Marketing Mojo With Stephanie Fierman

I don’t really understand it. One way or the other, I often write about women who are smart, accomplished and savvy. I don’t consider this to be any big deal: some women are all these things and some aren’t. Just like men. So why do companies still talk down to women in weird ways that they use with men?

There’s an article in Friday’s Wall Street Journal highlighting the efforts of UK beer makers to attract women. To me, this is a fairly basic marketing exercise: Determine the needs of your target. Build product, messaging and pricing to suit. Sell into channel.  The (grossly generalized) End.  But too often, it doesn’t seen to work that way.

Coors UK says that its mission is to “create a world where women love beer as much as they love shoes.” That should make a marketer cringe. How does Coors know that all women love shoes (they don’t)? And even if they did, what is it about the buying criteria women apply to a fashion purchase (that can be expensive and is seen by the world day in and day out on her feet) that beer makers think they can really learn from here? And do you only want (‘airhead’ is the subtle implication) women who can’t live without… heels? How about wanting to create a world where women love beer as much as they love exchange-traded funds? Or as much as they love criminal law? Climbing teelphone polls? Hmmm. Not sexy.

Later in the article, a bartender in London says that few women have tried Guinness Red (a line extension intended to appeal to the gals) because of its low awareness, and that it would help if “advertising could help explain that it’s (Red) like a watered-down Guinness.”

No no, please don’t go to the bother of making a product for little ol’ me – just give me a man’s product weakened and drained of whatever made it special in the first place. And ask your salesman to describe it to me that way. I’ll be fine.

Peroni seems to be on to something, given that 30% of its drinkers are women – over 2x the industry average. The beer’s upcoming campaign ties the product to Italian culture, a near-universally appealing concept of leisure and enjoyment.

News flash: women are not tiny men. We do however have and spend tons of money.  What if we stopped thinking of making our power tools pink in order to sell them to the babes?
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I’m feeling a bit huffy about Advertising Age these days.

First it was the story on ad agencies that have their own bars and – woo-hoo! – staffers who drink on the job. Now, I know that this is all just good bonding fun: 99.99% of folks aren’t getting drunk on the job. I just thought the piece was a little insensitive (and not too reader-friendly) given that the rest of the issue was focused on layoffs, ad cutbacks and clients bleeding to death.

Now comes what I would call the “Call Me Irresponsible” issue (August 4, 2008).

1. A sidebar about the TV show Mad Men discusses the big sales of Frank O’Hara poetry after Don Draper reads O’Hara’s poetry on the show. The article’s title: “TV Can Boost Book Sales, Too.” Didn’t Oprah prove that… years ago? And, like, over and over? Hmmm.

2. On a Law & Order episode I saw last weekend, a witness testifies that violent television programming makes juvenile delinquents delinquent. Sam Waterston then proceeds to eat said witness for lunch by quizzing the guy about the difference between “cause” and “correlation.” Now comes the inadvertently humorous, self-involved AdAge article, “Ad Cutbacks Backfired For Bankruptcy Victims.” [Even though your product is lousy, and you expanded too fast, and your customer base dried up... you'd have been fine if you'd only kept advertising!]  The article does admit that perhaps there are other factors that make companies go belly up, but when push comes to shove…  See Wikipedia on this topic.  

3. Finally, an article titled “How The Economy Is – And Isn’t – Affecting Our Lives” tries to take a sort of tongue-in-cheek view on how the recession is changing consumer behavior. We’re buying (cheap) coffee at McDonald’s instead of Starbucks. We’re “ordering from the dollar menu” instead of choosing Big Macs.” We’re “knitting ponchos” instead of “buying back-to-school clothes.” OK.  Not brilliant, not offering me any insights for my subscription dollar, but fine. Then I got to a claim regarding our reading habits: We are “reading Stephanie Meyer,” but not “reading Maureen Dowd.” The writer’s evidence for the latter is The New York Times’ declining profitability. 

Oh… Trying.  To.  Move.  On.  Can’t…  Drat.

(a) Nearly every newspaper is losing money at this point because offline readership is declining, (b) Maureen Dowd has written two books that have done pretty well, and (c) Dowd’s columns are quite popular online where – unlike the paper – they can be read for free. So what the heck does the Times‘ profitability, in this particular case, have to do with Maureen Dowd? Nothing.  The article does, however, include a picture of Maureen Dowd, so maybe they just thought that that would attract attention. And while I’m on a roll, the author’s supporting evidence for the idea that we’re knitting ponchos is Martha Stewart Living’s increase in 2Q08 sales while consumers are cutting back on back-to-school clothes.  Help me.

If AdAge was known and purchased for its satire, this wouldn’t annoy me. And you may conclude that I’m making a big hoo-ha over nothing.  But you know what? I really look forward to getting something out of AdAge every week.  I give Crain Communications my time and my money, and this stuff isn’t worth either.  It’s just dumb.  A revered trade journal owes its readers more.
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