October 25, 2004
XX marks the spot | A strategic marketing and design firm relaunches to focus on marketing to women
By Michaela Cavallaro
As Mary Brown was flipping through a magazine recently, she saw an ad that caught her eye ˆ but for all the wrong reasons. In it, a man wearing a dress shirt, tie and boxer shorts talks on a cell phone in a hotel room. Just visible on a table behind the phone is a pizza box and a soda container. The headline for the full-page, color ad for the Courtyard by Marriott chain says, "Architects design most hotels. Road warriors designed ours." It's not a message that resonates with Brown, who does a fair amount of business travel herself. "I'm picky about where I stay. This ad completely doesn't connect with me," Brown says. "They're missing their mark."
Brown's point is larger than her personal preference in hotel rooms; with its ads heavily oriented toward male business travelers, she says, the hotel chain is missing an opportunity to draw the attention of business women, whose numbers ˆ and purchasing power ˆ are growing steadily. Opportunities like the one Brown thinks Courtyard by Marriott missed are what led her to relaunch her nine-year-old marketing and design firm, Brown Design & Co., as Imago Creative, which specializes in marketing to women ages 35 to 55. With last month's relaunch ˆ the culmination of two years of research and strategizing ˆ Brown hopes both to capitalize for her clients on what she sees as the "tremendous opportunity" in marketing directly to female baby boomers and to reinvigorate her own business.
At the heart of Imago Creative is the assumption, held by an increasing number of creative firms, that women are best marketed to using different tactics than typically work for reaching men. According to Brown and others, the shift is part of a larger marketing trend in which one-off mass-media ad campaigns are eschewed in favor of broader-based efforts across a variety of media to develop brand relationships with consumers. "The whole marketing landscape has changed," explains Lisa Finn, editor of Marketing to Women, a monthly newsletter published in New York. "There's a wider and deeper understanding of the need to market more specifically to target audiences that have specific needs."
For example, if Brown were designing Courtyard by Marriott's ad campaign, she says, she'd do it entirely differently. "I would say, yes, we have high-speed Internet access and an ergonomic desk chair, but also you can get a massage in your room, or fresh fruit in the morning."
Such an approach makes sense, its advocates say, because in addition to women's significant purchasing power ˆ one widely quoted statistic is that women buy more than 80% of consumer goods and services ˆ women tend to be more detail-oriented shoppers, so what appeals to them often works for men as well. Mooresville, N.C.-based home improvement chain Lowe's, for example, several years ago undertook a concerted effort to appeal to women. The firm researched how women make purchasing decisions and what kinds of environments women like to shop in.
The results weren't just plunked into an ad campaign; instead, Lowe's made much larger changes, with wider aisles and better lighting than your average home improvement warehouse, as well as an emphasis on efficient customer service. "What Lowe's didn't do was put in a coffee bar, pink carpeting and a fashion section ˆ they made the store more comfortable and improved customer service," says Finn. "And I think what happened at Lowe's is what happens a lot of times ˆ a company will investigate improvements that will attract and retain women, and when they make those improvements, men love it."
Life changes, marketing opportunities
Brown began the process of relaunching her firm about two years ago. While Brown Design was growing steadily, it was a strategic design firm "like a million others," Brown says. She felt that if the company were to grow, it would need to shed its generalist past. A consultant helped analyze her client base and opportunities in the market and, as Brown puts it, "all signals focused on the women's market."
Specifically, the firm decided to focus on baby boomer women because of both their wealth ˆ Brown's research forecasts the group will handle more than $3.7 trillion in consumer spending over the next decade ˆ and the fact that they tend to experience multiple life-stage changes, such as sending their kids to college, taking on the care of their aging parents or marrying for a second time. And, says Brown, "With life changes comes marketing opportunity."
So she embarked on the lengthy process of building on what she calls the firm's "seat-of-the-pants expertise" in female consumers. She hired a researcher to develop unique research on women, and had the firm's technology manager built a proprietary database to manage it ˆ all while continuing to work on existing clients' accounts. In addition, Brown's team created an extensive website for the new firm, which includes case studies on female consumers, some of Imago's research findings and, of course, the rationale for developing marketing campaigns aimed specifically at women. Finally, in September, Imago Creative announced its existence.
According to Hugh Hochberg, a partner in The Coxe Group, a Seattle consulting firm that specializes in creative services clients, it's relatively unusual for such companies to rebrand themselves. "It's far more common that firms talk about it than actually do it," he says, adding that many firms that do relaunch simply change their name, but continue doing business as they always have. Furthermore, he says, "The idea of focusing on a particular client sector makes sense, but with it comes a price" ˆ the firm must draw clients from a larger geographic area, which can both cost more money and simply be more tiring than working with local clients.
Brown, however, specifically wanted a business model that would appeal to out-of-state clients. "If you just rely on the Maine economy, it can be problematic," she says. Prior to the relaunch, half of the firm's revenues came from out of state. Though Imago Creative hasn't signed any clients yet, Brown says the handful of inquiries she's gotten from prospective clients since the relaunch all have come from outside Maine.
Imago Creative also recently announced a brand development campaign it created for a client from its Brown Design days, the Crotched Mountain Resort & Spa in Francestown, N.H. Imago's press release for the timeshare resort says the firm "was tapped to help the resort resonate with its core consumer: Moms." However, the reaction of Perry Williams, the resort's developer, suggests that the firm may have some work to do in explaining its transition to clients. "That's their spin," he says of Imago's press release. "We're trying to attract families. And, yes, moms are quite often the decision maker when it comes time to purchase, but this is a $65 million project ˆ we don't slant it toward moms only."
Brown says Williams is right ˆ Crotched Mountain certainly isn't a moms-only resort. But, she says, it's important that its marketing plan appeal very specifically to women, since they frequently make the final decision about family vacation spending.
