage of off-duty cops? Well, yes. It’s the big, corporate sponsor — Nike, in this case — that continues trying to sell product with the creep as their role model.
Apr 6, 2010
Microsoft-owned MSN is going after traditional brand dollars with a new magazine-like content site called Glo, a women's lifestyle venue produced in conjunction with Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S and BermanBraun.
The site, which focuses on beauty, style, relationships and other classic women's magazine topics, takes a page from the previous MSN/BermanBraun's collaboration Wonderwall, which is heavy on celebrity photography and employs a vertical navigation interface.
Apr 5, 2010
For years I've heard stories from Boomer women about their dissatisfaction with clothes shopping. They can't find stores that understand their taste; they seek more privacy than many stores offer; and they are sick and tired of being ignored by salespeople who don't understand how much money they have to spend.
The Internet, which lets this Boomer woman overcome so many other obstacles the marketplace presents her, now clearly answers her clothing needs as well.
Bob Deutsch
Mar 15, 2010
In my work as a cognitive anthropologist I study how the mind works, how people "make meaning," how people form attachments to things (brands), and how people make decisions. Decisions like how to select what to invest in, whether stocks or mates; why and under what conditions, people prefer Coke over Pepsi (or vice versa), Charmin over Cottonelle; why a person believes in one God over another.
In that search I have inadvertently uncovered something about viva la difference: WOMEN CYCLE, MEN CONSUMMATE.
Mar 9, 2010
What's the biggest emerging market of them all? I'll give you a hint: The answer isn't geographic but demographic. The answer is...women.
Women leaders are the new power behind the global economy, proclaims Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu's announcement of its second annual webcast celebrating International Women's Day. In developing nations, women's earned income is growing at 8.1 percent, compared to 5.8 percent for men. Globally, women control nearly $12 trillion of the $18 trillion total overall consumer spending, a figure predicted to rise to $15 trillion by 2014.
More significant, the majority of tertiary degrees are now being awarded to women. Highly qualified, well-educated and ambitious, these women are taking over the talent pool from Delhi to Dubai and bringing new urgency to the issue of managing diversity.
Feb 26, 2010
Women are starting to buy clothes for themselves again, an encouraging sign for retailers as spring approaches.
A new report suggests that women, middle-income ones in particular, finally are feeling good enough about the economy that they will splurge on a piece of clothing.
The women's apparel market slowed its decline to 3 percent in the fourth quarter from a year ago, better than the 5.1 percent drop in total U.S. apparel sales, according to NPD Group.
Feb 24, 2010
Lifetime is in transition, again. The latest chapter in the network’s search for itself includes a push for younger viewers – a sweet spot for advertisers – and has resulted in a dwindling audience of loyal, older viewers.
The current perception of Lifetime: “‘It’s great for my mom, but I wouldn't watch it.' That has to change," said JoAnn Alfano, Lifetime's executive vice president of programming. "In some ways it's not rocket science. We want to invite all women into the tent and offer a cross-section of programming."
Feb 3, 2010
Crystal Light is a sugar-free soluble powder manufactured by Kraft Foods since 1982. Originally offered in only five flavors, the line-up now includes twenty-eight. And as non diet sodas become more and more the face of fattening evil, flavored waters and juices have risen in popularity in the last few years. While I prefer my water on tap without any kind of powder, Kraft Food bets upwards of $40 million in advertising in the last couple of years and more this year, that other people do. And while Crystal Light is clearly targeted towards women, Kraft Foods estimates that 40% of consumers are men, yet at point of purchase, women are the overwhelming majority. This past November, Kraft Foods introduced a new look for Crystal Light with an environmental-friendly range of packaging.
Jan 13, 2010
Brette Borow is the President and Founder of Girls Guide To, the “ladies only” guide to life, and spends most of her days engaging with the community’s over 140,000 members. There are over 56 million women using Facebook in the United States, and for marketers this means one very important thing –- if you have a brand, product or company that targets women, Facebook is the place to be.
Andrew Adam Newman
Jan 5, 2010
Special K, the 54-year-old Kellogg brand, has in recent years aimed at women with its “Special K Challenge,” which recommends replacing two meals daily with cereal and curtailing snacking to lose up to six pounds in two weeks. The popularity of the plan led the brand to expand to nine flavors and develop noncereal products like frozen waffles, protein bars, crackers, shakes and powdered drink mixes that can be substituted for cereal at mealtimes or eaten as the two daily snacks the plan permits.
Despite all those products to sell, a new series of Special K commercials, by the Chicago office of Leo Burnett, part of the Publicis Groupe, features none of them.
Nov 12, 2009
Women ages 20 to 30 represent a $54 billion marketing opportunity for packaged goods companies, but their needs and values are vastly different from the generation before them, a new report from Information Resources found.
“Winning with Millennial Women Shoppers” outlines this growing consumer demographic’s key behaviors. Compared to the preceding generation, women born between 1979 and 1989 tend to shop less, buy more during each trip, and frequent supercenters and Walmart more. The economy has also forced these shoppers to cut back on indulgent food categories like frozen poultry, chewing gum, salty snacks and frozen pizza, the report said.
Nov 11, 2009
By now, most marketers have a social network presence. But those looking to capture the attention (and even wallets) of women may want to dig a little deeper to make sure they have a presence in social gaming. "It's grown so fast and so rapidly that brands are struggling to keep up with it," Matt Wise, CEO of Q Interactive, tells Marketing Daily. "If you're looking to find consumers online, it would be hard to find a better opportunity than social games."
