Question of the Day | 05/31/2009 11:00 pm

Should advertisers be acting differently in light of the latest figures on marketing to women?

The latest figures reporting on marketing to women are astounding: 85% of all purchase decisions today are made by female consumers, and females are responsible for $7 trillion in spending. Click here to read more.

Marlo Thomas | 05/31/2009 11:00 pm

Marlo Thomas Thinks Women Should Protest

And yet, we are back to half-dressed women selling products. Women protest!

2 Comments

Jane Wagner | 05/31/2009 11:00 pm

Jane Wagner: Advertisers Will Flock to wOw

Of course! And advertisers will be flocking to wOw without question.

1 Comment

Joan Ganz Cooney | 05/31/2009 11:00 pm

Joan Ganz Cooney: We're the Female Power

I think advertisers are well aware of female power in puchase decisions and don’t need my advice. Where they are latecomers is to the market comprised of women over 50. The population is aging and youth may not rule as powerfully as advertisers have assumed for many years.

4 Comments

Joan Juliet Buck | 05/31/2009 11:00 pm

Joan Juliet Buck Markets wOw

Yes, they should all be advertising on wowowow.com.

0 Comments

Whoopi Goldberg | 05/31/2009 11:00 pm

Whoopi Goldberg's 'Duh' Advice to Advertisers

If an advertiser wants to make some money, they should advertise to the people who have it. It’s kind of a "duh" when you think about it.

16 Comments

Liz Smith | 05/31/2009 11:00 pm

Liz Smith Has Been the 'Man of the House' for Years

Of course advertisers should revise drastically their male-oriented and youth-passion points of view. There are going to be more and more old people in America for the next 20 years and they need to be catered to. And more and more mature women will be making buying decisions.

But this has been going on a long time. Twenty years ago I answered the door of my vacation house in Vermont and a statistic taker demanded "the man of the house." I told him I was what passed for the man of the house because the only males living with me there were dogs.

I told him that in the year he was investigating, I had bought a $10,000 fence, a new truck, a new Mercedes sedan, a boat hitch, a wave rider, two new refrigerators, three TV sets, air-conditioning for the entire house, a chain saw, an installed swimming pool and a number of other boring inevitable important items. (I was making a lot of money in those days!) The statistician went away shaking his head, sorrowing. I don’t think he believed that I was the shape of things to come.

4 Comments

Read more about: Advertising, consumers, Marketing, Money, Shopping, Spending, women

29 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment

There definitely needs to be more aggressive [and appealing] advertising specifically aimed for those of us who are among the early baby boomer generation - women born prior 1955. And, advertisers need to use women in their ads who look like us, and have lifestyles which are similar to the lifestyles we live - lifestyles which include grand-parenting, care-taking, and parenting adult children. This includes the large demographic of women who are long-time married, those who are divorced, single, and widowed.

Advertiser are slowly recognizing this demographic. Yet, there is not enough marketing being done, which actually appeals to the early boomer generation. In fact, a lot of women I know no longer watch television [for example], because of offensive programming, or programming which simply has no appeal to our needs.

We’re out there, and advertisers need to do a better job to ‘reach’ us.

By Maizie James on 06/01/2009 12:37 am

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So if this site is for women over 40, then why is it that the women featured in the photos above "The Question of the Day" all look like nubile young females in their twenties or thirties? Seems to me it’s a little like the "pot calling the kettle black" or as they say in Arabic, "a camel can’t see its own hump."

By phyllis Doyle Pepe on 06/01/2009 8:52 am

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I would like to see a topic which elaborates on how to do the marketing for getting advertising to a website. I have the website, just wish I could take it to the next step?

By Linda Myers on 06/01/2009 12:40 am

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Of course they should! I would also appreciate web advertisers make better gender choices when they send spam. Since I don’t have a penis, I don’t see the need for Viagra, penis enlargement or, medication for prostate issues. I also have no desire to see ‘Trixie’s sexy photos, and have absolutely no desire to participate in a dating web site. I find all that c**p a waste of my time cleaning it out of my Junk Mail. CA

By C A Rose on 06/01/2009 1:19 am

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Advertisers make big money off tweens. I doubt that will change any time soon. If Muffy wants a new pink cell phone for her 12th birthday, there’s a good chance she will get it. Advertising doesn’t sway me very much, although I cannot get that jingle out of my head…." … and they’re heading cattle the size of schnauzers…." . Dang it, Jack!

