Marketing to women online

How do Belgian women use internet? I've been looking all over the place for recent market figures, but could only find international cases. Which is why I'm conducting a market research for my employer and the first results will be presented during the Relationship Marketing Congress on 7 May in Schilde Schelle.
Register now and bring one colleague for free!

The Net is not just for info geeks with spread sheets

It's not a viral for Roses.com. It's not the prelude to a porn featuring three middle aged housewifes and one long haired dude. And it's not a spoof. To be honest I have no clue what this is, but it made me laugh out loud.

Retail therapy: coming soon to an iPhone near you

iPhone Apps - iBags "delivers 20,000+ handbags from ShopStyle.com right to your iPhone. [...] Waiting around with time to spare? Browse iBags at random to keep up with the latest styles. Need the perfect bag for next season? Search by shape to find the one you love." Mobile App Studio also built an iShoes app.
I don't own an iPhone (I'm a Blackberry girl) but this struck me as very strange. I understand there should be more iPhone apps targeted at women. But buying shoes or hand bags from a catalogue just because you have "time to spare" or need to "keep up with the latest styles"? Sounds a bit... boring.
Found via textually.org.

Sometimes brands and artists get it right

London-based Illustrator James Jarvis and visual artists collective Shynola director Richard Kenworthy created Onwards for Nike. Music is Crayon by Canadian electronic musician Caribou.
Never thought I'd say this, but this video actually made me want to run. Great ad!
Onwards from AKQA on Vimeo.

Say cheese!

The kind people of Milner cheese sent me a huge picnic basket last Tuesday. Why, thank you! I fed the sandwiches and the cheese to my children, kept the wine for a rainy day, and found out about a Milner cheese contest on the accompanying cd. From Monday 27 April on, you can win a picnic basket just like the one in the picture if you enter the Ban the Boring Sandwich recipe contest on Milner.be. Gudrun (witch.be) also got a basket - her unpacking movie will surely make you jealous, hungry, or eager to win one too.

A consumer's journey through time

Dramatic Shift in Marketing Reality by Scholz und Friends: "Companies, marketers and advertising agencies are facing a dramatic shift in marketing realitiy - and are increasingly failing to connect with consumers.
The big challenge in times of exchangeable products, the rise of social media and mature and rather brand sceptic consumers:
To find new ways how to get people engaged again in products, advertising and in brands."

Shop till you drop (dead)

German online secure shop Jungstil released this intended-viral video a couple of days ago. I disliked it on first sight, so I tried to ignore it first. But unfortunately, it is doing the rounds at the moment.
The initial joke is funny, especially if you've ever been to the jungle wars called Summer Sales. But somewhere in the middle they lost me. Oh, and that tank top they're fighting over? So totally not worth it!

The Evolution of a Fosse dance

Imagine YouTube getting a Timeline Feature just like big brother Google does. You might get something like this for the video embedded below:

• Somewhere in the sixties: Gwen Verdon Fosse Original 60
• 13 October 2008 Single Ladies - Beyonce Official Music Video
• 18 November 2008 Beyonce confirmed that Single Ladies video was indeed inspired by Broadway choreographer Bob Fosse
• 18 january 2009 The T-Mobile Dance in Liverpool Station
• 26 March 2009 Op zoek naar Maria - Dans in het Centraal Station van Antwerpen
• 20 April 2009 Beyonce 100 Single Ladies Flash-Dance Piccadilly Circus, London for Trident Unwrapped: "100 Single Ladies stop traffic with Beyonce's famous leggy dance in Piccadilly Circus, to celebrate the announcement by Trident of its free Beyonce gig in November. http://www.tridentunwrapped.co.uk"

Wearable Music

The W in Sony's NWZ-W202 stands for Walkman, with a clear reference to the original 1978 Sony Walkman. But having portable media is not enough: this Sony NWZ-W202 mp3 player is also wearable.
At first you think it's an in-ear cordless headphone, and when you put it in its usb cradle it looks like an industrial heart shape with a glowing blue Sauron eye. But it's an mp3 player, costs about 70 dollars or 80 euros and holds 2 gigabytes of your favourite music or sports routine.
Unpacking and dragging music files from the Mac was a breeze. The hardest part was selecting the right in-ear plug and practising a fluent put-it-on, put-it-off routine. Even though the W202 is light weight and compact, I was very aware of the rubbery behind-the-neck thing that holds it on your head. I'm still not sure if I'm an in-ear or over-ear kind of person. And call me weird, but I had expected the device to double as a Bluetooth headset. But overall it's a really cool, lightweight and reasonably priced mp3 player that will stick to your head no matter what.
Perfect for gym geeks.

