This is how I feel about the ‘booth babes’ at CES 2012. Angry that the message about the powerful spending might of women is still being ignored, ashamed that the industry I have served for almost 20 years continues to use women’s bodies as decorative allures to sell products, and motivated to encourage anyone to learn how to connect to women in a functional way.

If you weren’t at CES 2012 and haven’t seen this brave video which became the most viewed stream on the day, made by the BBC here it is: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16533289This behaviour is not just old, it is ancient and the refusal by many of these companies including CES   CEO Gary Shapiro to acknowledge the damage they are doing by the objectification of women is a major obstacle to growth and prosperity at a time when this should be our focus.

I know many women who read this blog clearly understand what I mean, but there are still men who read it who will laugh and snigger at the video. That is because for the moment, they are in positions of power. So for those I will put it in perspective.

Imagine that you were attending this Show as a highly paid heterosexual industry executive, and at booth after booth where you intended to do business, you were confronted with muscle bound men wearing Speedos (a la Tony Abbott emerging from the surf).

What would this say to you about those companies, and how would this make you feel on a personal level, particularly if your female colleagues and competitors had their eyes glued to those bodies?

Well, if you have been able to imagine this scenario, then you will have empathy with women such as myself, my reporters and the thousands of women who want to build a career within the consumer electronics industry and who are expected to endure such an experience in their working day.

If you feel that this is acceptable behaviour and are considering conducting a similar event to promote your products, then you are likely one of the dinosaurs who also thought that the selling or publishing on the internet “would never take off”. I have heard that plenty of times since I launch my Internet business in 2000.

Tip of the day: Show this video to your team at your meetings and use it as a teaching tool to educate them and to help to change these behaviours.

Or worse, actually have their product associated with such an unsexy subject.

But a lot of this reluctance about reaching out to a group who are the world’s healthiest, wealthiest and best educated women ever, is probably more about ignorance than anything else.

One of the main problems is that the image of a grandmother has changed radically in the past 20 years, so much that the stereotype of the aged, frail, white haired, pensioner that everyone loves, is more of a memory than a reality.

Let’s look at some examples: US Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, probably one of the world’s most powerful women is on the cusp of grandmotherhood.

She is joined by Carole Middleton, the mother of Catherine,  Duchess of Cambridge, who stunned everyone with her poise when her daughter married the future king of England.

Our own Governor General Quentin Price is one of the most glamorous and hardworking grandmothers in Australia.
You probably have it wrong

When I  searched Google images on ‘grandmothers’ today, the stock photographs were typical of white haired ladies usually sitting passively reading to their grandchildren. No sign of the dynamic and sexy women I mentioned above.

So there is a long way to go, because as this group of boomer women expands they will also manage extraordinary amounts of money (that they love to spend). This is the wealth that they will receive from their ‘builder’ parents and their own spouses who are more likely to die before they do.

Time for a rethink marketing to grandmothers

In her blog: Marketing to Women Online, Holly Buchanan cites a Vibrant Nation article based on  research from Rose Cameron from Euro RSCG. about marketing to grandmothers:

Is it surprising that Rose herself explained that it was almost impossible to find an ad that featured grandparents? If they did, the grandparents looked like senile or passive seniors, not the active 50-somethings they are.

Finally, for those of you who love the stats, one of the most compelling reasons to market to grandmothers comes from the tremendous influence on their children as well as grandchildren. 

According to Rose Cameron:

• 48% of all US grandparents today are Boomers, and they are highly involved in the lives of the children of their Millennial children.
• 55% see those grandchildren more than once a week.
• 74% are deeply involved in raising grandchildren.
•  62% spend significantly on these extended family members.

Try this exercise: talk a walk around the office or the block and try to identify the grandmothers, then have a chat to them about how they spend their money.

You may just come up with that killer strategy for  2012.

This week one of Australia’s leading financial institutions, Macquarie Bank has confirmed that 74% of Australian women control the household budget, with men trailing at 69%.

This is a mantra that I have been humming for several years now, as research from the US based Boston Consulting Group has revealed similar numbers. But despite this evidence, many Australian companies are ignoring these facts and continue to rely on advertising and marketing campaigns that are created by men for men.

These are the businesses who have boards and senior management made up solely of men and who actively nurture a monoculture. They are also the companies which are frantically watching their cashflows dry up as women desert their businesses and seek those which understand and meet their needs.

