Paper Rebel

Gender Appeal: How to appeal to women in advertising

 
Hello, hello I AM BACK. Been a while since my last post, 13 days to be exact which means years in blogger land. I am essentially a one (wo)man shop so things on the business end has been super hectic. 

Which reminds me, Social media and blogging tip #1: if you are planning to incorporate social media and blogging into your mix, you must be prepared to really PLAY. In order to keep your audience engage you must be consistent, schedule your postings and stick to it and if you plan to be away for a while let your audience in the know. Ideally, Blog at least once a week, Facebook 2-3 times a week and twitter daily. 

So, back to my original post subject: Female gender appeal in advertising. I am more than halfway through reading Why She Buys by Bridget Brennan and she has brought up some solid elements you can use in your advertising in order to appeal women. Companies tend to create advertising with a gender neutral approach, ie: banks, insurance, mortgage, etc in order to avoid alienating one gender. But you can implement elements that appeal to women in your advertising without alienating men. 

Mastercard is a prime example of this. Credit card penetration is equal between men and women (women use debit more tho). So a majority of the time they create (gender)personalized ads depending on the vehicle to which it was delivered(ie: men focused ads in men's magazines). But at times they release a general market advertising where they address milestones and life stages that are experienced by both and women. For example, the moment a couple's child goes off to college, as Brennan points out.In the surface this appeals to both sexes, but connects to female psychology very strongly because women are typically in charge of life's milestones-birthdays, graduations, etc. I am sure you are all aware of mastercard's "priceless" ad campaign. Key fundamentals you can take away from the camapign: 

• Storytelling - the most powerful technique for creating an emotional connection to women 
• Head and heart - women responds to personal experiences and examples more than product specifications. 

Putting the above into effect will strongly connect you to women and not alienate men in your advertising.  

Consider implementing these other elements: 

• Cause marketing - "green" campaigns finds their biggest audience in women. Associating social responsibility with your brand can have a huge impact. 
• Beauty in the imperfect - The dove campaigns, using real women rather than models are very succesful. 
• What it does vs how it works - Men are interested in specs while women ask "what this product can do for me?". For example, Instead of pointing out that this camera has a 35mm zoom lens you can point out that "this camera uploads instantly so you can immediately share it with your family and friends". 
• Messages about improving - Men responds to messages about winning. While women aspire to be a better version of themselves and see themselves as a work in progress.
• Women responds to personal stories and examples while men responds to facts.
• Testimonials 
• Before and After comparisons

Image: courtesy of dove

Design elements that attract women

It should come as no surprise that men prefer designs made by men and women prefer designs made by women.** I also noted that men are more receptive towards designs that have female aesthetics, than woman are towards designs with male aesthetics in my Why Market to Women? post. So what are the design elements that women are particularly drawn toward?

• Handwriting as fonts. Women are also drawn to informal or conversational language/copy.
• Bright colors and lots of it.
• Round shapes and curvy lines
• Detailed surfaces vs plain surfaces
• Images of other women
• Interactions between subjects/harmonious relationships (ie: couples touching, women having fun with their kids)

Try implementing these design elements into your work to see if the conversion rate is higher.


**Gloria Moss - Gender, Design & Marketing