All the single ladies

Forrester surveyed 5,187 North American households to benchmark females' attitudes, preferences, and device adoption. Their conclusions? Single women are enthusiastic about technology.
Of course they are. Click on the thumbnail to see which consumer electronic devices the single men have, versus the single ladies. Singles ladies love digital cameras even more than the bachelors do. And they barely trail behind when asked about portable mp3 players (iPod, of course), video game console (women do play video games, not to mention the Wii Fit), handheld video game player (Nintendo DS), etc. CNET mentions that the study also showed that single women prefer laptops, while the men prefer desk top computers. I'm not surprised about that either, and I think that these cute little netbooks will become very popular in this demographic segment (because despite being computers, they will still fit in a handbag). Would like to see more data on this, combined with gender-based differences for mobile phone and smart phone use. Anyone?

Marketing is simple

"Complexity lies at the center of the marketing funnel" was one of the main conclusions of a 2007 Forrester report. Clearly, the marketing funnel is a broken metaphor. This makes marketing complex and marketing managers confused.
In his excellent essay Do what They Love (.pdf), Tom Asacker (@tomasacker) begs to differ: "Marketing isn’t a complex process with complex solutions; it’s simple. Not easy mind you, but simple nonetheless: Help your customers “feel” better than your competitors do, and do it at a profit. The challenge is to continuously innovate and change, and achieve this simple concept over time. Execution is tough, expensive, risky and, at times, painful. It requires the emotional, intellectual, and moral disposition to anticipate, explore and to quickly seize the opportunities that the changing marketplace presents."

Up in a tree, building

Directories all over the world mainly have the same proposition: we help you find things, so you can get things done. And I don't think it's the first time someone has taken a company's motto literally to create a campaign. But. Yellow [pages] New Zealand gave a really nice twist to the idea with their Yellowtreehouse.co.nz. The challenge? To build a restaurant 10 metres up in a tree without a bit of help. Great idea, and an near perfect 360° execution. The campaign was based around the brand's core values. It's a bit of a shame that Tracy's blog was covered in the thick Flash sauce of the site, and that other elements like YouTube weren't used better. The web site videos are not embeddable, which is a real shame. And why not use Twitter to document the progress of the challenge?
And the tree house itself? It's finished and available for hire (and fully booked) as a function venue. Fancy a cocktail party in the trees anyone?
Found via Bhatnaturally and via The Inspiration Room.

Being faceless doesn't work any more

Marketing Blogger and Ogilvy 360 Digital Influence SVP Rohit Bhargava had succesfully launched his book Personality Not Included when he realized that many of the emails he got in response were coming from women working in professional roles and those that had started their own businesses. Se he decided to publish a free e-book about these women: The personality project - Women of Personality (.pdf). Definitely a must-read. But first: Bhargava's definition of personality: "the unique, authentic and talkable soul of your brand that people can get passionate about."

Why You Should Read "Personality Not Included"

View more presentations from rohitbhargava.

These are the women interviewed by Bhargava. Who should be in the next edition? E-mail pnibookgmailcom.

• Stephanie Agresta (@StephAgresta), Consultant & Social Media Expert
• Kare Anderson (@KareAnderson), Journalist & Strategist
• Susan Bratton (@SusanBratton), CEO, Personal Life Media
• Anita Campbell (@smallbiztrends), Editor, Small Business Trends
• Krishna De (@krishnade), Personal Branding Expert
• Zadi Diaz (@Zadi), New Media Producer, Smashface Productions
• Kimberlie Dykeman (@puresoapbox), On-Camera Personality, Motivational Speaker
• Dr. Marsha Firestone (@WomenPresidents), Founder, Women Presidents’ Organization
• Jackie Huba (@jackiehuba), Author
• Karen Kerrigan (@KarenKerrigan), CEO, Small Business Entrepreneurship Council
• Mia Kim (@miakim), Founder, Popgadget.net
• Leah Komaiko, Brand Consultant, Author & Recovering Comedienne
• Yvonne Lembi-Detert, CEO/President, Personality Hotels
• Charlene Li (@charleneli), Author & Founder, Altimeter Group
• Laura Mayes (@lmayes), Co-Founder, Kirtsy.com
• Melanie Notkin (@savvyauntie), Founder, SavvyAuntie.com
• Laura Ries (@lauraries), Branding Guru & Bestselling Author
• Kaira Sturdivant Rouda (@kairarouda), Author, Real You Incorporated
• Roz Savage (@rozsavage), eco-Adventurer, Author & Motivational Speaker
• Marcia Silverman, CEO, Ogilvy Public Relations

