As has been typical in recessions for the last 30 years, women's occupations tend to be less recession-sensitive than men's. So in the '70s, when women were starting to enter the workforce en masse, the cries of "They're taking away men's jobs!" subsided during the downturns, as people realized her "second" income was now keeping the family afloat. Still, up until now women, though 51% of the population, have averaged about 46% of the workforce. If they do become the majority, as suggested by this
NYT article, that will be a monumental shift. Women have earned most (58%) college degrees for over 20 years. When business recovers, economists say there will be far too few college educated employees to fill the number of jobs needed for growth. Companies who want to take part in the recovery need to start now to learn how to market their careers and companies to women!
For this year's Super Bowl party, I had the good fortune to be hanging out with a gang of good marketers, about equally divided between men and women. Never one to miss an opportunity, I handed out a Super Bowl ad scorecard, which allowed me to capture their ratings of "Love it," "Hate it," "It's OK," or "Don't Get It;" and take a look at whether there were any male/female differences.
Call it crowdsourcing - it sounds more trendy than family room research.
Funny Ads
Pretty unanimously, men and women at the party were in agreement on which ads were funny and which flopped. I'd say that's because this year most of the funny ads eschewed put-down humor (you can usually count on Bud Light for some gross offenders here!), which is appreciated by males and by young adults of both genders, but generally shunned by people over 30, especially women (who, I can't help remarking, are the consumers with the money!).
Instead, a greater number of ads were built on empathetic humor, which is more female-friendly. Everyone can relate to the frustrations of being in a terrible job (Careerbuilder.com and Monster.com), or the urge to silence an obnoxious cell-phone abuser (Chester Cheetah for Cheetos).
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