Cherry London whitepaper: How to market to women using brand partnerships

NO WOMAN IS AN ISLAND,
AND NEITHER IS ANY BRAND
WHAT MAKES WOMEN TICK AND HOW TO
MARKET TO THEM USING BRAND PARTNERSHIPS
Cherry London presents a whitepaper
on Marketing to Women June 2014
By Charlie Hills, strategy director
Cherry London ©2014

It’s a universally acknowledged truth that women
make more than 80% of all consumer purchasing
decisions. But it’s less acknowledged that 91% of
women say advertisers don’t understand them. And
because of this, only 13% admit that marketing
is the chief influencer in buying from a
brand. It makes you realise that most marketers
are getting it woefully wrong.
We commissioned this report to get to the bottom
of what really influences women to buy a
brand, what makes them tick, what marketers
can do to connect with women, and how brands
can tap into this important market effectively and
powerfully – using brand partnerships.
38% of respondents told us that the most
important factor in purchasing was a
recommendation from someone they know
(which is five times the number who rated a brand’s
marketing activity as the most important factor).
They turn to friends firstly, then their children,
mothers, and then partners and ‘recommendations
from other brands’ jointly. ‘Trusted brands’ are
almost as influential as partners; a big vote of
confidence for brands that build powerful loyalty
mechanisms.
The survey findings also point strongly to the fact
that brands need to be mindful of how they speak to
women, what they say – and crucially, at what time
in a woman’s life they say it. And that requires in
depth knowledge of your customer and developing
trust; essentially it’s a five-step approach:
· Listen to what she wants
· Give her something to talk about
· Create experiences she can share
· Make it easy for her
· And be real
In a crowded marketplace, where every brand is
clamouring for attention, we need to learn to listen,
to respond, to stimulate discussion and encourage
sharing of information. Finding the right brand
partners and working with them in the right way
can help your brand become part of a woman’s
trusted inner circle – and ultimately earn a place in
her head and her heart.
EXEC
SUMMARY
Get in touch: biteme@cherrylondon.com 020 3111 0500 @cherrylondon cherrylondon.com 01

01. Exec summary
02. Introduction - Why marketers don’t get women
03. What women want
04. Influencing behaviour
05. Brand partnerships connect with women
06. Connect with women in 5 steps:
Listen to what she wants.
Give her something to talk about.
Create experiences she can share.
Make it easy for her.
Be real.
12. Making the right connections
13. Sources
14. Contact
CONTENTS
Get in touch: biteme@cherrylondon.com 020 3111 0500 @cherrylondon cherrylondon.com

INTRODUCTION
Most marketers don’t get
women - how brand
partnerships is uniquely
placed to get it right
Women are a powerful force in purchasing
behaviour and brand loyalty. Most
marketers just don’t understand – and
are losing out to more female-focused
operators.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that women
make more than 80% of all consumer purchasing
decisions. But it’s less acknowledged that 91% of
women say advertisers don’t understand them. And
because of this, only 13% admit that marketing is
the chief factor in buying from a brand. It makes
you realise that most marketers are getting it
woefully wrong.
We’re not just talking a cosmetic makeover, either.
As Bridget Brennan, Founder of Chicago-based
marketing consulting firm Female Factor, points
out, “Pink is not a strategy.” Instead, brands need to
look at the way they present themselves to women,
the way they talk and how honest they’re being. And
that requires a fundamental shift in thinking.
As Cherry CEO Tamara Gillan says, “Up until
quite recently most marketers assumed that
the man was in the driving seat, or worse,
they just didn’t think about who actually
was. In truth, it is most often the woman
who is directing the purchase. It changes the
entire game.”
02

