The separate trends I see now combining to cause that shift include:

1) A new perspective on gender, and how it influences consumer behavior.

2) The evolution of business practices from shareholder-centered/traditional/linear to more stakeholder-centered/socially responsible/holistic.

3) Personal values being more integrated between our consumer and professional perspectives.

***

Today’s consumers are forcing these issues and in the process building bridges from old, “spindly,” ineffective ways of doing business to new, customer-centric, steel-girded ways of serving consumers.  Below are the opportunities for marketers therein:

The bridging opportunity in trend #1: More and more men are allowing for their perhaps more “feminine” sensibilities to influence their purchases.  In the meantime, many a brand’s marketing to women efforts – which should now be appealing to the highest consumer standard – are instead stuck in the old days, creating a bit of a pink ghetto.  The now cliched “for women” ways are for the most part unnecessary and may well turn off the men who are buying a broader array of products than ever before. The new approach- and the one that savvy brands need to take – is to treat the “feminine sensibilities” as your marker.  Be guided and inspired by what women expect, and you’ll serve everyone with more relevance. No gender about it.

The bridging opportunity in trend #2: As of fall 2008, it became official – the sole corporate pursuit of profits with responsibility only to shareholders backfired. It’s simply not sustainable to think and do business in such an old, linear way.  Businesses that have traditionally measured success on those terms  are being called to task by consumers.  Today stakeholders (not solely shareholders), in their many shapes, sizes and levels of interaction with a company are key to long term growth.  A company’s decisions must serve that entire “membership” of people to be strong. By bridging to the new stakeholder framework, profits are but one part of a triple business bottom line that includes people and planet.

The bridging opportunity for trend #3: The old way of doing business has often meant that humans dropped their personal values at the office door each morning.  But, today’s values-based buyer has changed all that.  He or she can see under the radar and behind that door.  Consumers are driving businesses to more socially responsible practices that cross the bridge to a new place: where as consumers and employees, human beings can live and work in tune with their personal values.

Though these trends were gaining momentum individually before, if slowly, perhaps it took the economic downturn of Fall 2008 for businesses for them to combine. Companies were forced to look inward and realize those bridges needed serious tending.  I believe consumers have been anxiously waiting to walk over them.

Note: If corporate social responsibility is on your radar, I am posting some great links on that topic via twitter these days, so feel free to follow me: @AndreaLearned

Here’s what that convert, Ray C. Anderson, Founder and Chairman of Interface (and well-known sustainability proponent) writes of male/female, left/right brain thinking in the afterword to his book, Mid-course Correction (in which he tells his story of moving himself and his business toward more sustainable practices):

“In our male-dominant society, men have risen to the top of the corporate ladder in disproportionate numbers; so business is dominated by analytical, objective, numbers-oriented, factual, results-driven thinking.  And too many of our corporate leaders do not know what they are missing.”

To Anderson, this right-brain blindness is akin to color-blindness. (To repeat: you don’t know what you are missing!) And, core to starting to see your own path toward sustainability is realizing that linear thinking will no longer cut it.  You’ve got to switch your brain and your business to a more right-brain oriented, cyclical process – because it is much closer to “nature’s way.”

Here’s how I see this all connecting in terms of marketing to women in this movement toward sustainable options:

1) In order to reach women, you have to learn to think like they do – so open up and engage with your feminine sensibilities (we’ve ALL got them).

2) In order to convert a business from traditional processes to more sustainable processes, you have to get in tune with “mother nature,” so again tapping your feminine sensibilities is key.

3) Finally, in order to serve the women who I believe studies will start to show are the biggest influencers in this trend toward sustainable living,* you have to dish up products made sustainably.  Without tapping feminine sensibilities in yourself and looking at your ways of doing business through that lens as well – you will fail.

