For Some, The Secret To Success: Listening To Women

Diane Boulanger opened her Boston-area agency in March 2001 with a focus on technology. Her timing was, admittedly, off."I found that was just dead," said Boulanger, who left Leo Burnett's former Boston office, where she was creative director, in 2000. "I realized there wasn't money there."The money was, as she found out, in advertising aimed at women. In the fall of 2003, after getting project work from hospitality clients including a day spa and restaurants that catered to women, Boulanger & Associates shifted its focus to strategy and creative for the female target audience.The shop is still small, but Boulanger credits the new direction with helping boost revenue to a projected $1 million for this year (up from $300,000 in 2003), and doubling staff from five to 10. The latest payoff came earlier this month, when Loews Cineplex tapped the Dedham, Mass., based company to handle marketing for the chain's in-theater program for new mothers called "Reel Moms."Boulanger hasn't been alone in recognizing an opportunity in targeting women—indeed, many of the general market agencies have taken aim at this target audience. But with the promise of reaching women in a more savvy and thoughtful way, a handful of shops, consultancies and units of bigger agencies have opened in recent years with the sole focus of the female consumer. Mary Lou Quinlan, a former CEO of N.W. Ayer and director of sales and advertising at Avon, launched a consultancy called Just Ask a Woman in 1999 in New York. "All those years, I didn't feel like we listened to women as well as we could have," Quinlan said. "Women have so much to say, and agencies and clients are only half-listening."Statistics certainly back the concept. Women purchase 83 percent of all products and services, and account for 88 percent of all retail customers in the U.S., according to a study by the Business Women's Network in 2004. That's an attractive market for small shops struggling to stand apart."My perception is [female-targeting agencies] is an emerging angle," said Chris Colbert, chief marketing officer at consultancy Pile and Co. in Boston. "It makes sense to specialize in the target—here's an opportunity to be brilliant about a certain market."Just Ask a Woman, which has a staff of four, has worked with major clients including Best Buy, Yahoo, Estée Lauder, General Motors, Procter & Gamble and GlaxoSmithKline. The shop offers research from a combination of proprietary methodologies: Just Ask a Woman Live, a two-hour, talk-show-format focus group complete with scripts; an inside audit involving interviews with client employees; and Just Ask a Woman Collective, a database of 4,000 women from which the shop can get real-time feedback on any given brand or product. The agency's work for Best Buy includes strategic consulting on the chain's "customer-centric" stores, which focus on different demographics, including "Jill" for busy suburban moms. One conclusion of this work was that women, contrary to the stereotype, are in fact interested in buying consumer electronics. But because it's one of the only types of stores their husbands enjoy, "the trick is to take the chore out of it" and make it fun, said Quinlan.Jeff Larson, senior brand manager at P&G Beauty Care, turned to Just Ask a Woman on a yet-to-launch product under the Clairol brand (handled by WPP Group's Grey in New York) last fall because of the qualitative research the shop had done on women. "Just Ask a Woman brought another perspective to our consumer understanding, which complemented the strong insights Grey has helped us develop," Larson said.Interpublic Group's Mullen in Wenham, Mass., formed a specialty unit called Frank About Women three years ago. "We realized it was an area of the market that was still underserviced," said managing director Janie Curtis. "[There is] still an enormous amount of stereotyping going on (in ads). Marketing didn't reflect women's reality. It seemed there was a huge untapped opportunity there."But the category is not an automatic gold mine. Independent Callahan Creek in Lawrence, Kan., launched women-focused Prerogative in September 2001. "I wouldn't say it's been spectacular growth," said agency CEO Cindy Maude. "It was a tight couple of years. But [Prerogative] has certainly been positive for us in the way we work with clients and instrumental in getting new business." The unit has won work from Children's Mercy Hospitals and Clinics in Kansas City and H&R Block.Consumer shops aren't the only ones to give the specialty a try. Late last year, independent b-to-b shop Quiller & Blake in Buffalo, N.Y., started a new unit called F.E.M. (Female Engineered Marketing). This month F.E.M. launched its first national campaign, a public awareness effort for ovarian cancer, said general manager Emily Spensieri.Boulanger's shop developed a proprietary database on female consumers and presented research from this on spending habits to Loews last year. The shop won the project (spending on which was not disclosed) earlier this month without a review. (Loews' lead agency is The Ad Store in New York, and the client spent about $11 million on ads last year, according to Nielsen Monitor-Plus.) "We think that women in general are a very important consumer group," said John McCauley, svp marketing at Loews in New York. "Being aware of that, we felt it was very appropriate to elevate the ['Reel Moms'] program by bringing in an agency that has a specific focus on women."

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For Some, The Secret To Success: Listening To Women

Lisa Van Der Pool

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Lisa Van Der Pool