The singularity of online friendship

In Social networks that matter: Twitter under the microscope, FirstMonday.org had to use a very weak definition of "friend", i.e., "anyone who a user has directed a post to at least twice." And even if they did, their conclusion was that Twitter users have no real friends. In my older post about Dunbar's number I added a rather strict and personal definition of true friendship, without destinquishing between online and real-life relationships. To me they are the same.
Mike Arauz has just come up with a far more subtle Spectrum of Online Friendship because "online friendship is better described along a spectrum defined by the actions people take and how we feel about them." And he does have a few interesting thoughts on online friendships, for example: "In the digital world, none of these behaviors, even dialogue, requires a reciprocal feeling of friendship on your part. I can be your friend without you being my friend."

Less is more

American writer and journalist Ernest Hemingway once wrote a story in just six words ("For sale: baby shoes, never worn.") and is said to have called it his best work. Six Word Stories is trying to emulate him, but fails. The Hemingway example is just too perfect.
Another interesting example of microfiction are the 50-Word Stories, who perfectly caters to the Generation Next cohort, typically the tech savvy internet generation with the short attention span.
But my favourite is Name Your Tale: "100-Word Stories: You Name Them, We Write Them". Maybe writing 100 word stories is slightly easier than writing 50 word stories. But the way the web site authors are using this concept to demonstrate their writing skills is simply genius.

The Men Minority

According to eMarkter.com's Men Online report, US men are the minority online, but they "are more mobile—avid users of laptops, wireless broadband connections and mobile phones. For men, online shopping behavior is more goal-oriented, much like offline trips to a store. But they [...] do not abandon [these sites] as quickly as women do."
Gender is clearly a factor that affects what people do online. It's far from the only factor, but at the same time it's one that can be fairly easily measured. Personally, I'm very curious about the "mobile-avid" part: does this coincide with the typically male love for gadgets? And does the different shopping behaviour (both online and offline) mean that men are less prone to impulse buys?

Empowered Women

In the recent Forrester Research report Reaching Empowered Women Through Social Media by Emily Riley, empowered women are defined as "females ages 25 to 54 who feel that the Internet helps them manage family life. In order to engage empowered women successfully and pull ahead of the crowd, CPG [= consumer packaged goods] companies must design campaigns that enhance communication and aid in consumers' decision-making and influence."
That makes sense: my feeling is that women online are all about keeping in touch with people they know (contacts/community) and about comparing prices and reading reviews before buying something (commerce).
In her review of the report on Mediapost.com, Gavin O'Malley quotes: "social media is not about sounding cooler than you normally do [...]. It's about making your brand more personal than on other channels."
This does not mean that all the CPG brands should rush into advertising on Facebook or creating Twitter accounts. Embracing social media really means: engaging in two-way conversations, being who you really are instead of trying to be something or someone you are not, and saying "Hello", "Sorry", "You're welcome" and "Thank you" at the right time.
Can they do that, these CPG brands?

The woman who married a Hoover

Found via Brandfreak: Hoover: "Soul Mate". I've embedded it here for your convenience:

I feel the pain of the main character in this tv ad: she clearly has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and none of her friends or family understands. She feels like a freak. But then, one day, she adds another mental disorder: she becomes an objectum-sexual. You know, like the woman who married the Eiffel Tower? The object of her love is a shiny new Hoover. Hold your jokes about sucking power... the girl can't help it. What can be helped, is the abuse of a perfectly good song: At Last, by Etta James.

