Forgotten but not Gone

by Mary Lou Quinlan
Published May 21, 2009 in Moms & Family, Retail

Today’s WSJ has a great piece by Christina Binkley, whose columns are always a favorite destination. Her contention in “Forgotten Market Online: Older Women” is that although women over 35 are responsible for 65% of online fashion purchases, most apparel sites target 18-34 year olds and forget the woman with the bigger waistline and wallet. She points to examples of ensembles that are so young, and online tactics, so teenager-y, that a mature woman would sooner go naked than click on.

She writes, “After the initial fun is over, weather forecasts, friends’ groups, and video can seem gimmicky, and when the sites present youthful styles like that pintucked T-shirt and tights to a grown woman headed to the office on Monday morning, they can seem downright disconnected.”

She notes brands that are trying to reach out with tactics like models who show how clothes fit or custom-measuring systems that could take a tailor to input. I’d like to cast a different vote on this. Stop cheesy “older woman” targeting. Start selling me great clothes.

Over the past year or so, my online apparel buying has escalated, especially for deals, and it’s got nothing to do with complicated, fit-to-measure sites. Instead, I turn to brands I know or super deals like I get on ruelala.com or bluefly.com.

I like when Nordstrom.com simply asks if your body is straight or apple shaped, which any 40 something knows with her eyes closed. I worry that if sites start uber-catering to women over 40 as if they are clueless about what looks good on them or offering Internet version of boomer chit chat, they will fail as miserably as Gap’s Forth & Towne, a retail concept that assumed that women over 40 thought they looked over 40.

My message to the hidebound apparel industry: Wake up. Midlife women want well-made, on-trend, consistently-sized, good quality clothes that are well-priced for what they are. We love a bargain. We’re glad to try a trend (if return shipping is free) and we’re super loyal to brands that like us. Catalog brands like Acacia, Garnet Hill and Athleta, all inspire us to buy stuff that make us feel eco, homey or fit. Love our complexity. Respect our smarts about our bodies. Realize we know trend from fad (especially the second time around.) Our minds are open. Is your store?

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Unrequited Marketing

by Mary Lou Quinlan
Published May 14, 2009 in Retail

OK, TV time. I woke up around dawn on Tuesday and said to my sound-asleep husband, “Do you think that House and Cuddy never really got together last night?” He groaned, “I’m asleep.” Now, if you’re not a fan of “House”, see ya later.  

But if you are, you may be one of the millions of women suckered into believing that at long last Vicodin-addicted, miserable Gregory House and Dr. Lisa Cuddy, cool and smoldering hospital head, had, well… But just when things heated up, turns out it was all his drug-induced hallucination. Huh? 

I thought I was the only woman feeling jilted until I read Ginia Bellafante’s review. The plot was purely created to snag the hearts of their female audience and then dump them at the altar. Bellafante explained, “The producers of ‘House’ don’t care about our fantasies and instead poured a big bucket of Freon on our mushy sucker hearts. ‘House’ treats women who watch it the way House treats women generally: It mocks them for any genuine emotional investment.” Wow!  

Is this the idea behind brands that seduce women by making fun of them, like Coors or Doritos? Or, as a strategy, could a brand actually be like the character of Gregory House, the product we love because it doesn’t love us back? Tapping into something so powerful, our urge to redeem the heartbreaker, might be a cool marketing idea. Unless it keeps us up at night. What do you think?

Tags: Psychology, Television

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“Bribing” Bloggers to give Positive Reviews

by Jen Drexler
Published May 1, 2009 in Retail

So Brandweek writes that General Mills recruited bloggers through their site myblogspark.com so General Mills could send free products and coupons to bloggers for their reviews. Sounds reasonable, right? Well what about the part where bloggers have to agree basically to only write positive/neutral things about their products.  Actual language … “If you feel you cannot write a positive post regarding the product or service, please contact the MyBlogSpark team before posting any content.”

Why is this wrong?

• Because it gives bloggers a bad name as shills for free swag. Liz from Mom 101 describes this phenomenon best in a plea to mom bloggers to act like professionals
• Because they also don’t insist that the bloggers tell their readers that they are getting the products for free

So kudos to General Mills for the effort to engage new media but I think it is back to the drawing board on policies.

Tags: Bloggers, Product reviews

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Double-Digit Deals

by Jean Crawford
Published April 29, 2009 in New Ideas, Retail

I love to shop. I know it’s best to shop a sale and use coupons, but at the end of the day if I really want something I will buy it and find a way to justify the price-dividing it by the number of projected times I will wear it, calculating a per-day-usage cost, etc. As Stuart Elliott wrote in the Times earlier this week, not only are shoppers today looking for a good deal, they’re looking for a steal. Where the normal sale used to be 50% off consumers are now holding off for much higher percentages, going above and beyond what I imagined a sale could ever be!