Just this week, several examples of sudden (it seems) awareness by traditional industries  of the need for masculine-feminine sensibilities balance in leadership have arisen, and they include:

• Nonprofits have become a type of pink ghetto, where lots of women work and where the whole enterprise is considered “female,” and so, subservient to any for- profit/masculine enterprise.  To paraphrase the author of the Daily Beast article on the topic: for-profits are manly and make money.  Nonprofits are girly and thus expected to barely scrape by.  Argh.  In this case, it sounds like the field needs to convince men that tapping feminine sensibilities to serve causes does not mean losing your mojo.  And, vice versa – a little masculine sensibility mixed in to the mainly female field may well help raise the fundraising bar to healthy business levels.
• Law firm leadership lacks in feminine sensibilities as well.  New research mentioned in a Law Jobs article, found this: 46 percent of large law firms have no women at all among their top 10 rainmakers. Almost another third, or 32 percent, have only one woman on that list. My suggestion: make it less about gender breakdowns and more about balancing the masculine/feminine  input at the managing partner level.  That is how  stronger organizations that (drumroll please) make more money are built.
• Venture capital is an interesting one too.  Naissance has just announced that it is starting a Women’s Leadership Fund, which “will only invest in companies where women are represented on boards and in management, and will take an ‘activist stance’ against companies in which women are underrepresented.” Given that brands need encouragement to open their feminine minds to the power of sustainable business, wouldn’t it be great if a venture capital firm was pushing that,as well? Who will launch the fund that only invests in companies that both pursue sustainability and reflect a balance of feminine with masculine sensibilities in their boards?

So, we’ve got Ray Anderson – a male “captain of industry” – telling us like it is, and a few examples of traditional industries (just like his used to be) that are obviously in need of some help getting with the “feminine sensibilities” program.  Stay in the dark if you want to, but be bold and go where many a man doesn’t realize he needs to go: toward feminine sensibilities that will likely bring you to more sustainable business practices.  Today’s women will reward you from the corporate leadership level down to the consumer perspective.

*In November, The Social Studies Group and I are announcing collaborative work we expect will reflect the influence women have in the movement toward sustinability.

Tomorrow I begin a weeklong residency for a master’s program** in which I will be digging into something I’ve seen in that women’s market periphery for a while now: corporate social responsibility.  I intend to apply my years of experience with gender in marketing to something that should no longer be in the periphery for any corporation.

What are women known to do in the way they experience the world and their daily lives, as well as in the ways they buy?  They think holistically, or “it all matters.”  Why do consumers now demand corporate social responsibility from the brands they buy?  It all matters.

No longer can a brand say they are serving consumers well with one hand while they mistreat employees with the other.  Gone are the days when environmental practices can be greenwashed, because consumers are looking at brands with magnifying glasses.  And, go ahead and say goodbye to doing the right thing in pubic relations terms while hiding corrupt practices behind the curtain.  She sees you.

And, what “she” is doing with that information influences how she buys.  But, in the twenty-first century, her ways are also starting to rub off a bit more on how men buy.  So yes,  women continue to be the leading indicators of values-based buying behavior, but they are only the leaders – there’s a whole other group of consumers who are following that lead and we can’t neglect them!  Part of my work in this next two years will be to explore the nuances, the periphery, of gendered consumer behavior as it relates to brands and their corporate social responsibility.  I suspect that consumer values take priority over consumer gender differences in the new marketplace.  But, my research will look at how marketers in socially responsible businesses can integrate the greater subtleties of gendered buying behavior to serve shared consumer values with that much more relevance.

I firmly believe the brands that pay attention and work toward more socially responsible practices will win with women, and men, for the much longer term.  Keep reading my posts and articles along the way, and you’ll share in my learning process.

*If you’d like to see a copy of this newsletter, but prefer not to subscribe, email me and I’ll forward it to you.( andrea @ learnedonwomen dot com)

**Please note: my twitter presence and blog posts will be on the “light” side this next week due to this residency.

I guess when you have a clubby, tightly-woven, self-perpetuating network, it’s hard for women to break in. It’s a stubborn phenomenon, but I hope we can figure out how to correct it. Otherwise, our industry is tragically losing out on 50% of the world’s best talent!