That friend who talks at you non-stop: we all have
one. They don’t ask you any questions, they don’t
show any interest; they just focus on their own
needs – and their own voice. It doesn’t engage you
or make you feel good; instead, you feel used and
drained. It’s astonishing how many brands fall
into this pattern in the way they deal with their
customers, pushing their agenda and expecting
customers to be loyal and become advocates. It
can be a turnoff for customers, or even impact
negatively on a brand’s credibility.
To make strong connections with a female
consumer, brands need to show more interest, like
that friend. Ask her what she wants, listen to what
she says (and what she doesn’t), suggest solutions
and continuously evolve as she does. “It’s taken
a long time for brands to realise how far a
woman’s influence extends in purchasing,”
says Gillan. “Women are more likely to
be loyal to a brand or product than men if
they’re treated in the right way. It’s a huge
untapped resource for many brands, and
can’t be ignored.”
WHAT
WOMEN
WANT
“Brands need to show
more interest, like that
friend...”
03

The role that women play in purchasing is a
complex matter that deserves attention, so Cherry
London recently surveyed 1,000 women across the
UK to find out what influenced them in their choice
of brand.
Our first insight was that 38% told us that the
most important factor in purchasing was a
recommendation from someone they know
(or five times the number who rated a brand’s
marketing activity as the most important factor).
They advised that they turned to friends firstly,
then their children, mothers, partners and, just
fractionally behind, were ‘recommendations from
other brands’. Interesting that ‘trusted brands’
are almost as influential as partners; a big vote of
confidence for brands that build powerful loyalty
mechanisms.
A second major point from our female consumers
was that the influence of mothers declines with age.
So 18-29 year old women were more than twice as
likely as older women to say that their mum was the
most important steer in choosing a brand (12.2% vs
5.2% average), but partners have the most influence
on women aged 30-39, who are twice as likely as
other age groups to listen to their spouse.
The survey raised a challenge for marketers too,
the social tendencies of women decline with age.
As they get older, they become more ‘island-
like’ in their social lives, meaning that brand
recommendations become less important. A
woman over 60 is 1.5 times as likely as an 18-
29 year old woman to say she doesn’t take the
recommendations of others into account.
INFLUENCING
PURCHASE
BEHAVIOUR
told us that the most
important factor in purchasing
was a recommendation from
someone they know
38%
04

The survey findings point strongly to the fact that
brands need to be mindful of how they speak to
women, what they say – and crucially, at what time
of a woman’s life they say it. And that requires
determining knowledge of your customer and
developing trust.
We want to share our top tips for how brands can
tap into this important market effectively and
powerfully – using brand partnerships. Brand
Partnerships, done the Cherry Way, has two key
characteristics that other marketing disciplines
don’t:
1. Find out what your customer really wants
in life first
Only by understanding what is really important
to her can we identify her needs, desires and
aspirations – and that means looking beyond a
client’s brand or category to understand a woman’s
fundamental needs and desires. From these we
determine deep insights with real emotional
connection. Then we pinpoint the right brand
partners to address those insights – and bring
brands together to complement each other, and act
as catalysts for each other.
2. Build meaningful, lasting relationships
We create relationships that are designed to last
over time – between two brands and between a
brand and its customers. In this way, we can help
acquire friends of friends over time, a valuable
consideration when dealing with women customers.
By engaging and conversing with people you
couldn’t normally reach, you can attract customers
more cost-effectively than you could do through
traditional marketing – and become part of a
woman’s trusted ‘inner circle’ of recommendations
that greatly influence buying behaviour, building
credibility and ultimately changing perceptions.
BRAND
PARTNERSHIPS
TO CONNECT
WITH WOMEN
“We create relationships
that are built to last…”
05

CONNECT
WITH WOMEN
IN FIVE STEPS
At Cherry London,
we have masterminded
many notable brand
partnerships for women,
using our five-step
approach.
01.
03.
02.
04. 05.
06

