Why She Buys (26 page)
Authors: Bridget Brennan
This insight mirrors the reality of men’s and women’s conversations. Women don’t talk to each other about the technical specs of their purchases, but men do. It’s not that women aren’t
ever
interested in the technical details; it’s just that they consider them far less interesting than the practical attributes. When it comes to women, it’s important for your brand to have a good elevator pitch.
Women respond to messages about improving; men respond to messages about winning
Women consider themselves a work in progress. They’re often engaged in an ongoing quest to improve themselves, their health, their surroundings, and the lives of their families.
Marketing messages that acknowledge that women’s sense of achievement is something internal, and often tied to reaching their personal best, however they define it, are a great way to create gender appeal. Gold’s Gym is running a campaign that breaks the mold of the health club industry’s decades-long propensity to create campaigns that feature nothing but perfect bodies in spandex. The Gold’s campaign is based on the theme “Know Your Own Strength,” and it carries the message that strength is more than just a perfect body—it’s both internal and external. One campaign shows a close-up of a woman’s legs climbing on a StairMaster as words appear on the staircase, one after the other:
1st floor
2nd floor
12th floor
Penthouse
Empire State
Kilimanjaro
Everest
Olympus
The corporate ladder
The ad finishes with “Know your own strength.”
This ad and others in the Gold’s campaign communicate the message that a perfect body isn’t the only goal of working out—it’s also to feel strong physically and emotionally, so that you can meet the daily challenges of your life. It’s a positive and unexpected message from a health club company that has a history of catering to the barbell set, and it has high gender appeal for women.
Women respond to personal stories and examples; men respond to factual information
Women’s conversations are full of stories about the people in their lives. When men speak to each other, they tend to talk about things such as business, sports, world events, gadgets, politics, and cars. This is because if a man gets too personal, he may inadvertently expose a weakness or vulnerability. Socially speaking, it’s more acceptable for men to deal in facts than in feelings. The reverse is true for women.
As in MasterCard’s “Priceless” campaign, details about
people
are what make a conversation interesting to women. That’s why they buy all those celebrity magazines with photo spreads that exclaim, “Look at Jennifer Aniston pumping gas … she’s just like us!” For men, however, details about
things
are what make something interesting. Heated conversations about sports team statistics are just one example. Naturally, this has implications for marketing.
It’s easy to notice the differences in your personal life. A few weeks ago, I was sitting in an airplane next to my husband, Erik, in the middle of a flight to New York. He was reading a magazine, and without looking up from it, he casually dropped a bomb. He told me his boss, Daniel, had gotten engaged the previous weekend.
This was huge news. We’d all been wondering when Daniel would pop the question to his girlfriend. My first thought was,
Erik waited to tell me this news flash until we were in midflight? It took us an hour to get to the airport in traffic, and he didn’t think to mention it during all that time?
I put down what I was reading and in a burst of enthusiasm looked straight at him and asked, “Well, what did he say?”
In a deadpan voice, and still looking at his magazine, Erik replied, “He said they got engaged.” Pause. “What more is there to say?”
Was he kidding? There was plenty more to say. He was going to have to give me more information than this. I wanted to know where it happened, how Daniel did it, what he said, what she said, and if either of them cried. Astonishingly, Erik had no information about any of this. Nothing. Nada. Zip. I accused him of withholding information from me, but he said that it never occurred to him ask any of these questions. After a moment of frustrating silence (my frustration, not his), we just stared at each other in mutual incomprehension. Here’s why:
Men talk to communicate information. Women talk to connect.
8
Remember when all those “up close and personal” segments started running during the Olympics? They were originally created by the ABC network to generate American interest in foreign athletes. It turns out that not only did these vignettes work, they were extremely attractive to women viewers, who were as interested in the backstage human dramas of the athletes as in the contests themselves. Women wanted to know who these people were and what motivated them to get up at the crack of dawn every morning for twenty years just to practice. They wanted the emotional
connection to the athlete. For women, it’s the people side of life that’s the most interesting.
The next time you’re at the beginning stages of creating a marketing strategy designed to appeal to women, consider this checklist of tactical marketing techniques that have proven female appeal:
Storytelling