While I understand shoppers practicing patience and looking for the best bargain I’ve cut back on shopping for a different reason-SALE OVERLOAD. I can’t walk down the street without seeing huge banners and percentage signs left and right. How do I know which deal is really the best? How can I possibly keep track of every sale? Are there any cheat sheets in the store to quickly calculate the lowest price for me so I can compare it to the competition? Instead of waiting for the right percentage off, I hate to admit I’m waiting for the sales madness to cease.

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Harper’s Bazaaro

by Jean Crawford
Published April 1, 2009 in Retail

Last January while signing up for W magazine I quickly got tricked into clicking on Lucky magazine and it automatically charged to my credit card. Reasoning that $12 wouldn’t break the bank, I decided not to cancel and enjoy a full year of Lucky. This year when I got a letter saying that the subscription would be automatically renewed again on my credit card I figured, “why not, go ahead.” But as I surveyed my small room, I found that magazines were taking over- W, Lucky, TimeOut, New York, USWeekly, INStyle… I figured something had to give. The first week of January I got a note in the mail: 

“Dear subscriber, when you ordered your subscription with the convenience of being billed later, we fully believed you would send payment upon receipt of your invoice.”  

WHAT?! I had never chosen ‘bill me later’ in my life! Why did I receive such an invoice? I continued reading: 

“Since we have no record of your payment at this time, your good standing with us is at risk.” OH NO, is this going to affect my credit? (sadly, the first thing that went through my mind). “You can resolve this matter quickly and easily by returning the subscription invoice with your payment in the enclosed envelope.”  

I instantly flashed to the invoice and saw it was dated 1/24/09. How many others were sent? It did not say. Who can I get on the phone? No customer service number. I knew this must be some sort of mistake; the small kind of mistake that I hate myself for never being able to ignore. My investigation began online…it listed the date my subscription began, the last copy sent and the start issue: March 10, 2009-HUH? I glanced at the invoice and saw ‘first issue” March 10, 2009. There was no mention online of unpaid bills, only this new subscription they wanted me to sign up for.   I immediately canceled online and was fuming.  

Am I stupid or naive? Is this how the magazine industry works? If so, why do I not get a nasty letter from every other magazine I subscribe to?  

The letter ended “We look forward to hearing from you.” 

If Harper’s heard from me, my letter would say, “Shame on you, Harper’s, for making me think I missed a bill, getting me angry and for making me go through all this effort in the interest of $12.” 

I still have no idea what happened.  All I know is tricking women into buying your product is never correct; we want honesty, no ifs, ands, or invoices.

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Gender Screw Up: PostScript to The Lady or the Spaniel

by Mary Lou Quinlan
Published February 12, 2009 in Retail

Last night I asked my husband Joe, a fellow dog lover, if he had looked at my just posted blog about Stump. And he read it and said, “Stump’s not a girl.” After the embarrassment of realizing I had heard the Westminster announcer wrong, and just blogged away without doing the backup research, I decided to pull down the post.

But then I thought, in an era when even US presidents can admit “I screwed up” about picking tax evading Cabinet members, I would ‘fess up to my mistake here.

But you know why I thought Stump was female? Because she, I mean he, has the steadfast characteristics that I associate with women. My friend Nancy, when told that Stump was a boy, wrote, “Too funny and a shame. Just assumed Stump was a female because of (her) persistence and stamina.”

So, I wonder, as women, are we guilty of seeing women in a more positive light? But if that’s so, why am I giving pretty Bar such a hard time?

Tags: Psychology

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Working Women Want to Be Organized, really?

by Jen Drexler
Published February 4, 2009 in Retail

Kudos to Office Depot for their support of women in business.  They have a robust program with resources for business owners, access to an all female advisory board and in the past they have also staged big conferences with big names in business (which we would like to speak at BTW).  So I will gladly award points for that.

BUT shame on Office Depot for releasing the most common sense survey results ever.  When you do a survey and your most insightful learning is that working moms want to be more organized you should just cut your losses and move on.  Check out the survey here if you really must see this for yourself.  More “thank you captain obvious” findings include: Working moms are cutting back on household spending (84%), taking on more household responsibilities (60%) and want to be more organized this year (87%).  Oh and BTW water is wet and ice is cold.

