By Jaideep Shergill
CEO, MSLGroup India
This question’s addressed to the men reading this column: When was the last time you made a major purchase decision in which you wife, daughter, mother or sister didn’t have the final say? If you have a woman in the house, it’s likely that the car you drive, your next holiday destination, the phone you use or the shirt you wear was picked by her. I don’t mean this as a complaint; women usually have better taste than men, so it’s for the best. The point I’m trying to make is that women are an important audience for us marketing communicators. Most of us know this instinctively and from experience.
I got thinking more about this after I came across a survey conducted in the UK by the Department for Work and Pensions last year.
The survey found that as women become equal — and sometimes the dominant — bread-earners, they are becoming the ‘alpha’ partners in marriages, instigating financial decisions and carrying out the research. Men, meanwhile, have to be content with being the ‘beta’ partners, confined to providing some inputs for the decisions.
Not only is this reversal of traditional roles becoming more common, it is becoming the “norm”.
In the survey, conducted to “explore and better understand” the way couples make financial decisions, one woman said: “Normally, it’s a proper ‘sit down and do some homework’. On my part, anyway. He might throw in some random guesses, but I prefer something a little more concrete to work with.” On the other hand, a man in his 30s, said: “She’s the boss. I don’t mind it, really. Sometimes I don’t like it, but she does a good job.”
There was a Pew Research Center survey a few years earlier in the US that came up with similar findings. The Pew survey showed that with 43% of all couples, it’s the woman who makes decisions in more areas than the man. By contrast, men make more of the decisions in only about a quarter (26%) of all couples.
To me, these surveys are confirmation that women are more pro-active when it comes to major decisions, preferring to meet challenges head-on. The surveys’ findings are already being mirrored in India.
As public relations professionals, we recognize that women are an important audience for our clients, but they are also an important ‘internal audience’ for us. A majority of our industry’s employees are women — simply because they are better communicators — and it’s about time we connected better with them through our internal outreach and human resource processes.
I am pleased that many agencies understand this and are sensitizing their systems accordingly. In our Group, among many initiatives, there is a group named ‘Viva Women’ that supports women from all backgrounds and levels in their careers and career progression.
Many agencies are making sure that they spot talented women staff early and help them get on a career path that matches their talent. As an industry, we also need to ensure that we support women through all their life stages.
As you can tell, a gender revolution is unfolding and I’m happy to be in its midst. As a member of the beta gender, I ask only one concession: control of the TV remote remains with me.
Feedback: jaideep.shergill@mslgroup.com
