Kicking Over My Traces

I thought of Yvonne DiVita at Lip-Sticking as I read this article on the differing fiction-reading habits of women and men.

Read the article yourself, with your head tilted to one side and your eyes slightly squinted, and concentrate on how you might slant a marketing appeal to women based on the information about how they read fiction:

• highly varied & personal
• open to & candid about influence
• repeated readings over lifetime
• new reading throughout lifetime
• word-of-mouth recommendations for further reading
• fiction as emotional catharsis

Now tilt your head to the other side, squint your eyes more tightly, and mull over how very different a marketing appeal to men would be angled based on the information about how men read fiction:

• limited & impersonal
• reluctant to admit influence
• rereading avoided later
• clustered reading in adolescence (~15-16 yrs)
• return to reading in later life (reflective)
• preferred plot: catastrophe and the struggle to rise above circumstance
• trusted author as mentor or guide for further reading
• fiction as instrumental instruction guide

Word-of-mouth versus trusted guide or mentor. Hmmm.

Metaphor for life’s rough patches versus triumph over adversity. Hmmm.

Emotional versus instrumental. Hmmm.

It would seem to be difficult to pitch a single marketing appeal to both women and men. That’s not to say that the same product can’t be pitched to both women and men — just that a different presentation is required.

REMINDER: my free ebook Apply Lessons from ‘Why We Buy’ by Paco Underhill to Your Online Business is available for download (pdf format) by clicking on the button in the righthand rail.

(Hat tip: K-Lo at NRO’s The Corner.)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 13th, 2006 at 5:59 am +0000 GMT and is filed under Books, Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.