Earning Her Business: The Importance of Tailoring Your Brand Experience to the Female Consumer

Women don’t shop like men—so brands better start changing tactics, argues branding consultant Mares in this misguided description of the female consumer. Mares sets the stage well, by describing the problem: corporate America persistently undervalues female consumers despite their commanding the lion’s share of household purchasing power, exacerbated by well-intentioned but boneheaded gambits such as Dell’s pink “Della” section of its website and Bic’s “For Her” ballpoint pen line. But Mares veers into arguments so gender essentialist as to verge on parody, as when she writes about choosing a product “because of the buying experience. As a female, I valued that above all else. I couldn’t help it—as a woman, I’m hardwired that way!” She hammers again and again on the theme of how women and men are “physiologically different” and on how “women’s limbic brains” explain their more emotional nature. Female consumers emerge here as emotion-driven, relationship-seeking airheads who care for experience over quality or cost, and for whom finding the perfect consumer item is like falling in love. Moreover, it is painfully clear that when she says “women,” she means straight, married women with kids. This outdated “men are from Mars and women are from Venus” offering will serve neither salespeople nor consumers. (Sept.)