Macquarie’s research also states that where men and women share financial decision-making, it is far more common for women to be managing the budget, checking the bank balance and putting spare funds into savings – which suggests women take more responsibility for the day-to-day financial management.

‘Mood, Life & Money – Macquarie Insights’ is a comprehensive research study and investigation into Australians’ life and financial decision-making, as well as general mood and reasons for it. The study was conducted in September 2011 and involved a large-scale qualitative research program of 12 group discussions across the nation prior to a detailed online survey of 1,600 respondents.

Macquarie also found that three quarters of Australians rely on their spheres of influence (family and/or friends/colleagues etc) for initial discussions – compared to a low 45% who discuss life decisions with experts (including financial advisers, lawyers, accountants or other experts).

Translate this to the average female’s circle of influence of around 15 female friends, then you have an ever widening group that is just not listening to the male focused messages.

For any executive who wants to create a viable business based on present realities, this study should be vital reading.

While Australian retailers of premium technology products, once considered ‘luxury’,  drive their prices and labels downmarket, high-end brands which have protected their prestigious auras remain virtually unscathed by the severe retail downturn.

Now these brands, including Louis Vuitton are about to eat further into the profits of CE retailers with aspirational stores and personalised service (that women love) right in the heart of Sydney.

This week the French fashion house opened its latest store on George St, Sydney. It is positioned on the corner opposite the Apple store which is also a magnet for women, and is quickly becoming a city landmark .

Louis Vuitton understands that there is a growing demographic of elite Australian women who not only aspire to luxury products, but have the financial smarts to afford it on their terms. And they will flock to stores which have this on offer.

Louis Vuitton is not the first aspirational brand  to increase its investment in Sydney CBD retail real estate. Gucci is also preparing to open a megastore in Sydney’s Westfield with an extravagent party next week and Chanel and Prada are also opening new luxury stores.

2012 will also see the launch of Christian Dior’s first standalone Australian store, which will open on the former Louis Vuitton boutique site on the corner of Castlereagh St.

Badged ‘Louis Vuitton George Street Maison’, the new store is believed to have cost almost $10 million. It features three-storeys of women’s and men’s fashion as well as personalised services. Cate Blanchett is rumoured to be attending an exclusive VIP event tonight to celebrate the launch.

Louis Vuitton Oceania CEO Philip Corne told the media this week that the new development had been a long time coming for the brand, which now has 10 stores in Australia.

“We wouldn’t commit to the investment until we found the right space that allowed us to present the brand as we should,” he said.

Now would be a great time for CE retailers to review their strategy to attracting women into their stores by studying how these luxury retailers create an environment which feels inviting, safe and meets a woman’s need to make the world a better place.

Along with 150 of Sydney’s heavy hitting female business networkers, I also enjoyed lunch with Ray Martin at the fabulous Tearoom in the QVB building on Wednesday.

As usual, there were no guests from the consumer electronics industry (although their stores are dotted around that graceful building), so they couldn’t learn how Ray Martin was able to connect with those powerful women, get them to buy his book and to recommend it to all their friends.

They also missed out on studying the high level of viral micro blogging that was happening about Ray throughout the event and has been ongoing for several days.

Just take a look at this post from my respected media colleague, Valerie Khoo. An expert in communication and a committed supporter of the leading women’s networks, Valerie puts the value of our women’s networks  into perspective.
Over the half dozen so years I have been a member of these networks, I have watched them grow into powerful forces whose primary aim is to encourage women to grow their businesses by supporting each other.

Speaking out about women’s workplace issues such as the woeful lack of women on Australian boards is at the top of the list. A great advocate on this topic is another colleague, founder of SheEO, Australia’s thought leader on gender balance,  
Jen Dalitz.

It’s a wonderful environment to work  within, with most groups operating with a flat hierarchy resulting in a low incidence of poisonous politics.

But, despite the growth in these networks and the fact that over 72% of Australian women control the household budget, I am yet to meet either a female or male (yes, men are most welcome to attend and many do so) executive of the CE industry voluntarily investing a few hours a month to attend a function and meet these women.

As a famous scientist pondered: why is it so?

Well, I haven’t done a poll on the subject yet (but watch out) but my sense is that they are uncomfortable in a room full of powerful women due to lack of experience

I have worked in the Australian CE industry for almost 18 years and I have never walked into a room of industry leaders who were all female.

This is because I believe that they are not encouraged to show up en masse.

And without an awareness of the leverage that these women can offer to businesses, many industry CEO’s just don’t include such networking events in their professional agendas.

