To influence women, give women influence

Compared to a century ago, women around the globe control an ever-increasing purchasing power. According to Forbes magazine, women now control more than US$20 trillion or about 70 per cent of global consumer spending.
In addition, with more women enrolled in the workforce, they now also bring in half or more of the household income in the United States. And when the time comes to make buying decisions, women influence 80 per cent of those decisions.
That all sounds great and will be exceptionally great for those companies that know exactly what women want and need, and deliver the right products targeted to them. However not all companies tap this great opportunity. Numerous studies reveal that while many companies target women as end-users, few of them have women on board of the teams when targeting women in the first place.
In a closely related example, a few years ago I needed to buy a beauty product from a make-up store in Mecca. The salespeople were all men. Since I was looking for the best option for myself, I asked one of the salesmen for assistance. He gave me a confused look, said he did not know much about make up, and pointed out a counter where most girls picked their products. I ended up not buying anything and left.
And then I wondered, how many customers did the store lose because their salespeople did not have insight to women's needs, and did not know how to answer important questions that would influence women's purchasing decisions?
And how many advertising campaigns failed to target women to purchase a product or service they were selling because they did not know how to communicate their products correctly to them, or did not necessarily understand their true preferences?
Forbes reported in May that women account for only 3 per cent of the creative directors in marketing and advertising agencies. If it is mainly men who are executing all the marketing campaigns and efforts, then many valuable and insightful opinions are excluded. This could result in profits being lost.
Having fewer women in the conceptual phase of a campaign could also result in less appealing products to women.
As women make the majority of consumer purchasing decisions, then companies definitely need more insight into behavioural patterns and preferences shared by women. Sure, many agencies use focus groups that include women - their target audience - but having that perspective in the boardroom when the directors of the campaign are making key decisions can be a major benefit to a company's marketing effort and could do the business's bank account a huge favour.
Having more women as creative directors, sitting alongside a firm's innovators and decision makers, is only half the solution. Women's ideas will not translate into marketable products and services unless management backs them up. Leaders willing to take into account women's input, and insert it in their marketing efforts, are most likely to tap into winning campaign ideas.
Even central banks have realised the potential of women on their boards and introduced quotas.
Kenya's Central Bank mandates that two of the external committee members must be women, and one of the Bank of Japan's nine policy board seats is reserved for a woman.
While some might be against the idea of quotas, they make sense in this case. Since women make the most consumer purchase decisions in the household, they know more about price fluctuations, inflation and how to manage the household money, and having their input in the banking sector is vital to know how to better target them to invest and save.
It all boils down to this: companies and marketing agencies do not need more smart men among their teams, but to target those sweet $20 trillion, companies need to seriously leverage female talent and input into their decision making process.
 
Manar Al Hinai is an award-winning Emirati writer and fashion designer. Follow her on Twitter: @manar_alhinai