The feminist agenda has been with us for over 30 years and we might have thought the subject was well and truly closed. Yet, two issues are regularly confused: equality under the law vs equality (in the sense of 'sameness') of behaviour, motive, psychological make-up.
As with many social changes, opinions swing wildly from one extreme to the other. Generations ago we were told that women were physically, intellectually and psychologically completely different from men. Later, feminists rebelled, telling us that women and men are the same: women can do anything men can do, and vice versa – differences are conditioned by society.
Neither of these extremes is very helpful to marketers and communicators whose job it is to sort out when differences between the sexes matter and when they don't. And it turns out that we are still looking at the subject very crudely and simplistically.
Six years of research into the behavioural differences between the way men and women communicate, shop and make decisions have convinced me that differential approaches to men and women in the workplace and marketplace can reap very considerable increases in satisfaction, engagement and sales conversion levels. Indeed, the research outlined in the New Scientist (see box) proposes a startling new reality: 'Male and female brains are built from markedly different genetic blueprints … There is not just one kind of human brain, but two.'
A BRAIN LESS UNDERSTOOD
Over the last few years PET and MRI scans, laboratory testing, paediatric observations and chemical/hormonal analyses have confirmed that differences in behaviour between the sexes are driven by innate, anatomical variations. In short, our brains differ in structure and the way they operate: men and women are hardwired in different ways.
The science is still in its infancy and no doubt we have only scratched the surface but it has already started to make sense of things that women knew intuitively but couldn't use to precipitate change in the absence of scientific proof. However, a few small changes in approach when marketing and selling to men and women are showing disproportionate results.
Of course there is a spectrum of male and female behaviour, i.e. some men demonstrate more female traits than other men, and similarly some women demonstrate more masculine traits than others. However, the median points for all men and all women are significantly far apart on the scale. Conversely, some countries demonstrate more feminine-dominated cultures and others are more masculine. This is important to know when applying differential approaches to global brands.
Competitive advantage is the prize for companies that acknowledge that they are not marketing and communicating to people but to men and to women.
What is surprising to me is how little fundamental change has occurred in most companies. A cursory nod is no longer appropriate by a profession that claims to satisfy customer needs and wants. Two things now necessitate a change in approach by our professional community.
First, the growing economic influence of women on the marketplace is well documented. The availability of the contraceptive pill over 40 years ago allowed women to plan both a family and a career, rather than have to choose one over the other; today more women than men are university-educated and have millionaire status by the age of 44. By 2020, 53% of UK millionaires will be women.
Second, gender science has, advanced beyond the chic-lit, coffee-book realm of Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, providing proof that the genders act and respond differently because of innate neurological, chemical and social differences. We behave differently in both the workplace and the marketplace, so internal and external communications need to be recalibrated.
This is about doing things differently not about bolting on campaigns for women. It isn't about increasing budgets but building gender intelligence into the customer experience. In the same way as the internet is now fully integrated into marketing strategy and measurement systems, so too should gender intelligence be an integral part.
Let's take a look at a few simple changes that can make an immediate difference.
Metrics
How many companies divide their customer satisfaction scores by gender?
Such an exercise can unearth interesting insights. Different questions should be considered as men and women have varying expectations and requirements. Many companies benchmark only within their own sector, even though the whole industry is described by women as 'men marketing to men'. The gender intelligent company can become the brand that most engages with women by raising the bar. Women compare across all their buying experiences, not just within sectors.
We can all guess which industries are most cited by women for providing a poor customer journey. I have worked with many and can attest to the insular benchmarking and unbalanced gender split of decision-making teams both inside the industries and companies as well as inside their marketing and advisory agencies. When the insides of companies do not reflect the outside and gender intelligence is not taught, it is little wonder that customers are not satisfied and senior female executives remain thin on the ground. As many as 86% of women hate the car-buying experience. I challenge you to find more than a handful of female executive directors in the industry to ask why.
Creative
How many creative directors in the top-tier advertising agencies are women?
According to the IPA, the ratio of male to female creative directors is 80:20 – and at the last count 19 of the top 20 creative directors were men. Yet if a male and female creative are given the same brief, blind market tests reveal that women usually prefer the work of the female while men prefer the output of the male creative. Given that women influence 80% of consumer purchase decisions, this creative ratio can't be optimal for clients.
Messages
Is uniform messaging effective?
Not usually. Seemingly, while men like to pimp up the outside of a car, women would prefer to pimp up the inside, yet promotions and information focus on exterior design and performance. Product attributes are of more interest to men than women, which explains the relatively small number of women that purchase Stuff magazine or What Car? The 'drive of your life', 'the ultimate driving machine' and the 'car in front' appeal to the male competitive streak. She wants to know what it does for 'brand me' and how it will enhance her life.
