What woman wants?

The recent female targeted campaigns from Dove and Nike have - with their quest for expanding the beauty ideal - proven successful in both media coverage and supposedly in ROI.

Now there is a whole book out by Martha Barletta Martha with key female marketing strategies (there is seven of them where the first one is equivalent to the Dove/Nike one)…thanks to The Hidden Persuader.

Better real than ideal:
"Female gender culture is all about finding something in common with others to build bonds, not aspiring to an ideal to set oneself apart."

Beware of talking about women's unique needs:
"The problem with this approach is that women don't want to feel different. They want to feel taken seriously. The risk with the women's unique needs approach is that, unless it is subtle and respectful, women feel stalked, not wooed."

User focus trumps product focus:
"For example, with cars, computers and consumer electronics (all categories where women make the majority of the purchases, incidentally), while a man may be mesmerized by the specs of high-tech widgets and gadgets, a woman is captivated by the person using the product."

Others matter:
"Not only that, but helping someone else, which isn't mission-critical for most men, is second nature for women."

Make the world a better place:
"She thinks you should be helping others as well. Numerous studies show women are more motivated than men by the goal of giving back"

Immersion instead of Topline:
"Whereas men 'see' more clearly when key information is extracted and ?extraneous details? discarded, women better absorb information when it's presented in context."

Show some emotion:
"Emotion-based advertising has a powerful pull for women -- people are always involved."