Tag: gender gap

According to a statement that has been issued by the director of digital strategy at Saatchi & Saatchi Los Angeles: yes.

The results of a recent study from Fleishman-Hillard Inc. revealed that throughout the next ten years, there will be a notable shift toward women as the primary consumers in the United States, and mobile marketing will be directly targeting that demographic.

The research showed that two thirds of American consumer wealth will be controlled by the female population.

This trend will represent one of the largest wealth transferences in the history of the nation. The implication that this holds for mobile marketing is that women will become a much more important target, as they will have a great deal more influence on where money is being spent. That said, within that industry, itself, there is a notable shortage of female employees.

Mobile marketing as an industry currently has a gender gap despite the direction that the target market is taking.

The latest research shows that mobile advertising has yet to find a solid place in the departments and budgets of most companies, as advertisers still don’t feel confident with the effectiveness of the medium or the strategies that should be used to best utilize it. In terms of building it as a part of standard practice, it remains in only the earliest of stages.

That said, mobile ad use is already increasing at an astronomical rate and that is only expected to continue in that direction. eMarketer’s figures have shown that adults in the United States spend one out of every four media usage minutes on their mobile devices. That said, only 9.8 percent of ad buys were directed at that channel, last year.

Moreover, an ExactTarget study that was published in the 2014 Mobile Behavior Report indicated that women are the group that are most likely to follow or like a brand over social media in order to obtain deals, offers, promotions and other types of savings. The figures from that report indicated that 71 percent of women will do this, compared to 63 percent of consumers as a whole.

Still, mobile marketing has not focused on women, specifically, and among the reasons for this, says Saatchi & Saatchi Los Angeles director of digital strategy, Kayla Green , is that there aren’t enough women actually working within this industry. A call has now been made by that director to include women in mobile advertising to a greater degree.

Recent estimates show that 1.7 billion women in these countries do not own cell phones.

According to the data that was released in a recent report, there are more than 1.7 billion women in countries with low- and middle-incomes, who do not own mobile devices, representing a massive gender gap within those nations.

The average woman in those economies is 14 percent less likely to own a mobile phone than a man.

This, according to the same report, by the GSM Association (GSMA), and that was entitled “Bridging the Gender Gap: Mobile Access and Usage in Low- and Middle-income Countries”. The estimate of a 14 percent lower likelihood of women having mobile devices than men would mean that there is a gender gap of 200 million people. This represents a powerful disadvantage for female residents of those countries, and a weaker opportunity for communication, information, and other resources that are vital components to equal prospects for achievement.

This gender gap in the ownership of mobile devices is considerably higher in certain specific regions.

For example, the report stated that “In particular, women in South Asia are 38 percent less likely to own a phone than men, highlighting that the gender gap in mobile phone ownership is wider in certain parts of the world.”

The GSMA director general, Anne Bouverot, said explained that the widespread availability and affordability of mobile phones offers the people of the world an “unprecedented opportunity to improve and enhance social and economic development,” but at the same time, as women are now owners of these gadgets to the same degree as men, they have a tendency for being “left behind” not only as device owners, but also as mobile consumers.

She went on to say that there will be a considerable benefit to women if the gender gap in the ownership of mobile devices is addressed. That said, the report identified the leading five barriers to the ownership of mobile phones by women, which include cost, security and harassment over this channel, network coverage and quality, technical literacy, operator or agent trust, and issues that have to do with confidence.