It has also been suggested to me that many of the male leaders in this industry, who report to head offices in the Asian region do agree that they need to be more proactive in creating a gender intelligent operation.

But an attitude of “not on my watch”  towards such change overrides any other intentions.
As a result, these businesses continue to lose revenue to savvy operators such as Ray Martin, a man very comfortable with powerful women.

I would like to extend an invitation to any CE leader who feels they would like to talk to these women about the benefits of technology, or just to meet them and start to build relationships with them to let me know…we would love to see you onboard.

While all eyes have been trained on Barack Obama’s visit to Australia this week, it’s his wife Michelle Obama who wields the stronger influence over the world’s primary purchasers: women.

She is joined in these elite ranks by the Duchess of Cambridge who, like Michelle Obama, is publicly active on the world stage and possesses a supreme selling power.

Why?

Because the decisions these women make in their everyday lives from what they eat, wear, decorate, read or watch is copied religiously by other women around the world. And this isn’t just a trend, the impact of their influence can take just minutes to reverberate around the world and is significantly change the fortunes of many businesses.

Since her engagement to Prince William last year, almost everything the Duchess of Cambridge has worn has sold out within minutes, such as the nude Reiss dress she wore to meet Obama at Buckingham Palace in May. As soon as pictures of the Duchess wearing it appeared, the British retailer was selling the $316 dress at a rate of one a minute.

Meanwhile Obama was dubbed the $3 billion woman after a study by New York University’s Stern School of Business found a company’s stock skyrocketed when she was photographed in one of its garments.

Identifying your SuperInfluencer

While not all businesses can be gifted with the grace that flows from these two iconic women, there are some steps you can take today to being engaging with a SuperInfluencer in your own community.

There are a wealth of social media measurement tools that enable marketers to find the people who are talking most about their brand, see what type of content they’re sharing and with whom, and how they are sharing it . Once you find these influencers,  you can them begin  to engage with them with the goal that they will continue to share about your brand.

Ben Straley is the CEO of Meteor Solutions, provider of word-of-mouth analytics and optimization platform that enables marketers to measure, manage, and monetize earned media. He suggests that you try these three tips to help you activate your top influencers.

1. Reserve Your Best Content for Influencers Only

Create exclusive content you share only with your key influencers, and let them know they were one of a select few to receive this special offer. This makes your brand advocates feel appreciated and provides them with exclusive information they can use to boost their reputation as a source of inside deals.

2. Mine the Blogs and Forums

When you’re looking for super influencers, chances are you’ve already determined who shares the most on Facebook and Twitter. But, in many cases, the people who really influence traffic and conversion on your site are the bloggers.

Once you’ve used analytics tools to find exactly which individuals are driving the most traffic to your campaign sites, you need to reach out to these people individually. Treat them like the real VIPs they are. Let them know you appreciate their loyalty and interest in your products. We’ve found influencers appreciate your attention and kind words even more than exclusive promotions.

3. Differentiate the Influencers from the Super Influencers .

Not all influencers are alike.

When you plot the influence of individuals, you’ll see a curve that looks a lot like the long tail distribution of search terms. Influence follows a “power law,” where a relatively small number of individuals influence the lion’s share of referrals. Those at the peak of this curve are the super influencers, and those in the tail are regular influencers.  Super influencers have large, loyal followings and audiences who trust their insights. The latter are people who pass along info to friends and family from time to time via e-mail and Facebook.

Understanding these differences is key to crafting your influencer activation strategy. You need to interact with super influencers on a one-to-one basis, but you could target the rest of your influencers a bit more broadly.

If you want to tap into some of that magic  that women like Michelle Obama and the Duchess of Cambridge own, just identifying your key influencers is not enough: you’ve got to find them and then motivate them to share.

Over the long term, you need to increase the size of your influencer base. By finding and engaging in a direct dialogue with your super influencers, you’ll get a clear idea of what motivates these brand ambassadors to share. Then, armed with that knowledge, you can begin reaching out to your influencers — and even your fans who never share — to offer the right kind of content and rewards to turn more “followers” into “sharers.”

More than 150,000 community sector workers are about to receive a long-awaited pay rise and the majority are women, who will now be seriously thinking about how they will spend this bonus. Additionally, the community organisations where many of these women work will also benefit from a government contribution of $2 billion over six years.

This means that the women running these businesses will need to invest in new technology, products and services to support the expansion which will now follow.