Nov 10, 2009
SALES of vitamins and minerals are projected to grow more than 6 percent this year — to $11.2 billion, from $10.6 billion in 2008 — according to Mintel, a market research firm, and that bump may come not in spite of the economic downturn, but because of it. “Economy-conscious consumers concerned with avoiding illness, and thus avoiding sick days, turn to supplements to maintain good health,” Mintel wrote in a recent report. “People tend to take better care of themselves when there are tough economic conditions,” said Joe Fortunato, chief executive of GNC, the vitamin and supplement retailer. A healthy diet, exercise and supplements “are a way to reduce health care costs down the road,” Mr. Fortunato said.
Stepahnie Schomer
Oct 21, 2009
In 2007, Self magazine released results from a study titled GOOD, which examined how women react to cause marketing. Its findings encouraged cause-supporting companies to make the move from telling consumers about how the company was giving back, to telling consumers how they were helping the company give back--the consumer feels better about herself when she supports "good" companies. Self recently released GOOD 1.5, which delves deeper into women's responses to cause marketing and is relevant given how different the economy is from 2007. Cynthia Walsh, executive director of marketing for Self, said that while many marketers expect consumers to care less about "good" in this environment, the opposite is actually true.
Oct 13, 2009
Videogame publishers, pushing to expand their businesses, are making games that target girls and women a new industry battleground.
This holiday season, more games than ever are being geared toward female players. Electronic Arts Inc. is releasing the latest installment of its "Littlest Pet Shop" game for young girls and introducing a series of fashion-themed games called "Charm Girls Club" for older girls later this month. Sony Corp. in August packaged a lilac version of its PlayStation Portable device with a "Hannah Montana" game, based on the popular television show about a girl and her secret pop career.
Publishers also will target women with workout games.
Aug 25, 2009
At first glance, the Lcafe appears no different than any of the dozens of cozy cafés in Tokyo's Shibuya district, where trend-conscious young people flock to sip coffee and nibble on cakes and sandwiches. But look closely at the froth of the cappuccino or a coaster resting beneath a drink or the artwork hanging on the wall and it reveals the café's side business: pitching new products to affluent and influential young Japanese women.
Aug 5, 2009
Experts predict a surge in the men's grooming market -- just as they've been doing for the past decade. The men's grooming market is only about one-fifth the size of the women's market, according to Euromonitor. But if the men's market is so dramatically underdeveloped, why has the oft- predicted explosion failed to materialize? Why is it so hard for men's grooming brands to catch a man?
Jun 26, 2009
Mothers of young children are spending far more time with social media than just three years ago. And most claim that as their personal time diminishes after becoming moms, they end up sacrificing time spent with magazines and newspapers.
Jun 25, 2009
To build consumer loyalty, Office Max launched a study of what women look for when they buy office supplies
Jun 2, 2009
Target has its bull's-eye on a new venture: online media. On Tuesday, the retailer plans to formally announce a partnership with DailyCandy.com, the email newsletter and Web site owned by cable operator Comcast that covers fashion and culture for a mostly female audience.
May 26, 2009
Almost everywhere you look now you'll find arguments, analyses, and advice for marketers on how to market in today's economic abyss.
And rightfully so, because consumers are spending a whole lot less, making successful marketing a whole lot harder. Time magazine recently reported, for example, that 61% of people are spending less - and will continue to spend less - than they did before.
Knowing, as we do, that women represent 85% of consumer spending and translate into a $5 trillion market, it's very clear that knowing how to market to women in this recession is the gold pot at the end of the rainbow.
May 18, 2009
The Snickers bar has a new sibling, and it's a girl.
She's sexual, uninhibited — and only 85 calories. The "Fling" is the first new chocolate bar Mars has introduced in more than 20 years.
May 14, 2009
Tropicana officially unveiled "The Juice" community Thursday to promote Trop50, a new orange juice the consumer products goods (CPG) company bills as having 50% less sugar and no artificial sweeteners.
May 14, 2009
It seems lately that Dell is everywhere you look, trying to get you the consumer to pay attention to them. From their successful “I’m a PC” ad campaign, which over took Union Square in NYC earlier this year, to some interesting artist collaborations with a Blitzkrieg of PR, it seems that Dell is angling to move out of the shadows of their cooler big brother Mac, and get people excited about their computers. Dell’s most recent move has been creating a sub-brand Della which will be catering to female PC users.
Apr 20, 2009
Kodak is using an arsenal of national media properties anchored by assets under the recently formed Women@NBCU banner to drive a value message for its fledgling printer and ink business.
Apr 10, 2009
Reebok International is looking to flying as the future for the struggling sneaker maker. Two decades after revolutionizing women's fitness with step aerobics, the Canton company has unveiled "Jukari Fit to Fly," a new exercise program that the company is bringing to gyms worldwide. Through a partnership with entertainment company Cirque du Soleil, Reebok is attempting to create more fun in the gym and reclaim its reputation as the women's fitness expert with an hour-long workout that includes a mix of cardio, strength training, balancing, and core training on a contraption known as the FlySet.
Mar 28, 2009
Mars is prepping its first new candy brand since Twix nearly 20 years ago: a low-calorie chocolate bar dubbed "Fling," aimed at women.
Mar 20, 2009
Advertising spots for tampon brands historically have been among the most euphemistic on television, featuring women riding horses along the beach or twirling in fields of flowers, while voice-overs assure that the products will instill “confidence” and “freshness.”
Feb 25, 2009
Sorry, men: Baked Lay’s are no longer meant for you. Frito-Lay, a division of PepsiCo,
is overhauling all of its calorie-conscious snacks to make them appeal
to women, including the baked versions of Lay’s, Fritos, Ruffles,
Doritos, Cheetos and Tostitos; Smartfood; Flat Earth; and its
100-calorie packages of snacks.
It has researched women’s
feelings about snacking and guilt to produce new packaging, new flavors
and a new ad campaign, all in an effort to get women to eat Frito-Lay
snacks.
Davis Thinking