Understanding what women want in their lives –
as opposed to what they want from a brand or a
category – gives a far richer insight that can drive
a successful strategic partnership. And we work
relentlessly to understand our clients’ customer
base.
In the case of O2, we established that 49% of their
Priority customers are women, whose key passions
are film and music, food and drink, fashion and
beauty. Based on this, we developed a suite of
engaging, relevant rewards, partnering with brands
that gave female customers access to tailored
rewards that O2 couldn’t offer on its own.
We tracked the results in conjunction with O2
Business Intelligence, assessing 13 individual
characteristics that contribute to the success or
failure of thousands of Priority experiences, offers
and rewards with their millions of customers. The
findings summarised exactly which combination of
offer characteristics drive success and which don’t,
so we were able to craft winning partnerships, such
as with Hotel Chocolat and Caffè Nero, giving away
a sweet Valentine’s gift or a latte when women need
a boost.
Understanding the passions that matter and
matching them with the right combination of offer
characteristics can make an offer 13,000 times more
successful than getting a single factor wrong. As
Mark Stevenson, Head of Priority and Sponsorship
at O2, says, “Investing the time and effort to
understand what our customers want and
then giving it to them has always been the
main difference between Priority and other
reward programmes in the marketplace”.
It’s scientific, proven and entirely effective.
LISTEN TO WHAT SHE
WANTS. THEN GIVE IT
TO HER.
01.
CONNECT WITH WOMEN IN FIVE STEPS
O2 Priority: gives customers
what they want: exclusive access
07

going out for a night on the town – and partnered
with the right mix of relevant fun-loving brands
to create the ultimate dressing room for the girls’
night out. Toni&Guy, ASOS, Look magazine and
Nails Inc came together in the pop-up Malibutique
in UK city shopping centres, drawing tens of
thousands of women and connecting via social
media with millions more. We quadrupled their
Facebook fan base year on year, fuelled thousands
of real conversations and dramatically shifted brand
perception.
Another successful brand partnership in the
market that illustrates the point is that between
Diet Coke and fashion designer Jean-Paul Gaultier.
The announcement that Gaultier was the brand’s
first Designer Creative Director was made through
three videos of the designer giving Diet Coke
puppets a makeover over 72 hours, released during
Paris Fashion Week to generate massive hype
and millions of conversations. The collaboration
was extended to products through limited edition
designer bottles, retail activations and exclusive
events and coverage. It was a powerful and credible
brand partnership that got women talking about –
and drinking – Diet Coke.
GIVE HER SOMETHING
TO TALK ABOUT
02.
Malibutique: a compelling
multi-platform partnership campaign
connecting the brand with millions of
women’
Women love to communicate; they like to be
informed and want to be interesting; plus they’re
reaching out to technology to fuel this exchange of
information. In fact, more women use social media
in the US than men (30% of women vs 26% of
men) and more women are using the biggest social
media sites, ie. Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest
and Instagram. So we know that giving women
interesting things to say and share is a key way that
brands can make a powerful connection.
“By fuelling rich, authentic conversations
for clients, we have created long-lasting
relationships – and spread the brand love
into different categories, a potent way of
extending your brand’s reach and voice.
For Malibu, the challenge was to change
perception of a brand that many women
considered a little uncool, and something
they only drank in a bikini on holiday,” says
Tamara Gillian.
We pinpointed their consumers’ ‘getting ready
moment’ – the ritualistic hour that young women
share, chatting, doing their hair and makeup before
08

