Here are the results:

Top 20 Most Desired Brands in the World: Women

1. Johnson & Johnson
2. Sony
3. Kleenex
4. National Geographic
5. MasterCard
6. Google
7. Amazon
8. Visa
9. General Electric
10. Toshiba
11. Crest
12. Microsoft
13. Disney
14. Target
15. Tropicana
16. BMW
17. Febreze
18. Ford
19. Olay
20. Chase

Top 20 Most Desired Brands in the World: Men

1. Crest
2. BMW
3. National Geographic
4. Panasonic
5. Hyundai
6. Kleenex
7. Coca-Cola
8. Microsoft
9. Tide
10. Lexus
11. Apple
12. Bed Bath & Beyond
13. Ford
14. Animal Planet
15. Hitachi
16. Mercedes-Benz
17. FedEx
18. Procter & Gamble
19. Hallmark
20. Geico

You can read the entire article on the study, but some questions came to mind as I reviewed the results.

• Are these really the most desired brands in the world?  According the article, the survey was given to consumers in America and Japan.
• The survey was presented to 5,000 consumers.  Were they evenly divided among gender?  Among country?
• What were the qualifications for brand identity?  There seems to be a mixture of conglomerate brands and product brands – for example, Proctor & Gamble, which owns Tide.

Finally: How were survey questions posed to consumers?  Were questions worded differently for women than men?  Female consumers definitely speak a different language than male consumers.

The reason I ask this is because I was so surprised at the results in the men’s category.  Tide is a more “desired” brand than Lexus?  Bed Bath & Beyond?  And it beats Mercedes?

While I appreciate the time and effort put into this survey, I strongly question the methodology and results.  Not having had an opportunity to view the study’s platform or parameters, my marketing intuition tells me that it was either hastily put together or created without regard for posing questions in a language suitable for each gender.

What do you think?  How do these lists reflect with your own “desire?”  I’d particularly love to hear from the men out there.

It’s how you work the page that strengthens the relationship with customers.

Let’s say you’ve created a Facebook page for your business, but now you don’t know what to do with it.

Here are 5 basic elements you can use over and over, that will build exposure for your business, create dialogue between you and the consumer, and connect customers with each other:

1) Ask questions.  Once or twice a week, post an question that is relevant to your business, and interesting to your customers.

Have you tried meditation? Was it relaxing? Was it hard to relax? What worked for you to keep yourself in the present? (Naturopathica Skin Care)

How have you or your child accessorized their Strider? (Strider Running Bikes)

2)  Let your fans ask questions. Once in awhile, put up a post encouraging your fans to ask questions and/or request help.  It builds trust between you and your fans, encourages dialogue, and places you as the expert in your field.  It also creates conversations between customers and builds community (take a look at Pandora Jewelry’s page – wow!).

3)  Post videos. You don’t need a fancy video set-up – a simple Flip camera or your iPhone camera will do.  Post a short video (no more than two minutes) on a topic relevant to your business – one that will educate the customer.  They’re fun, easy, and add a new dimension of personality to your business (check out WiseGrass for some great examples)

4)  Hold contests. Get your fans involved in posting photos or videos according to a topic you decide in advance.  Own a home/office organization company?  Hold a “messiest closet” contest (winner gets two free hours of organization help).  Run a bookstore?  Have fans list their “desert island” book list (best one wins a gift card to the store).

5)  Last, but not least, offer discounts and special events for Facebook friends only. Give them a “secret password” to use at the counter for an extra 20% off.  Invite them to a special cocktail hour with a renowned author.  At least once a month, offer your fans something that is only for them.  Once they catch on, word-of-mouth will spread and your fan base will grow exponentially.

Facebook is free and it’s a tool you should be using everyday. If you take these 5 ideas and rotate them on a regular basis, you may never need another Facebook idea again.

How are you using Facebook?  Share in the comments below!

In 2011, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will celebrate the 40^th anniversary of the crash test dummy.

Finally, this year, they have created a female version of the dummy for use in testing the safety of all brands of vehicles.

“In the past only male dummies were used and we know that obviously a lot of women are passengers or drivers in those cars,” said Roy LaHood, Secretary of Transportation.

Adrian Lund, from the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety, said, “Smaller people have their seats further forward — that tends to put their heads right in the middle of the window. There’s nothing between their heads and whatever is coming in from outside.”

While I’m happy to hear the news, I never fail to be amazed at the length of time it takes for attention to women – be it test dummies, earning power, or smart marketing – to catch up to the attention paid to men.

Here’s hoping that this new step will cause the death rate from auto accidents to decline even further than it has.

I have.  I first saw it last week.  And I almost didn’t blog about it.  Not because it has to do with menstrual products, but because it is a marketing strategy of such baffling proportion that I didn’t know where to start.

The first draft of this post was a balls-out rant about the video series.  But there are others out there who have commented on the topic with much sharper wit than I can ever hope to have.