2) I often write about how important it is to learn the language of the consumer in order to better reach him or her. And, this language lesson seems still more important in our 24/7 too-busy-to-listen world.  That’s why Vanessa Van Petten’s site, Radical Parenting, caught my eye.  How great for parents of teens to find help understanding their kids, not through famous psychologists and researchers – but through the words and ideas of teens themselves!

3) Innovative businesses (often of the “green” or socially responsible leaning) are known to pop up pretty frequently in my region of Vermont, and I recently came across another. Inlu was co-founded by two women who noticed, among other things, that a lot of moms now striving to live more green lives had significant conflict about the number of darned birthday party gifts (with wrapping!) they had to buy on an annual basis.  What they’ve developed is a fun online invitation, cause giving and group gift solution that speaks a “woman’s language” (to reiterate my theme) in getting the job done with less check writing, postage stamps and wrapping materials.  Recycling bins everywhere thank them.

A few of the things I say:

The key point I took from the survey included in the [Time magazine] article was that consumers are starting to look at provenance: where the products come from and how they get to the marketplace.

The consuming public has really come a long way.  It was not that long ago that corporate responsibility was defined primarily in terms of the stockholder, and it was focused mainly on increasing profits.  These days, however, consumers have forced the corporate collective hand and now expect the brands they buy to reflect a triple bottom line of responsibility to profit, planet and people.

***

I imagine many of you have seen the truth in this lately.  If consumers “rise up,” then marketers have to, as well.

So… why has the pistachio industry used those situations or “celebrities” for a new advertising campaign?  Apparently in hopes of overcoming the bad pistachio blood from a salmonella scare, Bruce Horovitz writes in USA Today about how the industry’s marketers think this approach is a sure bet.

While I know a fair number of men likely eat pistachios by the handfuls (if my dad and brother are any indication), I’m less sure men are the core grocery store decision-maker on that purchase..  That’s what makes it all the more odd that the “sexy” campaign is so obviously more geared toward men than women.  What would the industry do if this effort ends up being, in fact, so very lame that women who’d otherwise choose pistachios might head to good old peanuts from now on?

I have blogged about this over the years.  The way traditional industries get this marketing to women thing wrong seems to be a fairly common occurrence, especially with their first attempts at really focusing in on that demographic.  Going the sexy route, often adds a whole other dimension of stupidity.  The marketing for the  wine brand, “Seduction” (in 2005) – which emphasized the “O” in their vineyard name, for one (go ahead, undress the bottle!) – would make for a great Sarah Haskins satire today!

Were there women involved in the pistachio industry’s development process who cleared the approach?  With transparent marketing, instead, the idea would have been to be guided and inspired by women – who,  I suspect, are the biggest pistachio buyers.  But, even if that sort of consumer interaction wasn’t a possibility (or within budget), I’d think that any of the women on the pistachio marketing team might have voiced a bit of concern (as in: “now, wait a minute…”).  Involving a few more women in this overall effort would likely have helped the team find a “sexy” way to sell pistachios that actually spoke to women.

So, I’m not saying that sex is always the wrong approach -but that, with women, there will have to be a lot more subtlety.  A dominatrix, Levi Johnston and “Greg Brady’s” adventures are just not in that category.

But, help is on its way – and actually has always been there, patiently waiting for us to notice it: the answer is in personal relationship books.  The longer I am in this field, the more I see these resources as a key to gender-focused marketing of any sort.  The caveat? Reading them may make some people a little uncomfortable, as they perhaps see a bit of their personal lives reflected.

But, here’s why it may be worth the discomfort. In the relationship books I’ve used in my research, and no matter when they were published, I have found some big “a-has” for helping clients and audiences to absorb marketing to women truths.  Consider the following:

You Just Don’t Understand:Women and Men in Conversation (orig. 1990) by Deborah Tannen.  Just one insight from this, now classic sociolingual work: that men tend to communicate around status/positioning and women tend to seek connection in their conversations.  If reading this book was the only guidance you had, you’d have learned something core to gender differences that truly apply in marketing.

