Contrary to what most advertisers and marketers still tend to focus on, all women are NOT moms. A couple of years ago, Melanie Notkin, founder of SavvyAuntie.com published the book, “Otherhood: Modern Women Finding a New Kind of Happiness.” In it she reveals her own story as well as the honest, poignant, humorous, and occasionally heartbreaking stories of women in her generation—women who expected love, marriage, and parenthood, but instead found themselves facing a different reality. She addresses the reasons for this shift, the social and emotional impact it has on our collective culture, and how the “new normal” will affect our society in

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Filed under: Buying Power of Women, Marketing to Non-Moms, Marketing to Women, Marketing-to-Moms, Sheconomy | No Comments »

I am extremely humbled to be one of 27 women listed in The European Business Review’s first female leaders supplement, titled Female Leadership in Our Time.  If you are a female seeking inspiration in the business world, this is a must read. If you are a male marketer trying to better understand what drives women, this is a must read. With 15 countries represented (Switzerland, Kenya, United Kingdom, Nigeria, Italy, Germany, Lebanon, Turkey, South Africa, United States, India, Vietnam, Indonesia, Ghana and Malaysia) as well as a wide range of industries (Art, Finance, Technology, Fashion, Science, Corporate Education, Marketing, Public Relations, Human Resources, Economic Development, Performing

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Filed under: Blogging, Buying Power of Women, Female Business Owners, Marketing to Women, Targeting Women | No Comments »

MILLENNIAL WOMEN ACCOUNTED FOR $80 BILLION IN NEW CAR SALES LAST YEAR! Of the 17.5 million new cars sold in the U.S. in 2015, millennials made up 27-percent, of which 53-percent (2.5 million) were women. Considering the average new car price of $33,000 in 2015, this translates to millennial women being responsible for approximately $80 billion in new car sales. So, how much do you know about “her” when it comes to buying a car? It’s not enough to simply understand women as a whole. To effectively reach the millennial female during the car buying process, you must be sensitive to how she differs from non-millennial females. A recent study conducted by Women-Drivers.com sheds light

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Filed under: Buying Power of Women, Connecting with Women, Marketing to Millennial Women, Marketing to Single Women, Marketing to Women | No Comments »

According to the The 2013 State of Women-Owned Businesses Report conducted by American Express OPEN, the only bright spot in recent years with respect to privately held company job growth has been among women-owned firms. They have added an estimated 175,000 jobs to the U.S. economy since 2007. Between 1997 and 2013, when the number of businesses in the United States increased by 41%, the number of women-owned firms increased by 59%—a rate 1½ times the national average. Tory Burch, founder of the Tory Burch Foundation (TBF) which supports the economic empowerment of women entrepreneurs, provides a bit of insight as to why in this excerpt from

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Filed under: Buying Power of Women, Female Business Owners, Marketing to Women, Women and the Internet | No Comments »

  GUYS, if you are considering a popular (albeit somewhat over-used) empowerment message for women in your next marketing campaign, please take note: Women do not aspire to be a man, act like a man or think like a man, but merely to be respected as a human.  Bic found this out after posting the above ad to their Facebook page on National Women’s Day in South Africa. In response to the immediate backlash from hundreds on social media, the ad was quickly removed along with all of the irate comments and replaced with an apology. Or rather, their “first” attempt at an apology: We would like

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Filed under: Buying Power of Women, Examples of Bad/Good Advertising, Marketing to Single Women, Marketing to Women, Marketing to Women Myths, Targeting Women | No Comments »

There is no denying that women are rapidly becoming a force to be reckoned with if you are in the business of selling cars. Just a few of the reasons could be that women now hold more driver’s licenses than men – 105 million women, compared with 104 million men. They influence 80% of U.S. car purchases and they control more than $13 trillion in personal wealth today. Women buy 65 percent of all new tires, make 65 percent of new car purchases and 45 percent of light trucks and SUV purchases. Yet, currently, the percentage of female employees in the auto industry remains stagnant at

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Filed under: Buying Power of Women, Connecting with Women, Female Business Owners, Marketing to Boomer Women, Marketing to Single Women, Marketing to Women, Women and Customer Service | No Comments »

While it seems that social media happened overnight, the technology has actually been evolving over the past three decades as you can see in the Infographic from Simplify360 below. Even, Six Degrees, considered the first modern social network, was launched as early as 1997 allowing users to create profiles and become friends with other users. Yet, although it attracted as many as 3.5 million members at one point, Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon appears to have had much longer staying power. Perhaps just a bit before it’s time, Six Degrees shut down in 2001, just three years before “The Facebook” launched. But for

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Filed under: Buying Power of Women, Connecting with Women, Marketing 2.0, Marketing to Women, Social Media, Women and social media, Women and the Internet | No Comments »

All moms are not the same anymore than all women are the same. Yet, marketers not only continue to lump them all together as one segment, they tend to forget that moms are still women and have needs in addition to being a mom. Nicola Kemp puts it best in an article she authored in Marketing Magazine appropriately titled, “Marketing to Mums is Broken”, “In brands’ persistent, misguided belief that they can market to mothers as a homogeneous group, their characterization of women ranges from the idealized to the absurd.” The article also reveals the disappointing findings shown below from research conducted by

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Filed under: Buying Power of Women, Connecting with Women, Marketing to Women, Marketing to Women Myths, Marketing-to-Moms | No Comments »

In June of this year, Cannes Lions will introduce a new Lion – the Glass Lion: The Lion for Change – which honors work that challenges gender bias and shatters stereotypical images of men and women which remain rooted in marketing messages. A jury headed by Cindy Gallop, Founder and CEO of IfWeRanTheWorld / MakeLoveNotPorn, will assess work entered into the new category. Gallop stated, “I couldn’t be more thrilled about the introduction of the Glass Lion, which demonstrates Cannes Lions’ commitment to ensuring that both our industry and the work we create not only more accurately reflects the world around us,

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Filed under: Blogging, Buying Power of Women, Connecting with Women, Marketing to Women, Targeting Women, Women and social media, Women and the Internet | 1 Comment »

tsu·na·mi – (t)so͞oˈnämē/ –  a series of ocean waves generated by  displacements in the sea floor, landslides, or volcanic activity.  A tsunami wave may come gently ashore or may increase in height to become a fast moving wall of turbulent water several meters high. Not meaning to sound overly dramatic here, but a tsunami is the visual that came to my mind as I read Pamela Ryckman’s, book, Stiletto Network. I believe most male decision makers from CEO’s to marketers to owners would benefit from reading this book. Otherwise, they will not even feel the underlying shift now taking place which is

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Filed under: Buying Power of Women, Connecting with Women, Marketing to Women, Targeting Women, Women and social media, Women and the Internet | 1 Comment »