Instead, I thought I would share my observations on why this campaign is an EPIC FAIL.

First, watch this video.  Then read on.

1. It’s an obvious attempt to ride the coattails of the wildly successful Old Spice Guy commercials.  The ad agency determined that lowest common denominator was buffed men without shirts, and assumed that women would respond in the same way as they did for Old Spice.

2. The videos don’t know what they want to be.  Are they supposed to be amusing?  Tongue-in-cheek?  Sympathetic?  Arousing?  Attractive?  Informative?  You tell me, because I can’t figure it out.  And if it’s confusing, it certainly isn’t persuasive.

3. The actors don’t give a s*** about the customer.  Watch them.  At some point in every one of these videos, the actor’s eyes glaze over, and you can almost read his mind.  I performed Hamlet in the park last year.  THIS is what I went to Juilliard drama school for? So, guess what?  The customer doesn’t give a s*** about them… or the brand.

4. The videos go on FOREVER, without getting anywhere.  With the exception of that guy on YouTube who had a nuclear meltdown over Britney Spears a few years ago, I don’t think I’ve ever had three minutes go by so slowly.

5. The creepy factor is off the chart.  Many women feel that having men featured in campaigns for feminine products will never work – especially when they’re presented in campaigns like this.  To go from seduction to menstruation in the blink of an eye (not to mention god-awful symbolism that pops up throughout the videos) creeps out a potential customer, and it plants the “DO NOT BUY AT ANY COST” seed in the brains of the very customers the brand is trying to attract.

I thought maybe I was being an “old lady” about this issue, and asked several young college-aged women whom I highly respect to watch the series and comment.  They were unanimously appalled.  As one of these women (enrolled at the Annenberg School of Journalism at USC) commented, “…no woman would ever trust a man to tell her which type of pad to use.  HOW WOULD HE KNOW?! That being said, I think viral videos can be very effective, but these videos really miss the mark in my opinion.”

I’ll leave you with the other two videos in the series.  Stayfree has created a viral campaign, alright but in my opinion, for all the wrong reasons.

Good thing Stayfree has millions to spend on advertising – they’re going to need it.

Between 2002 and 2007, the number of majority-owned (51%+), women-owned businesses rose by 20%, to 7.8 million.

If you’re interested, the ethnic breakdown looks like this:

• Caucasian:  50%
• African-American:  34%
• Latina:  9%
• Asian:  7%

While this report doesn’t account for the economic downturn of the past couple of years, the fact that women haven’t been as affected as heavily as men by job loss (combined with cultural shifts in which more women are choosing to work from home), is probably holding this number fairly steady.

Here’s what I find to be the most interesting part of the report: An economic impact study (in collaboration with WalMart), estimates that women-owned businesses contribute more than $3 trillion to the economy, even though only 20% of those businesses have employees.

That leaves 80% of women who have started their own businesses and work on their own.

That means you have a tremendous opportunity to position your product or service not only for consumers, but female business owners as well.

Take the garden center, which could easily create a corner display within the nursery to feature low maintenance plants that are perfect for the office.

Or the cleaning service that could offer a “Home Office Only” package.  A woman always thinks of cleaning the rest of the house for the family, but neglects her own office. It’s a great way to get your foot in the door to persuade her to hire you for the whole house.

How about a meal prep service that delivers a “Work From Home” series of healthy lunches once a week?  She can just pull one out of the freezer, pop it in the microwave, and then work while she eats.

I’ll bet you can come up with a half-dozen ideas on how your company can serve those women working on their own.

Let’s see… 80% of 7.8 million is 6.2 million women-owned businesses.

Is that enough customers for you?

I strongly encourage you to read the lengthy article (which you can do online), especially if you have daughters that will someday be entering the workforce.  But I thought I’d share some of statistics from the article that back up Ms. Rosin’s explanation of “how women got control – of everything.”

• In fertilization clinics, reports for “sperm selection to choose the sex of a child” (most still in clinical trials), runs 75% girls, 25% boys.
• A 2006 study measured the economic and political power of women in 162 countries.  In almost all cases, the greater the power of women, the greater the country’s economic success.
• In our current Great Recession, 75% of the 8 million jobs lost were those belonging to men.
• For every two men who receive a B.A. this year, three women will do the same.
• Of the 15 job categories projected to grow the most in the next decade, all but two are dominated by women.

Statistics like these, combined with the socio-economic and cultural shifts that trend toward a matriarchal society, mean that just about every tradition – from fatherhood to breadwinner to bill payer – is changing in a big way.

Just something to think about over your morning coffee… and something to start preparing for in planning ahead for the future of your business.

There is one sure-fire way to drive my husband nuts – ask him the following question:

“Do you smell that?”

He is instantly on alert, sniffing and scrambling like a Jack Russell Terrier on the hunt for a rawhide chewy.  He goes crazy trying to detect the smell while I describe the particular components of the odor.  “It’s like a fried egg with a hint of cinnamon, wrapped in a bouquet of kitchen cleanser.”  Inevitably, my husband gives up the chase, convinced that no such smell exists and I’m one cupcake shy of a full dozen.