How Can I Get Through To You: Closing the Intimacy Gap Between Men and Women (2002) by Terrence Real.  One insight that may seem unrelated to marketing to women, but… think again: “For men to deliberately cross over into the despised realm of the ‘feminine’ defies the structure of patriarchy itself.  When women cross the line into the ‘masculine’ domain, they reappropriate qualities the world holds in high regard.” Now THAT sheds new light on why the field of marketing to women has itself become a pink ghetto.

The New Male Female Relationship (orig. 1983) by Herb Goldberg. Just one insight that, again, has marketing to women implications: “A woman, therefore, can be just as macho as a man, and, by the same token, a man can have feminine defenses.  It is the effect of these masculine and feminine defenses that produces interpersonal problems and distortions in awareness, not a person’s gender.” To avoid “thinking pink,” marketers, too, should take gender out of it  – and consider the consumer’s masculine/feminine characteristics rather than their sex.

Finally, it was reading an Irish Times article about Himglish and Femalese: Why Women Don’t Get Why Men Don’t Get Them, the soon-to-publish book by UK author Jean Hannah Edelstein, that compelled me to write this post.  Her younger generation and non-American perspective offers yet another angle for marketers to consider as they communicate with today’s men and women. As the reviewer wrote, based on her reading of the book: Successful women use Himglish. They don’t beat around the bush. They say what needs to be done, end of story. Successful men, on the other hand, are adept at Femalese, even with each other. The marketing implications here? That it is worth learning the other’s language – both for communicating with colleagues and for working together to develop messaging with a particular gender focus (or deciding if a particular gender focus is even necessary).

Now, before you go rolling your eyes, here’s my final pitch:  In all cases, your marketing to women study must include the usual books, speakers, consultants, white papers and research.  Also, you will be ever-so much wiser to also include your own direct interaction/communication with your customers via some sort of panel or advisory board.  And, the third piece?  Stepping back from the task at hand a bit further to understand what may make the entire situation “tick.”

Human behavior and gendered roles may well be getting in the way of your team doing its best work in speaking to and serving women.  So, be brave – and start reading them at work!*  Relationship books include “secrets” that will give your brand the advantage in leveraging marketing gender intelligence.

___

*If that is just not going to happen at your office, let me know.  I can brief your team on all I’ve learned that can be applied to your fresh marketing perspective.

In “Pimp My Bed: The Male Sleep Lair,“Ray A. Smith of the Wall Street Journal describes the general trend this way:

The new macho mattresses they’re introducing have “muscle-recovery properties” and cooling technology, on the theory that men are more likely to feel too hot in bed. The bed frames feature built-in TVs, iPod docking stations, wine coolers, safes and other guy-friendly gadgetry.

One need only read the comments to that story to realize that the bed makers are marketing to a male fantasy – and even guys will call them on it.

Just reading the article (in which Smith valliantly tries to keep professional and not satirical) makes a person cringe.  So, why are these beds being made and marketed at all?   As Smith points out – there is not likely to be a big market for macho beds.

The ways these manufacturers and their marketing teams seem to have been thinking reminds me of the way a lot of brands market to women. So, what I notice:

1) They weren’t thinking or doing research, they were assuming.  Gender stereotypes reign.

2) They got so caught up in the accessorizing (cold champagne, at the ready!) that real relevance and core purpose/quality of product was likely diluted in the mind of the consumer.

3) They went so far to the end of the gender spectrum (super duper macho) that they may well have harmed their brand for the longer term.  Who would trust a company that so obviously is not in touch with its customer base?  Very odd.

***

Does all that seem so obvious to you?  It certainly should.

There may well be a red flag in even early on, internal product development language that brands should learn to heed.  If you are calling your gizmo the “for him” or “for her” version, go back with a fine tooth comb and do an audit. Make sure you aren’t making huge assumptions, going too far male or female in tone and shooting yourself in the foot for future reference.  In most cases, gender-focused marketing should be transparent.  So, find another way to surprise consumers with ever-desired TVs, safes and coolers.

1)  Every woman in the world shops as much as possible.

2) This shopping-obsessed woman can be swayed over to another aisle, and a product she has zero need for, merely by pink or shiny packaging of some sort.

