Marketers shift to target women, who control 30% of world's wealth
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Michelle Clancy
| 18 March 2018

Women are an increasingly influential, educated and entrepreneurial segment of the population, and have become an important demo for advertisers beyond traditional consumer goods.


According to Nielsen, in the US alone, women make up just over half of the population, and they’re accountable for over $39 trillion. That puts them in charge of 30% of the world’s wealth, and the number is growing. Brands looking to reach them have more options than ever before: women are prodigious consumers of video, internet and radio, and they’re increasingly engaged with media and technology.

According to the measurement company’s Q2 2017 Total Audience Report, generally, American adults consume almost 76 hours of content per week across all screens and devices. The majority of time is still devoted to traditional live TV, but current trends project consumers are spending more and more time with digital devices, especially women. In the second quarter of 2017, women over the age of 18 in the US were spending over 11 hours a day consuming media across devices, from their TV to their smartphone.

Among women over 18, traditional live TV remains the largest component of their media consumption, with an average of four hours a day spent watching this medium. From 2015 to present, this demographic has consistently spent an average of around 30-plus minutes per day with time-shifted TV.

The drivers behind how women invest in their time and attention have more to do with their life stage and experience. The best example is mothers in the US, Nielsen noted, and their news consumption on a daily basis. According to Nielsen’s Local Watch Report, working mothers make up the majority of morning news (58%) and late-night news (52%) viewing, as they’re mostly working during the daytime.

Meanwhile, stay-at-home mothers over index on catching up with the news at midday (61%) and early evening (57%) and spend much less time tuning into local news in the morning. They don’t interact with media in the same way, giving marketers and advertisers a great opportunity to reach them within the diversity of their schedules and lifestyles.

“Women play an active role within the digital and traditional media space. As the media landscape changes, they’re also adapting to the new media landscape by using new forms of technologies for everyday purchasing. These habits highlight the need for marketers to know how and where to reach them,” Nielsen said in its report.

For instance, multicultural women, in particular, are conscious consumers, supporting brands and companies that give back to and do no harm to their environment, community, family and health. In fact, 58% of African-American women agree that they are willing to pay more for a product that is environmentally safe, and 62% of Hispanic women agree that they buy based on quality, not price. A full 86% of Asian-American women agree that they are always looking for new ways to live a healthier life.