One of the defining books on how to market
to women is Inside Her Pretty Little Head, by
marketers Jane Cunningham and Philippa Roberts.
They explain how women are driven by an ‘altruism
code’: the desire to nurture, share and give to their
friends and family. It’s this essence of collaboration
that drives a lot of what we do at Cherry.
Brand partnerships are naturally collaborative:
they involve sharing marketing expertise, sharing
resources and sharing experiences. And our recent
research with O2 proved that rewards which are
shareable have the highest engagement levels. So,
targeting women who share with the people
who matter to them can be an effective way
of capturing a wider customer base.
Some of the most popular rewards in the last 12
months have been family tickets to the premiere
of Rio 2, free Mother’s Day Cards from WH Smith,
access to tickets for Lady Gaga and a ‘Valentines
Mini Slab’ from Hotel Chocolat to give to the one to
you love. Sharing is spreading the message.
This need to share goes beyond women’s direct
social circle too. Women are some of the biggest
givers in society: M&S and Oxfam’s Schwopping
campaign is one of the best examples we’ve seen
of a brand connecting to women through giving.
So far, Oxfam has received 6.9 million items of
clothing worth £4.5 million through M&S, winning
a Big Society Award for excellence. David Cameron
pointed out that if shows “how a simple and
innovative idea can inspire people, making it easy
for them to make a contribution to their community
and the wider world.”
Working with the right brand partners can create a
strong shareable concept that gives a brand a unique
talking point.
CREATE EXPERIENCES SHE
CAN SHARE WITH FAMILY
AND FRIENDS
03.
Get in touch: biteme@cherrylondon.com 020 3111 0500 @cherrylondon cherrylondon.com 09
O2 Priority: family fun –
see it first film series

Women have more pressure on them than ever
before: pressure from family, from friends, from
society – and most of all from themselves. Sarah
Bailey, editor-in-chief of Red magazine, tellingly
referred to her audience as “hyper-connected, busy,
fried women”. These are not people who need added
complications in life.
But that’s exactly what many marketers do. The
beauty advertisers who promise the ‘perfect look’
but just play on insecurities; those who extend a
‘free offer’ which you find you can only receive if
you visit three websites, enter all your personal
details, your credit card details and your waist size.
It increases stress, distrust and frustration. Instead
of solving problems for customers, it piles on even
more pressure.
Faith Popcorn understood this back in 2001, before
the days of smartphones and digital dependence. In
her book EVEolution, she talked about a fifth truth
of marketing to women: about how brands who
master convenience will win women’s hearts. At
Cherry London, we’re great advocates of engaging
women in the right place at the right time – and
in the right way. “We believe that brand
partnerships offer flexibility and relevance,
introducing a partner brand to one that
women already love, understand and trust.”
Influencing household decision makers to consider
our client Aviva for their insurance needs is a key
challenge. Usually, the decision maker is a woman,
but the sector has traditionally communicated
in a masculine tone. With their customer loyalty
programme, Aviva Advantages, we strive to develop
partnerships and rewards that make it easy for the
woman of the house to connect with friends and
family. Our successful Christmas 2013 campaign
featured a host of partners targeting women
specifically with rewards such as Fortnum & Mason
hampers, a Thompson & Morgan plant giveaway
and tickets to Dancing on Ice. We made it easy for
customers, with effortless entry, prize redemption
and promotion communication, and perfect timing
to make their Christmas even more special. It was
a deceptively simple concept, but engaged tens of
thousands of women.
MAKE IT EASY FOR HER
04.
10
Aviva Advantages: rewards women with
things they can share with their loved ones

BE REAL.
GET INVOLVED.
05.
Rohit Bhargava in the Non-Obvious Trend Report
said 2014 was going to be the year of ‘lovable
imperfection’. Where true authenticity is defined
by minor imperfections in products, personalities
and brands themselves – and customers will reward
realness with attention, loyalty and greater trust. It’s
seen on your high street at weekends as we work the
farmer’s market nostalgically buying misshapen veg.
Today’s brands must be genuine and authentic to
connect, and speak as women want to be spoken to,
warts and all. The right brand partner can enhance
your story through adding depth to what you offer –
and become part of your story in a natural, organic
way.

