Life after Sheilas’ Wheels

There isn’t a marketer in the land who is unaware of Sheilas’ Wheels, but according to Jane Cunningham many of them behave as if they are unaware of the vast potential of marketing to women – or, at least, unaware of how to do it.
The answer is not necessarily to be brash or pink (although both approaches have worked well for Sheilas’ Wheels) but the fundamental principles are pretty simple – little more than the basic marketing (and Financial Services Act) principle of knowing your customer. As evidence, Cunningham opines that organizations with senior female influencers are better able to serve the female customer,
and she advocates using four ‘feminine codes’ – powerful positioning ideas that are often not recognized by marketers – in place of the traditional brand models. She also advocates simplicity. Companies
tend towards increasingly complex segmentation models, yet great success can be achieved just by focusing the messages on women as a whole, as Sheilas’ Wheels has done. The common characteristics are more important than the differences between subgroups – for example, women tend to be risk-averse, so they dislike having their decision-making rushed.
She also emphasizes the need to connect properly with women, which she argues means recognizing the messages and methods that engage (or disengage) them. For example, most financial services advertising focuses on ‘things’, whereas women are more interested in people. Nor do they respond well to the exaggeration and hyperbole that seems to pervade the media world today. Finally, she stresses the fundamental importance of ‘going where women are’ – placing the messages in the media arenas that women prefer to visit.
Marketers need to find a way to operate in the female ‘space’, rather than continuing to expect women to come into their traditional operating spheres.
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