Tags: women in business, working moms

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Why I Love my Mobile WSJ

by Jen Drexler
Published January 21, 2009 in Retail

So after some nagging from DH, I downloaded The Wall Street Journal’s mobile reader to my BlackBerry and I’m surprised how much I’m enjoying this program.  Basically you end up with this great button on your phone that connects you to headlines from the WSJ.  You can pick which sections you care about (for me that is Life, Tech, Columns and some key words like marketing and women), scroll through headlines and abstracts and then pick the articles you want to read in full.  I like this because it makes the news truly mobile for me.  This isn’t just a link to www.wsj.com but it is a real compilation of news snippets that I can access even when I don’t have any cell service like on the subway or on the plane.  The service is fast, user friendly and even a little bit fun.  Bravo WSJ for reconnecting me to your brand and giving me another toy to play with on my sacredly treasured BlackBerry.

Tags: Wall Street Journal

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No Stamp Needed

by Jen Drexler
Published January 8, 2009 in Retail

So I am the queen of writing letters when I feel I have had a  poor customer service experience (I write them when I have a good experience,too). I have written such letters for friends and family and I have been almost unilaterally pleased with the responses from companies. Home Depot agreed that having to go to their store 42 times for a bathroom renovation was worth some rebated money.  The Ritz in Naples, FL offered my mother in law a brunch on the house to make up for a disappointing dining experience.  My mother recently reminded me of a letter I wrote at 8 years old complaining about a Tootsie Pop that was tootsie-less.  I even taped said stick to the letter. I still remember getting the coupon for a free replacement bag and feeling vindicated.

But now customer service letter writing has a new twist – you don’t even have to send your letter anymore to get resolution.  For instance, a blog that I read pretty regularly called A Day in My Life chronicles the trials and tribulations of a very cool California mother of three whose husband has been deployed for the better part of the last year.  A few days ago, she wrote about a horrific customer service experience she had going to Sea World with her teenager and toddler twins.  In a nutshell, the admissions staff wouldn’t give her the military rate for her family due to a technicality even though she has been there many times in the past and been given the rate without question.  So she vented on her blog in the form of a letter to Sea World but life got in the way and she never got around to sending it.  Well wouldn’t you know that somehow, someway that post made it into the right hands at Sea World! Within a day they contacted her to rectify her disappointment and basically buy back her love with a free pass. It worked and a new blog was posted cheerleading the gesture . In turn the 32 people who had commented on her original post called off the dogs.

What does this mean for brands like yours? If you ask me it means making sure that someone on your staff scours the blogosphere and message boards to see if/when your brand is getting trashed and then does the right thing.  When women have a good experience with a brand they tell 4-7 people but when it is a bad experience she tells 13 and will keep re-telling the story for 22 years! I have absolutely no plans to go to Sea World in the next decade but when I do I will feel good about them versus feeling mad.

Tags: Customer Service

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Hanging Out or Checking Out?

by Mary Lou Quinlan
Published December 18, 2008 in Retail

Lately, I’ve noticed some contrasting retail models that make me wonder which is working and which is just wishing they hadn’t launched their fledging retail concept in the biggest nosedive shopping season ever. 

Within the past 24 hours, I’ve observed a laid back ING Direct lounge and a Blockbuster ‘living room’, while nearby Gap and Bloomie’s scream Buy Me!!!  ING Direct, the darling of new age,online only, no fee banking has a lovely orange cafe in midtown Manhattan where people (account holders? out of work dancers?) chill while drinking coffee, surfing and chatting. No sign of transactions here, it’s all good Kash Karma, I guess. But when the banks are in a freefall,I would kind of like to see tellers at the alert, watching the vault, making sure no scam or devaluation is about to attack. Even giving out free toasters for new sign-ups would be reassuring. But kicking back in the pseudo bank salon? Feels a little off. 

Blockbuster, a chain in search of a reason for being in a TIVO and Netflix world, has converted its moribund store on Broadway to a living room meets cafeteria and playroom and oh yeah, video store. It looks like an idea that was hatched in 2007 to reinvent Blockbuster as a ‘destination entertainment’ store, but all I could see in the window were some punk-styled 18 year olds warming up to Guitar Hero and Wii. Rentals? Not so much. 

And then there were the retailers we know, doing what they do best; responding to the realities of the street. Gap was shouting 50% off whatever gloves and scarves were spilling off the shelves. “All Slippers $10!” And Bloomingdales was outdoing themselves with staff pointing out where to score the latest apparel happily priced at 40% off. Boxes? Ribbons? You bet. 

I’ve always enjoyed the latest ‘experiential store’ as much as the next marketer. But this holiday, I kind of think that most money-crunched women will respond to the sound of savings at the cash register rather than the hiss of the cappucino machine. Tricked out, all show-no sell stores may have to wait this one out.

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