By Maggie W on 06/01/2009 1:37 am

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Oops… Make that "herding cattle".

By Maggie W on 06/01/2009 7:47 am

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I like "heading" better.

By phyllis Doyle Pepe on 06/01/2009 8:54 am

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Maggie,

Heaven forbid! I’ve even caught myself singing along!

I’m still trying to figure out that Mini Sirloin Berger ad. I keep expecting to see a Schauzer, but only see a Border Collie, cattle, and cowboys. Now I can’t see this ad appealing to women because I dont’ think women frequent fast food places as often as men do. And if that’s true, what man would want to be caught dead with a "MINI" sirloin burger???

Some good marketing info here: http://www.marketingpower.com/AboutAMA/Pages/AMA%20Publications/AMA%20Journals/Journal%20of%20Marketing%20Research/TOCs/SUM_2009.1/Gender_Dimensions.aspx

By Andrea Brandon on 06/01/2009 5:30 pm

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It seems to me that Businesses have been spending most of their advertising $$ on those people who over spent themselves into being homeless………Forclosures………Can’t pay Credit Cards.

What about the rest of us who own our homes……..have no debt with a few dollars in the bank……..we are the invisible people.

Actually our dollars are sounder than those who need Sex Ads to draw their attention to the merchandise being sold.

Wake up business owners.

We older people generally have a lot more money to spend. No one advertises for my dollar.

I agree with Whoopie………….

By Dona Howlett on 06/01/2009 1:46 am

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If this study were broken down by age, I think it would show that advertisers should be paying a heck of a lot more attention to older women.

By darcus grey on 06/01/2009 3:24 am

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There is a method to their madness, my dear friends. Advertisers know perfectly well that Grandma has all the money, but they also know she is no longer madly consuming lip-plumping lipsticks, push-up bras, cutting-edge gadgets or much of what she bought with wild abandon in the glorious days of yesteryear when she was on a continuous estrogen high and life was a cabaret. They’re going after the people who WANT things, confident that Grandma is going to pay for whatever her kids and grandchildren desire — from stainless steel appliances to Elmo Live — without having to waste time and money advertising to Grandma directly. I mean, however would they phrase the ads? "You’re old and may soon be dead. Don’t you need a new purse first? Outrun the grim reaper in our sensible walking shoes with pink shoelaces! Come shop with us!"

By Ruth Jernick on 06/01/2009 4:31 am

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Aha! But––––remember that Grandmas nowadays are not the Grandmas of yesteryear and lip-plumping, botox, uplifts and tummy tucks, are de rigueur. The promise of remaining young forever is the sensuous lure. Loved your take on this–––very funny!

By phyllis Doyle Pepe on 06/01/2009 9:13 am

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Ruth,

That was absolutely BRILLIANT! No one could have so stated such as well as you just did. BRAVO!

By HA BIBI on 06/01/2009 9:45 am

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As Liz said: There are going to be more and more old people in America for the next 20 years and they need to be catered to. And more and more mature women will be making buying decisions." Therefore, I would suggest that the advertisers stop targeting older people with Viagra, arthritis medications, Ensure, etc. and understand that we too are a buying public; that not all of us wish to appear to be anything but we are. We buy cars, we buy houses .. and in some cases can actually afford them; we purchase all there is to purchase and won’t buy it simply because a skinny bikini clad teenager tells us how wonderful it is. Rather offensive I would say. Dove came out with a line for mature women that was lovely and beautifully done. Advertisers could take a page from that book.

By Andy C on 06/01/2009 8:14 am

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In my mind if 85% of current decision makers are women in terms of purchases, that means 85% of those seeing the advertisements are women as well. Clearly it isn’t stopping them from making purchases so the advertisers must be doing something right.

By Belinda Joy on 06/01/2009 8:26 am