3) Even if said woman doesn’t really wear make-up or is not buying soup much these days, this will do it.  She’ll stock up on whatever it is to give that 2 cents a pop to a breast cancer-related fund – as long as it is pink!

4) And, to be sure, even if women don’t do the Filene’s Basement run on your special pink October product, just IMAGINE all the press your public relations people can garner for the me-too campaign!

***

The above describes how an awful lot of brands today are looking at October and its breast cancer awareness drive.  What it doesn’t describe is any particular commitment or innovative approach to really getting the double-duty results a brand should want from participation in cancer prevention.  Traditional pink October efforts are a lame approach to “cause marketing,” not because the cause is not incredibly worthy (!), but because brands usually dip their toes too daintily in the water that every other brand has already walked through.  Over many years of Octobers, that lake has gotten murky, and all the pink and gloss can’t help it an iota.  So, I guess it isn’t so odd that your one big month’s worth of publicity doesn’t generate either a ton of money for the breast cancer cause or any sustained new customer interest in what our brand is all about.

Could we have seen that coming?  I do believe we could have.

So, yes, I am on the hunt for breast cancer month efforts that really speak to the cause, deliver some significant funding – and don’t rely solely on the pink wash.  I will give extra points to any that really serve the cause by raising awareness among a new segment (i.e. preaching to those outside the choir).  That may be younger women or teenage girls who still feel immortal or, perhaps more importantly, men.  How do you make pink month matter to them?

Well, according to a Los Angeles Times article by Dan Neil, it looks like one non-profit has come up with a new idea.  It’d be a cliche if it weren’t so true, but what is known to sell any number of things for men?  Starts with an “s,” my friends.  Well, the Rethink Breast Cancer organization was really rethinking.  Rather than leveraging the sad/fear of losing your wife angle, these ads make a point in Madonna cone-bra style .

I can see where they are coming from, and it may well be an attention-getter with men – but is lechery a truly effective motivator?  Guys – please comment to let me know your thoughts.

Otherwise – I’d love to hear about breast cancer awareness efforts that go beyond pink – and possibly even go beyond October.  If I hear about some good ones, I’ll write up the best practices and tell you why they work so well for this women’s cause that needs to resonate with men.

1) Women are, we really mean it, an emerging market (how long can they be emerging and not just be “here” as a market?) – but one thing did filter through research covered by Newsweek to catch my jaded eye.  This is something that should really move your women’s market focus to the tippy top of the priority list.  The Newsweek quote, and note my bolded emphasis:

The rise of women as a grand, cross-border emerging market could have implications as profound as the rise of India and China. There’s a wide body of research to suggest that women’s spending patterns may be exactly what the world needs at this moment. “Economists have studied how women spend in comparison to men, and they tend to spend more on things that are linked to people’s well-being, like health and education. They also tend to save more, and exhibit less risky financial behavior,” notes Yassine Fall, senior economic adviser for UNIFEM, the U.N. agency dedicated to women.

2) A recent GreenBiz article points to the fact that corporate America has doubled its adoption of “green” practices.  The accompanying chart shows that the biggest influencer is a very traditional, hard line, business reason: energy/cost savings.  (A ha! So, “green” isn’t just a touchy feely granola thing?) But, even more, when I look at the whole list of reasons corporations are deciding to pay more attention to sustainability, another point jumps out.  And, it takes me back to item #1 of this post.  Customer need (for seeing a corporation become more sustainable), talent acquisition and staff retention are all very significant influences on corporate sustainability, which is included in an overall more socially responsible organization (i.e. being aware of people’s well-being in addition to profits).  And, many of the other reasons can be tied back – if slightly less directly – to consumers taking a deeper look  from their human perspective. This makes a ton of sense and – to me – reflects a lot of demand by the world’s toughest customers: women.  They are putting their money where their values are, and corporations must respond.

Women are a growing market, but this is not news.  That research ties their spending power more directly to products/services having to do with people’s well-being is.  If women are motivated by well-being of themselves, the planet and those around them, a continuing move by corporations toward more sustainable and socially responsible practices should be a priority.  That they get energy/cost savings, good PR and the rest of it, on the side, is the gravy.