Futurists Faith Popcorn and her collaborator Lys Marigold say marketers do not understand the power and the inevitability of what they term 'EVE-olution' - that is, the way women think and behave is impacting business, causing a marketing shift away from a hierarchical model toward a relational one. As many food companies 'target' women with new food products with health benefits we summarise how Popcorn and Marigold describe the eight truths of marketing to women which they base on what they see as the 'reality that women and men are as different shop-ologically as they are biologically'
The purpose of Popcorn's and Marigold's book EVEolution is to reveal how to understand, reach, motivate, and sustain the loyalty of the female consumer. They do this through describing their '8 truths' and giving numerous examples of how their company BrainReserve has helped many businesses to get 'EVE-olved'.
The book is of course a sustained advert for Popcorn and her colleagues but it would be a very dim marketer that couldn't pick up a wealth of stimulation for their grey matter if not their bottom line. At the same time Popcorn's and Marigold's central argument is compelling, they write: "EVEolution guarantees success, if you get it right. Or your biological blueprint for disaster if you mess up. EVEolution will change forever the way products and services are developed, marketed, and distributed, period. Beginning (and end) of story."
For those readers who can't be bothered to read their book, the authors conveniently summarize the Eight Truths of EVEolution in a single sentence. It is: "A customer of the moment is the one who buys your brand; a customer for life is the one who joins it." It would be a great pity if you didn't read on and see what they mean by this.
It is often speculated, not least in male circles, what it takes to please a woman, even Hollywood has got in on the act with a recent film titled "What Women Want" which by some strange act of casting put Mel Gibson in the lead (male) role!
For brands it is a lot more obvious. Women want a brand to extend into their lives in as many ways a possible. They want a brand to speak to their heads and their hearts. To understand them. To recognize their needs, values, standards, and dreams.
Why is understanding EVEolution important?
The answer is simple, women make buying decisions involving billions of dollars. Women buy or influence the purchase of 80% of all consumer goods. This includes 51% of consumer electronics and 75% of over-the-counter drugs. Women also influence 80% of all healthcare decisions.
The Eight Truths of EVEolution:
1. Connecting Your Female Consumers to Each Other Connects Them to Your Brand
By this Popcorn and Marigold mean 'think link'. They say anyone in the business of marketing to women means they must rethink what women want from brands. Brands must be differentiated not in the way you bring the components together, but in the way you bring women together
2. If You're Marketing to One of Her Lives, You're Missing All the Others
This is important because women lead multi-lives, and a marketer, concentrating on only one of them, will miss out on all the others. The answer is to help women integrate their lives seamlessly.
3. If She Has to Ask, It's Too Late
The premise behind this 'truth' is simple: If women have to go out of their way to track you down... if you make them jump through hoops to get service... if your attitude is take-it-orleaveit... well they'll leave it - and take their billions of dollars elsewhere. The authors state that it's easier to keep her than to win her back.
4. Market to Her Peripheral Vision, and She Will See You in a Whole New Light
In a nutshell Popcorn and Marigold are saying understand how to be subtle. They say that women don't bond with brands that market to them in an overly aggressive way.
But women, they warn, do not respond to the too-obvious subtlety of 'I've listened and made my logo smaller than our old, all-caps logo'. As they write: "try as you might, you can't browbeat a woman into buying something she either doesn't want or doesn't need."
5. Walk, Run, Go to Her, Secure Her Loyalty Forever
Most marketers, Popcorn and Marigold say, continue to operate under the Field of Dreams slogan: If I build it, they will come. And until now women have come - because they had no choice. EVEolution, they say, is changing all that. The notion that women consumers are magnetically drawn to your products is over. The idea that women consumers need you product more than you need them is Neanderthal thinking.
6. This Generation of Women Consumers Will Lead to the Next
Carl Jung described the mother-child relationship as 'certainly the deepest and most profound one we know'. This is the basis of the Sixth Truth - this close connection creates a pass-along dynamic between mothers and their children. Childhood, college, first apartment, career, early years of marriage, parenthood, second career, retirement. The key is to look along branches of a woman's family tree for marketing opportunities. As Popcorn says: "But for reasons that escape me, few marketers seem to be aware of how vital this dynamic is to their brands and their business".
7. Co-Parenting Is the Best Way to Raise a Brand
This Truth taps into a woman's 'parenting' make-up. By this Popcorn and Marigold suggest that women would want to join a brand that they themselves help bring into the world. Popcorn says: "I believe that marketers must invite their female consumers into the delivery room to be a co-parent at the birth of the brand. And then encourage these female consumers to stay around and help raise the brand to a healthy maturity."
8. Everything Matters - You Can't Hide Behind Your Logo
When it comes to marketing to women, the authors write, there's nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. They say your new EVEolutionary goal should be a reputation built and maintained over the long term for honesty, integrity, ethical behavior, community give-back, and a maniacal attention to detail.
EVE-OLUTION AS A BENCHMARK
Popcorn says there is one motto she'd like to see on every desk in every corporate office. This is EVEolution, EVEryday. She says: "EVEolution should be the benchmark that every business decision is judged in light of. Considered against. Viewed in the context of."
With so many food and health related products coming onto the market including many high profile product launch's such as those described in this issue of New Nutrition Business, it is an interesting mental exercise to see which are truly EVEolved!
Source: Faith Popcorn and Lys Marigold (2000) EVEolution: the 8 truths of marketing to women, London: HarperCollinsBusiness