But if you still don’t have a gender intelligent culture within your business which recognises these women when she walks into your store and then genuinely connects with her, then you will be left behind as she and her friends continue to migrate where they feel understood.

Going back to basics, we need to remember that men and women operate from a different mindset when they  make decisions and this includes shopping for either their businesses, themselves or  their families.

Her system of problem-solving takes a long time and involves making everything personal and leading with her emotions in a quest to see how she would feel about each possible solution.

Now this may be frustrating for a male sales assistant who doesn’t understand that the female shopper is taking due consideration about the purchase. They can appear pushy and insincere when they try to close the sale.

They may even unconsciously communicate to the shopper that she is somehow not “up to the job” particularly if she is shopping with a male, where they obviously make an immediate connection.

As Australian shoppers have snapped their purses shut during 2011 this situation may even be exacerbated as she takes even longer to makes up her mind, while the sales assistant become even more anxious to push her towards a decision.

What they need to remember is that  while the language used to describe a woman’s problem solving process is often negative, the end conclusion is, “her decisions always end up being the right ones.”

Stephanie Holland from She Economy explains why understanding a woman’s buying process is crucial when you are in a sales situation.

1.Give her enough time – if a woman says “she needs to think about it,” she is not saying no. Women complain that men move in too soon for the close.  If she’s not ready to buy, ask her “do you have any questions or concerns I haven’t addressed?” to see if she is missing crucial information, then let her go do her processing and set up another appointment.  She will appreciate this! 

2.Make an emotional connection-  Ask her questions, find out everything you can about her situation, her concerns, the people her decision will affect.  By asking questions and really listening to her answers, you are building trust – the most important emotion in a sale to a woman.

By understanding theses simple differences between how men and women make buying decisions and implementing them into your sales force, not only will you increase sales but you will be way ahead of the competition that just don’t have time to be gender intelligent.

I reported in an earlier column this week that I had recently spent a few weeks in the bustling city of UBud, host to the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival. For marketers still pondering how to connect with women, a trip to this event, should be on your List of Things To Do.

The delegates were primarily women and Boomers at that, who have very deep and rich purses.

One of the reasons that this Festival has been so successful is due to the Australian Boomer who initiated the event with the Balinese government and manages it annually.  Janette de Neef not only runs the Festival but, with her Balinese husband owns the successful Cafe Luna Emporium and a raft of accommodation and food venues in the city.

She is a great example of today’s boomer woman who is brimming with confidence.  According to marketing to women US expert Marti Barletta, boomer women say that getting older better equips them to make decisions more confidently than when they were younger. In the Girlfriend Groups conducted with DDB Chicago, boomer women told them they know how to handle unexpected turbulence and how to get around obstacles in ways that younger women have yet to figure out.

“With age comes experience. And with experience comes wisdom. This wisdom has given Boomer women confidence and control over their lives, indeed a swagger, that, in some respects, makes younger women look a touch wimpy,” Barletta claims.

And the statistics in the following table can inform many marketing to Boomer women strategies:

For Boomer women, there is significant power in the realisation that they can master the curveballs and “high hard ones” that life throws at them, and that they can do it with a high degree of equanimity and aplomb.

I observed this over and over again in Bali, while it was the younger women who mainly travelled in female only groups or with their male partners, it was the Boomers who were on their own, fronting up with confidence to the vagaries of life in Bali. They were not only attending the Festival in droves, but were leading the various groups of volunteers. And those Australia, US and American  ex-pats living on the island were running their own property, accommodation, hospitality and artistic businesses.

Barletta believes that this trend means two things:

1.     Boomer women’s confidence also gives them the drive to keep their lives moving forward-which represents a significant marketing opportunity.

2.    When marketing and selling to Boomer women, companies must honour Boomer women’s confidence in themselves. That is a good way to build trust with this group.

She suggests that  you ask your marketing and sales departments two questions-

How will you approach this marketing opportunity? And, Does your current sales approach fit with how Boomer women actually view themselves?

Any marketers who are running a Facebooks ads campaign promoting  their Page, would most likely be seeing a spike in the number of women who are coming over compared to men. A new report by SocialCode reveals that  more women than men click on the ad itself when viewing Facebook  ads that offer a “like” button, although nearly equal proportions of men and women directly click the “like” button,

Meanwhile, younger adults  are more likely than older counterparts to directly click the ad’s “like” button, whereas older adults are more likely to click on the ad itself.