In the end, Brown is hopeful that her firm's new identity will help it find new business. "Ultimately," she says of the rebranding, "it will allow us to do a better job at what we do, because we're more focused. When you put a new deck on your house, do you want a general handyman, or someone who specializes in building decks? In theory, we'll end up being a better match with our clients."
Brown's point is larger than her personal preference in hotel rooms; with its ads heavily oriented toward male business travelers, she says, the hotel chain is missing an opportunity to draw the attention of business women, whose numbers ˆ and purchasing power ˆ are growing steadily. Opportunities like the one Brown thinks Courtyard by Marriott missed are what led her to relaunch her nine-year-old marketing and design firm, Brown Design & Co., as Imago Creative, which specializes in marketing to women ages 35 to 55. With last month's relaunch ˆ the culmination of two years of research and strategizing ˆ Brown hopes both to capitalize for her clients on what she sees as the "tremendous opportunity" in marketing directly to female baby boomers and to reinvigorate her own business.
At the heart of Imago Creative is the assumption, held by an increasing number of creative firms, that women are best marketed to using different tactics than typically work for reaching men. According to Brown and others, the shift is part of a larger marketing trend in which one-off mass-media ad campaigns are eschewed in favor of broader-based efforts across a variety of media to develop brand relationships with consumers. "The whole marketing landscape has changed," explains Lisa Finn, editor of Marketing to Women, a monthly newsletter published in New York. "There's a wider and deeper understanding of the need to market more specifically to target audiences that have specific needs."
For example, if Brown were designing Courtyard by Marriott's ad campaign, she says, she'd do it entirely differently. "I would say, yes, we have high-speed Internet access and an ergonomic desk chair, but also you can get a massage in your room, or fresh fruit in the morning."
Such an approach makes sense, its advocates say, because in addition to women's significant purchasing power ˆ one widely quoted statistic is that women buy more than 80% of consumer goods and services ˆ women tend to be more detail-oriented shoppers, so what appeals to them often works for men as well. Mooresville, N.C.-based home improvement chain Lowe's, for example, several years ago undertook a concerted effort to appeal to women. The firm researched how women make purchasing decisions and what kinds of environments women like to shop in.
The results weren't just plunked into an ad campaign; instead, Lowe's made much larger changes, with wider aisles and better lighting than your average home improvement warehouse, as well as an emphasis on efficient customer service. "What Lowe's didn't do was put in a coffee bar, pink carpeting and a fashion section ˆ they made the store more comfortable and improved customer service," says Finn. "And I think what happened at Lowe's is what happens a lot of times ˆ a company will investigate improvements that will attract and retain women, and when they make those improvements, men love it."
Life changes, marketing opportunities
Brown began the process of relaunching her firm about two years ago. While Brown Design was growing steadily, it was a strategic design firm "like a million others," Brown says. She felt that if the company were to grow, it would need to shed its generalist past. A consultant helped analyze her client base and opportunities in the market and, as Brown puts it, "all signals focused on the women's market."
Specifically, the firm decided to focus on baby boomer women because of both their wealth ˆ Brown's research forecasts the group will handle more than $3.7 trillion in consumer spending over the next decade ˆ and the fact that they tend to experience multiple life-stage changes, such as sending their kids to college, taking on the care of their aging parents or marrying for a second time. And, says Brown, "With life changes comes marketing opportunity."
So she embarked on the lengthy process of building on what she calls the firm's "seat-of-the-pants expertise" in female consumers. She hired a researcher to develop unique research on women, and had the firm's technology manager built a proprietary database to manage it ˆ all while continuing to work on existing clients' accounts. In addition, Brown's team created an extensive website for the new firm, which includes case studies on female consumers, some of Imago's research findings and, of course, the rationale for developing marketing campaigns aimed specifically at women. Finally, in September, Imago Creative announced its existence.
According to Hugh Hochberg, a partner in The Coxe Group, a Seattle consulting firm that specializes in creative services clients, it's relatively unusual for such companies to rebrand themselves. "It's far more common that firms talk about it than actually do it," he says, adding that many firms that do relaunch simply change their name, but continue doing business as they always have. Furthermore, he says, "The idea of focusing on a particular client sector makes sense, but with it comes a price" ˆ the firm must draw clients from a larger geographic area, which can both cost more money and simply be more tiring than working with local clients.
Brown, however, specifically wanted a business model that would appeal to out-of-state clients. "If you just rely on the Maine economy, it can be problematic," she says. Prior to the relaunch, half of the firm's revenues came from out of state. Though Imago Creative hasn't signed any clients yet, Brown says the handful of inquiries she's gotten from prospective clients since the relaunch all have come from outside Maine.
Imago Creative also recently announced a brand development campaign it created for a client from its Brown Design days, the Crotched Mountain Resort & Spa in Francestown, N.H. Imago's press release for the timeshare resort says the firm "was tapped to help the resort resonate with its core consumer: Moms." However, the reaction of Perry Williams, the resort's developer, suggests that the firm may have some work to do in explaining its transition to clients. "That's their spin," he says of Imago's press release. "We're trying to attract families. And, yes, moms are quite often the decision maker when it comes time to purchase, but this is a $65 million project ˆ we don't slant it toward moms only."
Brown says Williams is right ˆ Crotched Mountain certainly isn't a moms-only resort. But, she says, it's important that its marketing plan appeal very specifically to women, since they frequently make the final decision about family vacation spending.
In the end, Brown is hopeful that her firm's new identity will help it find new business. "Ultimately," she says of the rebranding, "it will allow us to do a better job at what we do, because we're more focused. When you put a new deck on your house, do you want a general handyman, or someone who specializes in building decks? In theory, we'll end up being a better match with our clients."
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