The current way companies appeal to women is to take a male product and paint it pink. –Michael Silverstein, a partner at Boston Consulting Group
First, I feel the need to make the economic argument for why marketing to women matters. The World Bank predicts that the earning power of women will hover around $18 trillion by 2014, which is $5 trillion increase in current income, and more than double the estimated GDP for growing economic forces like India and China combined.
And if that wasn’t enough to convince you that women make an enormous market for business, check out a few of these facts courtesy of Think Progress:
60% of American women are now the primary or co-breadwinner of the family
87% of women hold at least four years of high school or higher education as compared to 86% of men.
58% of undergraduate degrees in the US were awarded to women in 2010.
78% of mothers with children between 6 and 17 years of age are in the US labor force.
Now without getting into a feminist argument about the fact that women earn only 77 cents for every dollar a man in the US economy earns, a statistic that has virtually gone unchanged over the last 10 years; or the fact that only 12% of Fortune 500 CEOs are female, let’s explore the economic viability of marketing to women. A vastly under served market.
The long awaited sequel to Twilight is New Moon starring Rob Pattinson as Edward Cullen (go Team Edward), Kristen Stewart as Bella Swan and Taylor Lautner as Jacob Black had a killer weekend opening. Reports state that the second in the movie franchise collected $140.7 million this past opening weekend which puts it third on the all time list in the US.
My sons and I looked forward greatly to attending the film. I bought our tickets a week ahead of time for a Saturday afternoon showing. We sat in a packed theater, too close to the screen and endured screaming teenage girls throughout the entire movie.
Only one of my sons had read the book. I wasn’t certain if someone who hadn’t read the story would enjoy the movie but he absolutely did.
The story seemed to move slowly and yet contained all the necessary scenes and dialogue to capture the novel. New Moon was my least favorite of the books so I was reluctantly looking forward to the film. The production values have improved tremendously over Twilight and I for one appreciated the larger feel of the film. (more…)
Okay, I admit it. Much to the embarrassment of most of my family, I am a Twilight Junkie.
I’ve read all four of Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight saga books, twice. Not to mention the internet only manuscript of Midnight Sun. I check out the latest gossip on the New Moon filming and look forward with great anticipation to 11.20.09 for the opening of Twilight #2. My desktop image is the New Moon poster released by Summit last week.
I’ve had in depth conversations with my 12 year old niece as well as several teenage fans of the series and I just can’t shake it. I know that I’ll eventually get over it, but until then, I plan to enjoy!