SocialCode’s study examined over 4 million data points for Facebook ads that offer a “like” button; the study included roughly 50 clients in multiple verticals over a 10-month period. It reports that on average, Facebook users age 50+ are 28.2% more likely than adults age 18-29 to click through by clicking on the ad, but they are 9% less likely to click on the “like” button.

When broken out by gender, age has a pronounced effect on ad CTR among women, whereas among men there is a stronger effect on “Liking” a brand via the ad:

·         Overall, women are 11% more likely to click on an ad, but men are slightly (2.2%) more likely than women to “like” a brand via an ad. 

·         Among women age 50+, average CTR is 31.2% higher than among those age 18-29, whereas that difference is only 16.2% among men in the same age groups.

·         Average CTR among women age 50+ is 22% higher than among women in other age groups on average, whereas that differences is 16.4% among men. 

However, the oldest male segment (age 50+) has an 11.7% lower “Like” rate than the youngest segment (age 18-29), and 9.5% lower “Like” rate than other male age groups on average. 

Among women, those aged 50+ have a 7.2% lower “Like” rate than those age 18-29, and a 7.9% lower “Like” rate than other female age groups on average.

SocialCode CEO, Laura O’Shaughnessy,  explained that  generally, younger Facebook users are more comfortable using the ‘Like’ button than older users.

“With inline fan ads on Facebook, older users have a high level of interaction and curiosity about the ads as evidenced by their high CTRs, whereas younger users have a higher propensity to click the ‘Like’ button right in an ad on Facebook.”

O’Shaughnessy  said that SocialCode was assuming that while older users are adopting Facebook at a high rate, they are also the newest subset to join the social network, meaning they may not have high friend numbers so ads are less likely to have social context in advertisements.

About the data: The age and gender research study conducted by SocialCode examined over four million data points for ads containing a ‘Like’ button across over 50 clients in different verticals for 10 months ended August 2011.

Wal-Mart still remains the text book study for retailers on how to build a global empire and it has now gone public with its plans to put gender intelligence into the organisation.

In a presentation that was broadcast over the Internet, Wal-Mart Stores said that it will double the money it spends with women-owned businesses, train women around the world and push major suppliers to use more women and minorities on work they do for the retailer.

Wal-Mart CEO, Mike Duke unveiled the plan on Wednesday after the US Supreme Court threw out women’s massive class-action sex-discrimination lawsuit against the world’s largest retailer in June.

That ruling was a major victory for Wal-Mart, which may still be hit with individual lawsuits from women. Now, the company aims to make a major mark on women’s economic empowerment by setting five goals it hopes to meet by 2016. Wal-Mart, around the world, employs 2.1 million people, more than half of whom are women.

 Vital Voices is an organization that helps women in 127 countries with mentoring and training and according to co-founder, president and CEO, Alyse Nelson, “This is not something that they’re doing in response to anything else.”

“It is the game changer, in my opinion. I’ve worked in this space for 16 years and I’ve never seen anything this big,” Nelson said.

One goal with the potential for major economic impact is to increase sourcing from women-owned businesses including construction firms, farms and manufacturers.

In the US, Wal-Mart spent about US$2.5 billion with women’s businesses last year. It now plans to spend $5 billion annually by 2016 in the United States, and double sourcing from international suppliers run by women.

Duke addressed a packed room at Wal-Mart’s headquarters on Wednesday and at a time when unemployment is a key issues for all Americans, noted that about 70% of the one billion people living in poverty around the world are women. Also, less than 7% of venture capital goes to companies started by women.

Wal-Mart also plans to help train and educate 400,000 women, including 200,000 US women from low-income homes, in job and financial-related skills. The company is funding its plans with US$100 million in grants from the Walmart Foundation and its international businesses.

Wal-Mart often comes under fire with groups claiming, among other issues, that its stores put smaller shops out of business and that it does not pay its workers enough. Its attempts to open stores in certain locations, most notably New York City, have been met with opposition from community groups.

However, the company has been working to promote a more caring image through various initiatives, such as working with first lady Michelle Obama to expand access to healthy food and pushing companies to sell more environmentally friendly products.

Some of the efforts are building on work that Wal-Mart has already done. In 2005, it pushed law firms to increase the gender and ethnic diversity among the staff that did business for the retailer. Now it is asking other firms, such as advertising agencies and suppliers who sell more than US$1 billion of products to the chain each year, to do the same.