In her work for First Union as senior vice president and director of Women’s Financial Advisory Services, Debra Nichols developed an enormously important approach to developing creative that targets women. When starting a new marketing to women program, marketers should allow a longer creative development lead time to build in a three-round learning curve.
In her experience, the first draft comes out “too pink,” with the positioning a little trite, the models too idealized and the copy too sparse. Maybe something like this:
The second round, after coaching about marketing to women, comes out “too beige,” with information overload and still little that is really engaging. For instance:
This third round, fortunately, brings things back into balance, often hitting the mark, tapping into the meanings and motivations that will connect with the brand’s women customers. Here we go, that’s good:
This three-round dynamic makes it essential to set up a male/female advisory group (the women to comment, the men to learn) to look at the creative and identify any red flags before spending money on production and media. Give yourself time when developing marketing to women creative and you can avoid being too stereotypical or too insipid. You’ll take your marketing creative to the next level and be just right.