In the groan-inducing 2000 film
What Women Want, Mel Gibson’s misogynistic executive used an acquired ability to hear women’s thoughts to amusing, mostly self-serving ends.
Mary Van Note and Beth Perro-Jarvis, MSP-based
Ginger Consulting’s co-founders, can’t read minds. But thanks to decades of marketing experience and a comprehensive, highly authoritative survey for female householders, they’ve got a pretty good handle on what drives women consumers in MSP and across the country — certainly more so than Gibson’s fictional mind-reading cad.
Van Note and Perro-Jarvis released their sixth annual “What Women Want” survey in April. The survey touched on of-the-moment health trends, like juicing and the Paleo diet, plus political issues, personal finance, household division of labor, popular culture and more.
Some of the headline findings were surprising. For instance, nearly two-thirds of survey respondents believe the “latest diet and nutrition trends” — i.e., Paleo — are “just fads.” A similar proportion claimed to be fine with making dinner at home every night. And more than a quarter believed that Hillary Clinton and any other female Presidential candidates in the 2016 election cycle will be judged more harshly than male candidates — in other words, that voters hold prospective women leaders to a higher standard.
The “What Women Want” survey processes responses from Ginger Consulting’s Alpha Panel, a 350-strong cohort of hand-selected women, most of them affluent and well-educated.
“The Alpha Panel isn’t a random sample,” explains Van Note. “We have longstanding relationships with most of these women and value their input in a way that goes beyond many other consumer surveys.” Ginger’s partners are particularly dismissive of teen surveys, which are highly sought after by marketers due to teens’ notoriously fickle tastes — but can be unreliable to the point of uselessness precisely
because teens are so fickle.
By contrast, “our ‘alpha-females’ are a representative sample of America’s largest consumer group — the powerhouse that buys and sells 85 percent of all products bought and sold in the U.S.,” says Perro-Jarvis, referring to the single and family-attached women who make the vast majority of purchasing decisions, often on behalf of domestic partners and dependents. “Naturally, they have a lot to say about the marketplace, and life in it.”
In many ways, Perro-Jarvis and Van Note epitomize their Alpha Panel. Whip-smart, both left prominent positions at Fallon (the two were team members for some time, in fact) to work on their own terms and achieve that elusive work-life balance.
“The world of marketing and advertising is incredibly stressful and not particularly conducive to raising a family,” says Van Note. “At the same time, we were having these back-of-the-napkin conversations about what it would look like if we went into business together.”
During those conversations, the pair decided to focus more on big-picture, data-driven strategy instead of the full-service marketing work typically done by larger agencies.
“We don’t have the resources to manage the teams we’d need to execute client campaigns,” explains Perro-Jarvis. “We’ve found a niche as ‘strategy outsourcing’ specialists who consult on high-level tactics, custom research, ideation and brand strategy.”
“We’re basically strategic brains for hire,” she adds.
Now that they’re masters of their own destiny, Van Note and Perro-Jarvis are reaping the rewards. “We take calls in line at Target, work out of home offices and structure our workdays around other obligations,” says Perro-Jarvis.
“Who wants an office anyway?” she laughs. “It’s just another place to clean up.”