Channels
How many companies vary the marketing mix for men and women?
Word of mouth and lifestyle PR influence women more than other channels. Women are more receptive to advertorial and have different ways of creating memory so respond better to different media and contact strategies than those that work best for men. Media planners should be aware of the differences.
People
How many companies teach their frontline staff how to sell or communicate differently to male and female prospects or customers?
Some 75% of women feel ignored, patronised or offended by salespeople when buying electrical goods. Linear scripts do not work as women are not linear thinkers.
To optimise the customer experience, frontline staff need to have product knowledge, general customer service training and to understand gender-differentiated approaches. I teach differential sales approaches to call centres and customer facing teams. Within one week sales conversions to women typically increase by 40% and by 10% to men. Customer satisfaction levels also tend to increase. Women are more sensitive to the human interface of a product or brand.
Buying Environment – Retail
How many companies audit their retail facilities to appeal to women?
Men buy. Women shop. We girls take longer to buy, and we visit more stores and sites. A woman's sensory receptiveness is higher than her male counterparts on all five counts. So we are more sensitive to the shopping environment. Again this is not about painting it pink but raising the bar. Retail audits reveal that very low-cost changes make a big difference (lids on waste-paper bins, paint colour, waiting facilities). Women like shopping with Apple, Ocado, John Lewis, Selfridges and independent boutiques. They don't like buying cars, electronics or financial services (there are also products that men don't like buying too, but that's the subject of another article).
A few traditionally masculine industries are waking up to their female customers. With three in four women claiming to make all major domestic DIY decisions, B&Q recently embarked on a major programme to improve its appeal.
The warehouse feel has been axed in its interior design and furnishing departments in favour of lifestyle displays and in-store merchandising.
Online
As well as shopping differently on the high street women also shop differently online: with different entry points, search words, design and navigational preferences, dwell time and conversion behaviour. (It's one thing getting lots of people to your site but if they don't do anything when they get there then you have effectively filled your shop with non-buyers.)
Internal
How many companies train staff to recognise and adapt to different authentic work styles?
Catalyst (a research company in the US) proved that Fortune 500 companies with higher numbers of women on their boards have a higher ROCE (return on capital employed) than their competitors. At XandY we teach gender intelligence and how to optimise mixed team dynamics. That is the only way to foster gender-neutral cultures, and to attract and retain more women at every level of an organisation.
Coaching and mentoring women to behave more like men may help one woman but will never create a workplace environment that makes promotion and opportunity equal for both sexes. Men and women join the workplace with different but equally effective natural working styles.
If marketing is, put crudely, about influencing the way people choose and behave, and if we believe that men and women have natural behavioural differences then shouldn't marketing and gender science be joined at the hip? Not just at the tactical level of pink products, more female salespersons, flowery creative but at the strategic level.
The biggest change of the last 50 years is not the media explosion or the internet but the huge rise in female influence on the marketplace and the final verification by scientists that the sexes do have predictive behavioural differences. There is a big difference between reaching an audience and connecting with them.
With the high street in meltdown and any certainty of economic growth fading from sight, this is the time for organisations to re-evaluate all customer touchpoints to improve engagement with all customers. A cursory nod to the differences in the sexes is no longer an appropriate response by a profession that aims to 'anticipate and satisfy customer needs profitably'.
WHAT RATS TELL US ABOUT MEN AND WOMEN
Despite the volume of information on the treatment and portrayal of women, a cover story last summer in the New Scientist made me sit up and take notice. Entitled 'Brains apart, two sexes divided by grey matter', it explained how most pharmaceutical products have only ever been tested on male rats. This is because the varying hormonal cycles of female rats would preclude constant and controlled experimental conditions.
However, recent tests of certain drugs on female rats have shown very different responses and pain thresholds. The report therefore concludes, that a whole body of scientific research is based on shaky foundations and implies that all drugs may need to be reconstituted so that they can be applied differently to men and women.
Granted, a story about rats may appear a bit random in a marketing magazine. However, there is a parallel thought for business. Recent developments in gender science and gender intelligence are beginning to allow predictive behavioural differences between the sexes, which have significant implications for business practices and processes that have a human dimension at their core, i.e. marketing, PR, HR and sales.
'Women are the most common pain sufferers, yet our model for pain research is the male rat' (Dr. Mogil, McGill University, Montréal).
This dramatic oversight in the pharmaceutical industry finds echoing parallels in contemporary marketing. Despite women being the most influential buyers, best practice was developed in the days when men were the main influencers at both the supply and demand end of the market. Women are now prominent in the workplace and marketplace. The theory needs to be recalibrated.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Collette Dunkley is Chief Executive Officer of XandY Communications.