Sport England understand this better than most,
as they work to engage young women (14-17 years)
and try to shift their perceptions about sport and
with the long-term goal of increasing participation.
Statistics show that only 12% of this age group is
active, a trend that seriously needs reversing for the
sake of the nation’s health.
For young women, there are barriers that negatively
impact their perception of sport. Embarrassment at
how they look while playing; the competitive ‘play
to win’ culture; even the feeling that it is aimed
at a ‘different type’ of girl. But there are lots of
motivations too: the social benefits, the desire to be
fit and healthy – and the sheer fun of it.
To help young women see sport in a new light, we’ve
created the BloominGirls social media campaign
and event this summer to pair the brands these
young women love with non-traditional barrier-
free versions of various sports. Our headline
ambassadors are British girl band Neon Jungle, who
are collaborating with a collection of cool brands
(boohoo.com, MUA, Batiste and Babyliss to name
a few), as well as the national governing bodies for
netball (AENA), football (FA), hockey (EH) and
rugby (RFU).
Neon Jungle are known for their music and fashion,
but are bringing credibility as they all participate
in sport to stay fit – and look good. “In this way,
we’re presenting sport in a new way: in
their speak, in their style, in their social
set, outside of the school environment and
linked with music and fashion, two of their
key passions.”
Connects young
women with sport
in a way they can
understand
11

Connecting with women is highly profitable
for marketers, but requires a serious shift in
communications strategies.
In Made to Stick, Chip and Dan Heath talk about
credibility being “hard to achieve outside of our
trusted circles of friends, family, experiences and
faith”, something that should strike a chord with
marketers, who often aren’t really listening to their
women customers to really find out what their goals
and desires in life are.
The Heaths go on to point out that “tapping into
authorities with credibility is one sure fire way of
gaining credibility”. This informs our approach of
introducing brand partnerships to already loyal
customers to transfer trust onto a new brand – and
enhance the existing one’s story.
In a crowded marketplace, where every brand is
clamouring for attention, we need to learn to listen,
to respond, to stimulate discussion and sharing of
information. Finding the right brand partners
and working with them in the right way, can
help you drive your business forward by
connecting the audience who make 80% of
purchasing decisions. It can help your brand
become part of a woman’s trusted inner-
circle and ultimately earn a place in her head
and her heart.
MAKING
THE RIGHT
CONNECTIONS
12

Cherry London Research, Nov 13, Usurv.com survey
of 1000 UK adults, demographics: age: 18+
Cherry London Research, Feb 14, Usurv.com survey
of 1000 UK women, demographics: age: 18+
Cherry London Flipboard Magazine “No woman
is an island, what makes women tick and how to
market to them”
Cherry London Pinterest Board: http://www.
pinterest.com/cherrylondonltd/no-woman-is-an-
island-what-makes-women-tick-and-ho/
Cherry London and O2 Business Intelligence
Priority Analysis, 2014
Sport England Research, numerous, 2008-2014
http://financesonline.com/uploads/social-media-
infographic.jpg
http://www.sofii.org/node/1415
http://www.thedrum.com/news/2014/03/26/
children-rank-higher-marketing-influencing-
brands-women-buy
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/ms-
shwopping-scheme-wins-big-society-award
http://she-conomy.com/facts-on-women
http://corporate.marksandspencer.com/page.
Inside Her Pretty Little Head: A New Theory
of Female Motivation and What it Means for
Marketing, Jane Cunningham and Philippa Roberts
Daring Book for Boys in Business, Jane
Cunningham and Philippa Roberts
EVEolution, Faith Popcorn
Lean In, Sheryl Sandberg
What Women Want: The Science of Female
Shopping, Paco Underhill
The Female Brain, Louann Brizendine
Influence – The Psychology of Persuasion,
Robert B Caldini
Why We Buy, Paco Underhill
Consumer.ology, Philip Graves
Made to Stick, Chip & Dan Heath
Nudge, Thaler & Sunstein
Buzz, Emanuel Rosen
The Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz
Celebrity Sells, Hamish Pringle
Why she buys, Bridget Brennan
SOURCES
13

GET IN TOUCH
Cherry London
7-9 William Road, London, NW1 3ER
biteme@cherrylondon.com
020 3111 0500
@cherrylondon
www.cherrylondon.com
14

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