Melanie Howard, chair, Future Foundation
Melanie Howard, chair, Future Foundation during her visit to the second edition of Festival of Media Asia held in Singapore shared her viewpoints with DMA on what defines the female consumer here and how brands can tap into them.
Do you see any significant difference in the social media usage between female and male consumers? Do share some key insights.
Technology is proving to be a great equaliser between men and women in many markets in Asia, when talking about significances for social media usage between groups, it is more about the age and the social class effects than the variations between genders. In addition, we are seeing more significant difference about the pace of social network penetration between markets, it is not always the case that developed economies have the higher ratio of active social networkers; the usage can be more prominent among the online populations in developing economies.
Taking the APAC countries for example, both China and India have the highest percentage (over 80%) of social network populations for both genders among the urban middle class, while it is less than 60% in France and Germany. This may relate to ready availability of other means of communication and social context as much as other factors. It is clear that differences in social media use are also cultural as much within the region as between Asia and other parts of the world. Japan, consumers of both genders are not active social network users in the same way – as only around 30% of them user social networks regularly, and even less so, only 15% of Japanese consumers have used a social network service in the last six months to share something they have found online.
Relating commercial activities to social media usage, at present the so-called F-commerce remains a minority activity. Although as many as 30% in China and South Korea claim that they have purchased an item through a social networking site, the figure can fall as low as about 5% in Japan and urban India.
How different are the women consumers in this region compared to women in Europe or the US?
This is a very interesting question because there are number of competing pressures on women that are similar in every consumer society in the world. These arise from ever higher levels of education for girls resulting in a desire for professional fulfilment and the possibility of economic independence and autonomy as adults – which remains in fundamental conflict with the strong cultural and historical demand on women to be the main informal caregivers in society as wives, mothers and daughters. This is a battle that women have been facing in Europe and US for decades and whilst many advances have been made with better childcare provision and maternity leave practices, it remains a core contradiction in the lives of the majority of women, particularly those with young children. Nowhere in the world has yet achieved genuine pay equality between men and women, not even in Scandinavia which is the most advanced region, in terms of gender equality, in the world.
How would you define the female consumers in this region?
Middleclass women in Asia are reportedly sharing exactly the same concerns as their western counterparts. Through progressive liberalisation and education they have become more empowered and want to remain in the workplace, so now they face intense time pressures and the challenge of resolving the care issues for children and taking up imbalanced amount of household responsibilities too. Therefore they need products and services that save time, enhance convenience, intuitive, and don’t cost more, whilst helping them fulfil their personal aspirations, such as enjoying leisure time with friends, or being attractive and well dressed – we call this The Perfection of the Body and it is trend that is very strong in Asia.
For instance, women consumers in Asia are much more likely than Americans and Europeans to feel pressurised to look good at any age and this is evidently high in China, India and South Korea. In China, close to 70% of the urban middle class women would take whatever measures necessary to make themselves look better, whereas it is only around 25% in France and Spain.
Continuing from this mentality and combining the need for smart living, Asian female consumers are also much likely to use smart home appliances to facilitate a connected and better living and to achieve a healthier lifestyle. Around 80% of female consumers in China and India would be interested to use a fridge that could monitor the nutritional quality of the food their buy and automatically communicate with their local supermarket to order what is required for a balanced diet.
How is the changing female needs and behaviour impacting the male section of the society?
But it is important to say that growing middle class aspirations also put pressures on men too as often households will need both partners to be earning to fund better education for the children and fulfil the desire for better holidays and leisure as well as luxury and material goods. Things are changing rapidly and men will also find it difficult to make time for the greater active family commitments that a more egalitarian society requires they make – particularly in the area of childcare and even cooking. Also, when the economy is more depressed, such as in Japan, there are severe demands as our trend-spotter says: “In fact, with a lower economy, the husband and wife must both work so they can support their living expenses as well as for their children.”
The world is already different for many urban Asian couples and whilst attitudes may be behind the curve in Asia, this is because they take long time to percolate through to the wider population. Change is afoot and generally this will mean more freedom, increased independence of action for women in the longer term and with it greater choice and discretionary spending power in many consumer markets.
Which segment of women consumers are the biggest spenders and why
Our research focuses on the urban middle-classes, the rising consumer population that is forecast to double in China and quadruple in India over the coming decades. Because of the constraints and pressures on women once they are married and have children to put their family commitments first, the biggest spenders, apart from the minority that have very well paid husbands working in international business, top government jobs and new high tech enterprise, will be single educated working women in their twenties. Many of these will still be living at home and thus have considerable discretionary spending, as our Singapore trend-spotter says: ‘Young women living at home will spend money on luxury designer brands rather than save money to rent their own apartments.’
Also, it is inevitable looking ahead, there will be more examples of high powered women with successful careers who may prefer to remain single, or will be able to make enough money to afford all the childcare help they need. These women, like the growing number of Chinese female entrepreneurs today, will be high spenders and have greater influence on markets in the future – we are already seeing Chinese women consumers become strong independent economic actors in their own right and currently accounts for some 55% of luxury spend, outweighing that of male consumers.
What tactics would work best with them? How can brands look to connect with the women consumers here?
With the growing spending power and empowerment of women consumers, brands will have to understand in greater depth the complexity, diversity and constantly changing nature of the aspirations among women consumers. These dramatic shifts mean that brands will need to recognise and respond ahead of their competitors the need of a new and gender-specific marketing language and campaigns relevant to the women consumers ’ personal interests and lifestyle requirements arisen from their multiple roles at work, family and their social circles to really connect to the heart of women’s consumers.
One of our key trends is called “Native Marketing” in which many of the global brands have started and will have to transform themselves into the entertainment-provider, story-teller, fun-facilitator to connect to the consumers especially on the social media spaces. This shift of marketing language, strategies and platforms is backed by the contextual driver of women consumers’ media consumption that they are willing to communicate and interact with their preferred brands/ companies for advanced, first hand and exclusive information and offers. There is always strong potential for brands to transform women consumers into brand advocates/ ambassadors – and keep their brand loyalty. Incentive is a key element in this direct and instant form of brand-consumer communication, as a consistent pattern among the global female consumers, they will be at least twice as willing to contribute to ideas for the creation of a brand’s new products, advertising or marketing campaign if there is some form of rewards or incentive.
We have identified a number of brands that have developed successful involving campaigns in the region that have reconciled women’s competing interests and demands which I will be talking about at the Festival of Media, these include Docomo’s The Shelf Sharing Lounge in Japan, Adidas campaigns using Charlene Choi in Hong Kong and the Hada Memori mobile app which records your skin tone in Japan.
