There’s a weekend I’ll never get back again.
I must have been expecting too much from this book. What I wanted was some insight into how to market to women.
What I got was a diatribe about all the many ways that ‘corporate Canada’ continues to fail female consumers, a litany of personal beefs (did you realize that airline seats are only made for tall men, not short women?), and a meandering list of anecdotes. If one is interested in reaching women and therefore buys this book, a finger-wagging lecture is neither appreciated, nor effective.
The fatal flaw of this book, in my mind, is that the author never substantiates the ubiquitous 80% statistic. We’ve all heard that women influence 80% of consumer purchases, and I was disappointed not to finally see it substantiated. If one doesn’t intend to prove an important statistic, I would suggest not building an entire book around it. (Personally I think women influence 100% of consumer purchases – directly or indirectly – but I’m not writing a book on the subject.)
The 80% Minority is not entirely useless. There are about 20 pages (out of 240) of solid content that I will reference and build upon, which mostly summarize thoughts that other people have had. Unfortunately they are not in any particular order, and I am not confident they are exhaustive.
There are also some good checklists that will be useful for organizations interested in administering a self-analysis, and there are interesting examples from companies that seem to have succeeded in reaching women.
The 80% Minority ends up feeling like a long brochure for the author’s consulting company, which coincidentally makes a regular appearance in the book. While I would be interested in hiring them, in book form it just does not work.
And by the way, I am a tall guy and, nonetheless, I find airline seats incredibly uncomfortable.
BookMark rating: 1 out of 5
Mark Szabo is a suit at MacLaren McCann West in Calgary. He can be reached at mark.szabo@maclaren.com.
