They might just as well be men . . . Are women who work in marketing making things better for female consumers? Research by FutureBrand suggests not. As part of interviews into women's views on advertising, we talked to 150 women from five, broadly drawn groups. These were: women over size 16; over-50s; lesbians; professional working women; and, separately, women working in advertising, branding, communications or design. The group that felt most alienated from conventional marketing was lesbians, although the size 16+s felt almost as disconnected.

It's noteworthy that the latter group, which constitutes around half of all UK women, should feel almost as negative as a group that comprises an estimated 5%. By contrast, the audience that felt most adequately represented was the marketers. Some 67% of this group felt that ads were aimed at women like them, compared to an average among the four other groups of 49%. It is startling that, while one in 10 lesbians and women size 16+, and one in 12 professional working women thought that none of the ads they saw was targeted at them, not a single woman in marketing we interviewed felt that way.

Only 29% of marketing women believe the industry is misogynistic, but 64% of them feel it is their responsibility to change attitudes. Is it not curious that as female marketers we are willing to help change things, even if we don't really think there's a problem in the first place? So, in what ways are marketers failing to connect with female audiences?

Overall, women professionals felt represented in ads. But when they were asked to name brands that spoke to them as business women, they could not do so. They felt less able than their male counterparts to compartmentalise their lives. Men, they said, were much more able to disengage from the home when they were in the office and could view the weekend as pure leisure time. By contrast, professional women talked about the reality of ordering groceries online while talking to a client on the phone or using weekends to catch up on household chores. To these professional women, it felt as if business-to-business brands were marketing to the whole man in his office environment, but only to part of a woman in the same setting.

As one woman put it: ‘I am all four characters of Sex and the City rolled into one, plus a bit of Dawn French, Carol Vorderman, Mo Mowlam and Anita Roddick.' B2B brands are not marketing to that woman in all her facets. For lesbians, there was the perennial issue of being part of a minority. By definition, mainstream marketing almost never deals with feelings of exclusion. Most branding is about conformity, in a world where sexuality is almost always heterosexuality and on-screen families are of a highly conventional variety. For women over 50, the disconnect between advertising and the reality of their lives is improving. Brands such as Saga have targeted this group, and our research showed the approach was resonating well.

(As an aside, only 4% of the women marketers we interviewed described themselves as aged over 40 - a reflection, perhaps, of a wider ageism in the industry) For women over size 16 the disconnect is clear. More than half of size 16+ women took the view that fashion brands and their use of super-thin models undermined women's self-confidence. This issue was highlighted by all groups bar the female marketers, where only 35% agreed. And whereas 36% of size 16+ women said fashion brands contributed to anorexia, only 11% of the marketers thought so. Drill down and there appears to be another discrepancy of view. Some 93% of women in marketing feel shops cater for women their size. This is not surprising given that 76% of women in marketing describe themselves as a size 12 or less, and not one described herself as over size 16. Remember, 47% of UK women are a size 16 or more.

And the discrepancy between women in the marketing fields and our other groups came through in their brand preferences, too. Overall, there were only two brands that all women asked associated with enhanced self-esteem: The Body Shop and Dove. As women in marketing, we are not only out of touch but we are too aware of the tactics of marketers to think like consumers. Even if women in marketing saw the need for change - which they do not - and even if they were willing to help bring it about - which they generally are - it could be argued that they would still not be able to change on the basis of personal experience alone.

For once, women's intuition won't work. We need to approach marketing to women as we might approach marketing to men: by admitting that we don't understand them, aren't very much like them, want to get inside their heads and need to connect with them better. Brands should see this as a major opportunity. The playing field is wide open for brands to capture women's hearts by promoting - rather than plundering - their self-esteem. Source: Jasmine Montgomery (2004) Financial Times, 5 October. Reprinted with permission.

Question
1. Imagine you are a buyer working for a large department store that sells ranges of women's clothes. What use could you make of the information contained in this study? How might you pass on such information to sales staff in the store so that they are better equipped to deal with customers?