Marketers fail to impress women: Study

NEW DELHI: Women control two-thirds of the global consumption expenditure of $18 trillion, yet the world’s marketers have failed to impress the fairer sex, says a study by the Boston Consulting Group.

Women, whose buying power is much larger than the total consumer spending in India and China, are dissatisfied with the marketing efforts in categories such as financial services, cars, banking, investments and life insurance, according to the study, ‘Women Want More’, which surveyed 15,000 women across the world including 5,000 in Asia.

More than 40% of the respondents were found to be unhappy with these categories, Boston Consulting Group (BCG) Partner & Director Abheek Singhi said in an AdAsia session, Marketing to Women Consumers in Asia. Time is the single biggest challenge for woman consumers in India and China, which was aggravated by responsibility for the vast majority of household chores, said Singhi who made a joint presentation with BCG Senior Partner & MD Yeonhee Kim.

Kim said women in India and China consider the demands of time as their primary challenge, while the Japanese are more concerned about aging gracefully. Managing household and finances was top of the mind for Indian and Japanese women, but for Chinese women the greatest hassle was not having enough time for themselves. While Indian women are willing to trade up for food, the Chinese are more concerned about personal care.

However, women in Asia control a smaller proportion of the household spend than their western counterparts. In Japan, women control 63% of the household’s total consumption, while it is 50% in China and 44% in India.