Face recently hosted an event at the Groucho Club for all our clients, friends and anyone that’s interested about Women on the Web. For those of you that missed out take a look at the presentation: Face: Women and the Web (which was expertly presented by Philip and Francesco) and look out for our next meet up!
Archive for May, 2009
2.0 Women, Blog, Co-Creation, Mindbubble, Reseach Goodies, Research Communities, Social Media, Uncategorized, Word Of Mouth
Women and the Web
- Date May 05 2009
Tech Tribe 2007 is a detailed analysis of the attitudes and thoughts of young people, covering both students and those in work. Unlike many other “youth surveys” Tech Tribe 2007 has added value for those involved in marketing because these young people really are shaping the next consumer trends in a way that generations before never have.
Generating positive word of mouth can be done in three easy steps:
Regular readers of the marketing press will be familiar with PWOM and NWOM, but as I discovered recently during a conversation with an alarmed-looking friend, people outside the comms world tend to think these acronyms describe the latest smart bombs on Spooks. However, brands are rapidly getting to grips with positive word of mouth (PWOM) and negative word of mouth (NWOM). The latest Tech Tribe report highlights significant factors in social diffusion, and what this means for marketing and PR?
The really big change is the confidence consumers now have in their own voice, their own creativity and their ability to express themselves. For brands, their lack of control over this new order is worrying. How do you engage consumers so that you can stimulate more natural conversations in specific communities? More importantly, how do you do this in a credible way?
From a youth perspective, leading brands like Unilever and Google have the answer to this: co-creation. They’ve decided it’s time to stop marketing at young people, and instead market with them. And that means sticking to a few basic but important principles.
First, to co-create with young people effectively it is essential to identify youth advocates and decide how to engage with them. This means that brands need to seek out the approximately 10 per cent of young people who regularly upload content and write blogs. They are not as hard to find as you may think: 17 per cent of 16-25 year olds already have their own brands, as they market themselves to their friends on their social networking profiles.
The second principle involves understanding what is important to these young people, and what gives them a sense of identity. The Tech Tribe report shows a generation where creativity has huge social currency. Friendship groups are defined by it and social standing is enhanced if you create and share content amongst your friends. Its no longer just about music and fashion, but about every part of their lives.
Getting the most out of this creativity brings us to the third key principle the need for a co-creation? Structure that can work in both the virtual world and the real one. Unilever have shown that consumers can come up with their own ideas and product designs, helping to bring the product to life in the market place. This in turn creates a talkability factor, the Holy Grail for PR companies.
Involving your consumers creates a buzz around your brand and generates PWOM. Web users will enthuse for days on their Facebook pages about how brilliant their experience has been.
If you are a male executive reading this report then beware because as the catchy Boots ad campaign this year hails Here Come The Girls. Or should we say Here comes a growing and substantial cohort of motivated, creative and multi tasking women in their twenties, thirties and forties. Gone are the days when geeky men or spotty youths ruled the web. Women aged 
between 25-34 are spending more time now on-line than men and the number of women becoming regular users of the internet is growing faster than their male counterparts (take a look at our report Web 2.0 Women).
The feminisation of the web is a natural continuation of what is happening in broader society. In the US women now make 80% of consumer spending decisions, including cars, computers and financial products. It is the first step to the creation of a matriarchal society where the female uses her economic and social power. And although this trend is most pronounced in the US, Britain is not far behind.
It is also why at Face we have launched www.mindbubble.co.uk, the first collaboration community in the UK for women aged 25-40. The development of mindbubble including its name, identity and the concept has been driven by mindbubble women. Seeing this first hand has highlighted a huge amount of untapped creativity that brands could be harnessing on a daily basis. It also points to a growing opportunity to see Web 2.0 women not just as potential customers but as sources of inspiration, creativity and influence who can help move a brand forward.
This growing trend of web feminisation means brands need to look at the potential offered by this group of consumers with a fresh set of eyes.
I read an interview with Drayton Bird in Februarys issue of Research Magazine headlined Direct Speech. I was immediately struck by the glaring contradiction in Drayton Birds comments that bedevils the thinking of most large companies.
On the one hand he argues that he doesnt want market research to come and tell him what people think because – people dont bloody well know what they think themselves. He quotes Henry Fords famous remark – ‘If I’d asked the public they would have said they wanted a faster horse’. On the other hand he goes on to say the biggest mistake Marketers, R&D people and Directors can make is not to talk to their customers you should not forget, he muses, that it is your customers who put you there. Yet it is not surprising that Marketers, R&D people and Directors make this mistake when they are being told by their agencies and advisors (like Drayton) that customers dont really know what they want and that brand owners know best.
To think of your customers in this way, in the world of web 2.0, and the empowered consumer is both arrogant and dangerous. Such an outdated view conditions a corporate mindset of not listening and if you are not going to listen to your customers, then you are certainly not going to act on anything they tell you. And to do this today, at a time when your customers no longer see themselves as passive respondents but active equals in their relationship with you is even worse. Todays consumer has a much stronger belief not just in their own voice but in their own creativity, ideas and self expression.
Companies need to decide where they stand on this debate. Do they trust their customers? Do they have a corporate mindset that says the customer is always right? Or do they think they know best and their customers do not really know what it is they want, so they need to be told. I know where I stand, on the side of the customer and if you embrace their ideas and creativity in a meaningful way you can start to imagine together what the future could look like. That is how real brand value will be created in the decades ahead.
connect