Marketing to Women Means Marketing to Men Too - Building Gender Balanced Business

By Avivah Wittenberg-Cox

In a gender workshop for a big consumer goods company this week, I was having a familiar discussion with a manager. Why, I was asking, does all the advertising (and consumer research) for their baby products focus on women and babies? Most babies I’ve ever met have two parents, not just one mother.

Well, he responded, as I had just proven to them, women make all the purchasing decisions. So they are simply targeting their market. Their research even showed that if men did the shopping, they went out “with a list from which they did not deviate.”

This reminded me of an earlier discussion I’d had with someone from a white goods company (washing machines and such). He’d told me proudly that he loved his job because he felt that every day he was contributing to the liberation of women.

I have the same reaction to both of these very well-meaning attitudes. Get with the times! Can these managers even fathom how dated their perceptions of roles may seem to the average 21st century woman (and her partner)? And how much more effectively they could sell to women (and a new generation of men) if they understood them better?