gender

A couple of weeks back I contributed to an article being written by Anna Hart for Stella magazine that is part of the Sunday Telegraph.

The questions that she sent me were unusual in that they were very thoughtful. I am not trying to be nasty to journalists but often the questions are predictable and have been covered endless times before.

Want to make your prices seem lower without actually changing them? I’ve got a research-based technique that will do exactly that, with one small catch: your prices will only look lower to your male customers.

A recent Harvard Business Review blog post titled Why the Financial Services Industry Is Showing More Women in Its Ads contained the following:

Earlier this year, I was interviewed about what women want from digital technology. (Thanks to Robin Raskin, Maria Bailey, and the team at MommyTech TV for the interview!) I’ve studied the topic ever since my years heading up brand and strategy at Sony Electronics. 

This is big news for guys. For years, I’ve gently mocked my half of the species for being far-too-easily influenced by female images. Babes in bikinis alter male behavior, but it doesn’t always take that much. Simply including a photo of an attractive woman in a loan offer was enough to boost the response rate as much as a 4% lower interest rate (see A Pretty Woman Beats a Good Loan Deal). 

If you were at my SXSW panel, How Brain Science Turns Browsers into Buyers, you already saw the latest proof that sexy imagery can boost sales. Ion Interactive, a firm specializing in online conversion, ran a test for online game-maker Kabam to improve signup rates for a vampire game, Thirst of Night. Take a look at the three images tested:

If the consumer economy had a sex, it would be female. If the business world had a sex, it would be male. Therein lies the pickle.

So starts an article in the McKinsey what matters publication. I guess that says it all.

With the fashion industry emerging as one of the driving forces of innovation within the Internet world, it could have an important impact on the number of women who explore technology-related careers. The rapid adoption of Tumblr as a micro-blogging platform, the rise to prominence of mobile photo-sharing networks like Instagram and the continuing popularity of “flash sales” websites like Gilt Groupe can all be attributed to early female adopters within the fashion industry.

Today we get to hear from Marti Barletta, the foremost authority on marketing to women. Marti is the author of the groundbreaking books, Marketing to Women: How to Increase Your Share of the World’s Largest Market, and more recently, PrimeTime Women™: How to Win the Hearts, Minds, and Business of Boomer Big Spenders.

Last week I returned to Dublin to talk at the Business of Ageing Conference. More details about the conference in future posts.