Actually, I’m not (at least where smell is concerned).  Studies like a recent one conducted at Cardiff University report that when it comes to odor detection, women have a much more elaborate sense of smell thanks to elevated levels of estrogen in the body. And not only do women have a heightened sense of smell:  MRIs show that women link those smells to emotion, storing those feelings in the right brain of emotional and long-term memory.

What kind of smells does your retail location or office expend?

If it’s moldy, you’re in trouble; likewise, any one of myriad odors can trigger the “don’t feel good about this business” button in a female customer.  Realtors have known about the importance of smell for years – just visit any open house on a Sunday afternoon and you’re likely to encounter a warm batch of chocolate chip cookies on the kitchen counter.

Consider taking a group of women through your location and have them tell you what they smell (it won’t work to do it yourself, even if you’re a woman – your nose is too familiar what it encounters everyday).  Then, determine what you can do to improve it.  But be careful – don’t make things too “sterile.”  I once had a pet-store client that was so focused on the cleanliness of the store that it smelled like a medical facility.  We had to introduce a new smell (cedar) to subliminally change the customer’s perception.

The nose knows… what would her nose tell her about you?

A just-released study from the Pew Research Center indicates that the demographics of motherhood are changing in important ways – ways that should influence how you will advertise and market to this segment of customers.

• Between 1990 and 2008, the percentage of mothers younger than 20 dropped from 13% to 10%
• In the same time period, mothers older than 35 grew from 9% to 14%
• The Hispanic mother segment grew from 14% to 24%
• The Asian mother segment grew from 3% to 6%
• The percentage of married mothers dropped 13% – from a high of 72% in 1990, to only 59% in 2008

And (politics aside), population trends show that it’s likely that by 2050, 82% of the nation’s population growth will be accounted for by immigrants who arrived in the U.S. after 2005 (along with their descendents).

You’re going to have to start looking at the life stage these older mothers are in when having babies, which is much different than when they’re in their early 20’s.  Time horizons change, and you’re going to have to do a strong job of persuading her that you are a long-term brand she’ll love.

You’re going to have to learn about cultures different from your own (especially if you’re Caucasian) and create new ways and new messages that make you relevant in the customer’s life.  It won’t be enough (hey, it isn’t enough NOW) to simply translate your message into Spanish.  You will have to read and learn about Hispanic culture (just to name one), think about the values of that culture and how it views the concept of “family.”  Believe me: it’s going to require a whole new set of messages.

More and more, you’re going to have to fit into her life, not shout at her that she has to fit into yours.

Now is the time to start thinking about how your “marketing to moms” strategy is going to have to change. If you do, and if you keep working at it, you’ll definitely be able to navigate an unavoidable curve in the road ahead.

Have a little fun on this Friday and take the CramerSweeney Smart Marketing IQ Test.

As the homepage says, you’ll be measured through 20 questions in 4 different brand intelligence areas.

Take the test here.

I scored 95%, which makes me a genius.  How did you do?

A new Harris interactive poll, conducted by iVillage, shows the power of the Internet for women when it comes to research – in this case, health and medical issues.

While the information is not too surprising, it does play directly into your own business’ online presence, no matter what your industry.

• 49% of women surveyed say that anonymity and the opportunity to interact with other online members on a specific topic are what drive them to the Internet first when researching a health or medical issue.  Only 25% say they would go to a doctor first.




• Online peers helped 31% of the women (and 39% of mothers) with a specific issue.




• 30% of women say that the Internet research helps them be more fully prepared when visiting a doctor’s office.

This survey is a good example of how women are utilizing the Internet on an increasing level of frequency and depth; this information can also be applied to any industry.

Here are three things to think about:

1.  It’s the perfect place for conducting customer research. Do some Internet searches for forums that are related to your specific industry, and spend quality time reading what others have to say.  The “language” that women use in talking about your general product or service will give you an idea of how to create your message.  What words or phrases keep popping up?  Are you using them in your messaging, or have you fallen into the trap of industry jargon that means absolutely nothing to the customer?

2.  Find the gaps. Reading what others write and help each other with will show you areas where you may be missing out on important opportunities.  What are some of the most common questions and pieces of advice online?  Find the gaps between what your customer needs and what you can offer, and fill them.

3.  Become the portal for information. As Dr. Roland Goertz says, when it comes to your area of expertise, you need to become the portal for the right information.  Create a list of trusted online advice and offer it to your customers when you see them in person; you should also have it available on your website.  Trust me – customers remember who it was that directed them to helpful information, automatically ratcheting your “credibility” rating up a few notches.

Finally, don’t paint yourself into a corner by only paying attention to surveys and studies within your industry.  Statistics and human behavior findings in other fields are important for helping you understand trends and prioritize marketing strategies.