Trust in Google's hands

If you hear someone talk about the importance of raw page rank and link juice, you know s/he is stuck in 2002. Trust/Authority of Host Domain is the main ingredient of Google's secret sauce these days. At least, that's what I learnt from SEOmoz' Rand Fishkin in his blog post How Google's Rankings Algorithm Has Changed Over Time. In order of importance:

1. Trust/Authority of Host Domain (dominant)
2. Anchor Text in External Links (still powerful)
3. On-Page Keyword Usage (moderate)
4. Raw PageRank Link Juice (low)

I'm not sure how Google weighs trust/authority - the latter used to be practically identical to PageRank until, say, five years ago. But doesn't this trend show that we're moving from technical issues and algorhythms to more human factors? And what does the "trust" factor mean for new websites? Building trust takes time...

That was then. This is wow.

Discovered today: New Math by writer and artist Craig Damrauer and this one was my favourite:

modern art = i could do that + yeah, but you didn't

I more or less forgot about it while looking at this very nicely done infographics/3D webvideo for the Sprint "Now" mobile internet network in the US. Transcript: Welcome to the Now network. Population 49 million. 7 percent of 1 million emails, containing the words, “Miracle Banana Diet”, hitting 63000 spam filters, now. Most popular subject for text messages being sent from business meeting, “Get Diapers”. 233,267 people just twittered on Twitter. Put a smile on my face :-)

And then I went and had a look at the official campaign site: sprint.com/nownetwork.
I wish I could do that. I could have done that. But damn, I didn't. Wow!

UPDATE: Designer Rafael Macho has just posted his designs and sketches for this project.

Recession? Time to downgrade

In a recent Shopping behaviour survey retail strategists Miller Zell found out that during recession, men and women react differently.
Women seem to be more disciplined and have "a higher likelihood to be downgraders, specifically in eating at home, downgrading grocery and department stores, and going from specialty retailers to value mass merchants."
This is why, I think, initiatives like the Great Depression Cooking Youtube Channel are so popular. These are all, of course, American numbers and examples. And readymade food and fast food were far more popular in the US then they were here. But I think home cooking will become increasingly popular in the coming years - with a focus on simple yet delicious dishes.
93 year old Clara Cannucciari just has a dvd out, but here's one of her first cooking lessons. Enjoy!

Harley Davidson woos women

Special Report: Business Week Online: "Harley-Davidson, long a symbol of male pride, in November added a section on its Web site dedicated to women motorcyclists, with tips on how to ride a bike safely with the right gear.
Harley was responding to the growing popularity of motorcycles among women. In 2003, women bought 10%, or 23,000, of all Harleys sold, vs. just 2% in 1985."
Male pride is the least you can say... Don't know if you ever witnessed the "show tits, or burn-out" passage rite during big bike conventions? Anyway: cool content, but a bit weird that they put women drivers apart like that, instead of mixing them with the other biker stories? And why did it take them five years after realising the women bikers were a growing customer segment?

The Lost Tribes of New York City

Urban Anthropologists, Andy and Carolyn London interview some of New York City's more overlooked citizens. The result is a beautiful and inspiring mix of urban life documentary and anthropomorphic animation.

The Lost Tribes of New York City from Carolyn London on Vimeo.

James Bond boulevard of broken hearts

In Bed With Bond: "Xenia Onatopp is one of the wildest women in cinema. Her sexual pleasure at seeing and delivering death and destruction is awesome. She and Bond flirt many times, and Xenia tries hard to squash him to death, but Bond never sleeps with her."
Poor James. Whether they're victims rescued by him, fellow agents or allies, villainesses, the villain's accomplices, or mere eye candy: James Bond always seems to lose them somehow in the end.
I'm not sure if Xenia Onatopp, one in a series of the Bond girls with pathetic double entendre names, should be named one of the wildest women in cinema. If we need to limit to Bond Girls, that would definitely go to Honey Ryder, because of the quintessential bikini scene. Or, for the sociology geeks among us: vagina dentata (Xenia's deadly/morbid lust) vs singing mermaid (Honey's enchanting beauty). The mermaid wins.

Pepsi to the Max

Yesterday, during the Twapero drink, one of the AdNerds took me behind the scenes of the Pepsi Max Campaign site.
Contrary to what I thought, the Pepsi Max game is not an example of state of the art interactive video application. Those are real claw machines, each of them connected to the internet (and twittering!). Each bear has an RFID chip so the winners get immediate feedback about what they won. To prove to my Twitter followers that the claw machines were real, I did a little cameo on the webcam of claw machine number six.