What do women want from marketing?
Capturing the hearts and minds of women in South east Asia
It is the best of times; it is the worst of times — for brands wanting to reach out to women in South east Asia.
On the one hand, increased access to education, growing financial independence, and exposure to global lifestyles have informed her choices, not just about shopping, but about life in general. She is increasingly choosing not to put herself last, and to take a stronger hand in making choices that affect her life, and that of her family.
On the other hand, she hasn’t yet let go of traditions completely. She recognizes restrictive societal norms when she sees them, but experience has taught her to pick her battles wisely.
Given this dichotomy between ‘independence’ and the need to adhere to ‘perceived social norms’, the modern Asian woman has achieved a compromised balance. She is ready to live by the broader tenets of societal expectations, so long as she is free to make her life choices within those boundaries.
Over the past several years, I have spoken to hundreds of Asian women consumers as part of my consulting practice, and the observations that came out of these conversations have been educational and enlightening. It has given me some understanding of the socio-cultural context in which women today live.
A few selected verbatims from my conversations with women show the compromised balance modern women seek to achieve:
“I don’t really like ethnic wear much, but when I visit my in-laws in our native place, I am expected to wear only saris and cover my head. But it’s only for a few days a year, and the rest of the time I am free to dress down in shorts and a tank top and my in-laws don’t even live with us. So, I tell myself, why rock the boat?” — Indian housewife (34)
“I wear shorts in safe spaces. Like, I live in Mumbai, and I know I can go out in a pair of shorts. But when I travel to Delhi, I’m not idiotic enough to step out at night in a pair of shorts, it’s not worth the trouble.” — Malaysian student (25) living in Mumbai, India.
When complex decision making becomes daily routine
As I mentioned before, women today are compromising by exercising their own choices and living life on their own terms within the broader boundaries of societal expectations.
While this is typically what is expected from all well-adjusted members of society, the trouble arises because societal expectations are very different for women and men. On average, the standards and benchmarks by which women are evaluated are more demanding than those for men.
And these demands are not just imposed by men; they are also often self-imposed by women.
“I have the biggest fights with my mom over weddings because I hate getting dressed up in those traditional saris and heavy gold jewelry. I feel comfortable in light pastels, or black even, and the kind of jewelry that reflects who I am as a person. Once I dressed up for a family wedding in a black sari and oxidized jewelry and my mom had a fit. She was like ‘what are you planning to do, humiliate us?’ — South Indian woman (27) living in Singapore.
These real differences in boundaries create a lot of tension in women’s daily lives. Women have to take many more variables into account during their decision making as compared to men. And they are forced to do it multiple times a day.
By force of habit, women have become adept at this complex decision-making process. They are typically quite comfortable juggling a large number of variables as input and readjusting or reevaluating their original goals as the situation evolves.
When segmentation turns to stereotypes
This fluid nature of decision making has an unintended consequence, however. It can make women come across as fickle or contradictory.
Brands can therefore find it justifiably difficult to keep pace with the complexity of their decision making.
In the absence of sharp insights into her psyche, brands run into the danger of treating women in a binary context — either a rebellious liberal who rails against all societal norms, or a feel-good conservative who conforms to the perceived expectations of society.
An inadvertently funny and yet accurate portrayal of this caricature was presented in the Indian movie Main Hoon Na, in which the lead female character, who starts off as a complete rebel, transforms overnight into a traditional conservative in order to woo her love interest. Both the stereotypes are absurd, and yet that’s how a lot of brands mistakenly portray women.
Marketing to women is a fine-balancing act
Just as no human can be defined in a monotone, women too have shades of both rebellious streak and conservative femininity in them. Unlike men, however, women are more acutely aware of gender-based inequity and are more sensitive to the micro-signalling that accompanies it. They are more wary of gender-based condescension in the way they are addressed.
Brands that want to market to them have to be cognizant of this layering in women’s characters and have to address them accordingly.
So then, how to walk this tightrope?
All this is not to say that marketing to women is an impossible task. It’s just harder than marketing to men.
Brands who have done it well typically tend to do a few things right:
Don’t shrink it and pink it
There is absolutely nothing wrong with designing products meant for women, customized for their tastes and sensibilities, aimed at solving their pain points. In fact, it’s highly recommended.
The problem occurs when brands take unisex products and market them to women in a brightly coloured (often pink) and smaller format. The issue here is that these brands come across looking like following a templated approach which screams “we didn’t put enough thought into this.”
Two infamous examples of this are the BIC pink pens and the “Della” line of laptops for women designed by Dell (which ‘helpfully’ came pre-loaded with recipes.)
Don’t box women into binary structures
Brands should ideally stay away from portraying women in stereotypical roles with the payoff being either ‘rebellious independence’ or ‘conservative conformity.’
These dramatic setups may have their use in certain situations, but used indiscriminately, they can come across as condescending and thus alienate mainstream women who strive for that balanced approach to life we talked about earlier.
Focus on insights
All great communication needs a great insight at its core. Brands that market to women tend to get it right when they uncover strong insights they can work on.
An example of this is the Cadbury Bournvita campaign which was aired in India. The campaign was based on the insight that educated and well aware moms want to take an active hand in raising their kids and helping their children unleash their true potential. This insight led to Bournvita changing the traditional portrayal of a mom as someone who merely mixes a health drink in the kitchen to someone who actively trains her son for sports.
Do not be afraid to experiment
Brands sometimes try to play it too safe, and thus end up creating marketing campaigns that are too bland to actually cut through the clutter and make an impression on women. Brands don’t need to caricature women to cut though clutter. Portraying the modern woman with all her challenges and complexities is also good enough.
A good example of this is the PregaNews women’s day ad in India that gently showed how stereotypes against women are sometimes spread by women themselves, and how strong women can overcome such prejudices.
Let women speak to women
Although this is by no means a generalization, but women are typically underrepresented in senior level marketing and agency positions.
This definitely has an impact on the way women are targeted in marketing campaigns and sensitive subjects are portrayed in ads.
What can we expect in the future?
I am definitely optimistic about the future of marketing to women. More and more brands are becoming nuanced and mature in the way they portray women in ads, and target women with products and promotion.
A lot of distance still needs to be covered, but right steps are being taken.
To recap, capturing the hearts and minds of women is not an easy task, especially in south east Asia. Generations of gender discrimination and societal boundaries have forced women here to compromise on how freely they live, and have made them sensitive to gender signalling.
Marketers will have to navigate these waters carefully, keeping transparency as their north star if they want to make their brands relevant to women.
I am going to leave you with some exceptional work done by BBDO Singapore on raising awareness about confidence issues that women, even accomplished ones, face daily. This is a great example of how a sensitive issue related to women can be dealt with integrity and transparency.
