DOLLARS & SENSE
CONFERENCE - NEW YORK - MARCH 2006
The Women's Jewelry Association hosted its Annual "Women in the Know" Conference for professional women in the jewelry industry at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City. The full-day business conference brought together women from all facets of the fine jewelry and related industries.
"The 'Women In The Know' conference is designed to be thought-provoking and life-changing," said Ann Arnold, WJA's newly elected president, and a vice president of Lieberfarb, Inc. Presentations focused on topics including professional development, empowerment issues, and dealing with difficult conversations.
Luxury Shopping Experience
Speakers included Kate Betts, editor of TIME Style & Design, whose subject was "Luxury: How We Shop Now": a look at how luxury shopping behaviors are changing, from the influence of high-technology to the evolution of retail design.
Betts noted that jewelry's role has changed (evolving from a status symbol to a celebration of individual style) and that understanding the shift could help retail jewelers when marketing, merchandising, and selling jewelry collections.
Noting the fact that some of the new jewelry stores convey stories of their own, with intimate, customer focused boutiques that emphasize the shopping experience, she is quoted as saying, "Today, people are really looking for meaning in their investments, and a more individual means of expression."
[Katherine "Kate" Betts was named editor of TIME Style & Design in April 2003. Prior to this she was the editor-in-chief of Harper's Bazaar (1999 - 2001), moving to Bazaar from Vogue where she was Fashion News Director (1991- 1999). Previously, Kate was a reporter and later the bureau chief of the Paris office of Fairchild Publications (1998-1991). Kate has appeared on network and cable television regularly since 1993, including The Today Show, Good Morning America, The Early Show, The View, E!, CNNfn, CNN This American Morning, VH1, and Charlie Rose. A graduate of Princeton University, she resides in New York.]
Avoiding Conflict
Avoid conflict with customers: Debbie Goldstein of Triad Consulting presented "Tackling Difficult Conversations at Work and in Life" using role-playing exercises and self examination quizzes based on material developed by the famed Harvard Negotiation Project.
Psychologica Barriers
Dr. Valerie Young, the founder of ImposterSyndrome.com, spoke about "The Art of Winging It" focusing on understanding and eliminating the psychological barriers preventing women from embracing their full potential.
Driving Business Growth
Leslie Grossman offered entrepreneurs access to the tools and connections that drive business growth. [Grossman is the author of "SELLsation! How Companies Can Capture Today's Hottest Market: Women Business Owners and Executives".]
CONFERENCE - CHICAGO - MAY 2006
Power In the Business World
Women account for more than 50% of stock ownership in the US and by 2010 they will represent 50% of the private wealth in America, or about $14 trillion. Some financial analysts even believe that by the year 2020 the wealth women in America will command is expected to be in the neighborhood of $22 trillion.
Women are already the majority users of the Internet; and they have surpassed men as the primary consumers of computers, cameras, and PDA's.
Marketing to Women Conference
How businesses can learn to tap into that wealth is the focus of the 2nd Annual M2W - The Marketing to Women Conference, scheduled for May 8 - 9, 2006 at the Chicago Cultural Center. M2W is the premier national marketing conference designed to help businesses learn how to increase their emotional and financial share of the lucrative and accelerating women's market.
Attendees will hear from leading marketing-to-women experts through world-class keynote speeches, hands-on workshops and participate in a variety of unique networking events. This year's M2W will also feature a live, interactive, on-stage focus group with women consumers.
Nan McCann, producer of the conference says, "There is an exciting gender shift in the marketplace. Women currently control $7 trillion in consumer and business spending. Women owned businesses employ more people in the USA than all Fortune 500 companies combined."
Keynote Speaker
Fara Warner, author of "The Power of the Purse" and M2W keynoter said, "As we enter the 21st century, women's financial might is set to exceed all expectations, and women will begin to wield the enormous clout that money and power is bringing them. Business would do well to notice this economic revolution."
[Fara Warner has written about marketing, advertising, and consumer trends for more than 15 years for the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Fast Company, Brandweek, and other national publications. She covered consumer trends, media, and marketing for the Wall Street Journal's Asian edition for three years, and then she moved to the Journal's Detroit bureau, where her coverage included e-commerce and marketing. In 2000, she joined Fast Company as a senior writer. Currently a contributing writer to Fast Company, she is the recipient of a Knight-Wallace Fellowship at the University of Michigan for 2005-2006.]
A PERFECT TARGET MARKET
Fara Warner's new book, "The Power of the Purse: How Small Businesses Are Adapting to the World's Most Important Consumers - Women" is available at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
One of her observations is that, "Women make 80% of all buying decisions. They control $7 trillion in purchasing power. By 2010 they'll control more than $13 trillion in private wealth. And that's just in America. Globally, women's soaring economic power is changing business forever."
Warner shows how women's access to money and power has transformed the way they approach brands, business, products, and services. She explains why women are "a little understood market of unprecedented size and scope" - one that few companies truly know how to reach.
- The book shows how, historically, marketers have thought of women only as a minority consumer group that influenced the purchase of goods with money that men made; however, this has been proven to be an antiquated way of thinking.
- Today women are increasingly the breadwinners in the household; they make their own money and they control how they use it.
- Noting that American and the global economies are increasingly dependent on consumers for their growth and understanding, it seems that adapting to women consumers could be the key to success.
Marketing Insight
"The book combines insight with practical applications from the world's biggest brands on how to reach the economic force called 'women.'" - Jack Trout (author or coauthor of several bestselling books including Jack Trout on Strategy, Positioning, Marketing Warfare, and The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing)
"I don't know of any better book on how marketers are overcoming decades of bad habits in serving women. So any book that's the best in its field deserves five stars. Nice insights, Ms. Warner!" - Donald Mitchell, "Your Entrepreneurial Coach: Build a Billion Dollar Business by Reading billiondollarbusiness.blogspot
THE RIGHT HAND RING: Shattering the myth of the "White Knight"
The Power of the Purse is an innovative behind-the-scenes look at how companies are discovering the immense power of women consumers.
Warner writes about how a number of companies created substantial revenue streams and captured significant market shares when they focused on the new realities of women; and devotes a chapter to the discussion of the Diamond Trading Company's marketing campaign for the right hand ring category.
She included De Beers because it was (to her way of thinking) on the cutting edge of this revolution, with the creation of a $4 billion right hand ring category - succeeding with this by rethinking how they wanted to do business with today's most important consumers.
Warner explains, "Explore and understand women's struggle to balance their traditional roles with new roles. DeBeers used this tactic to create advertising for its right-hand rings that didn't preclude a woman from believing she could have the best of both worlds."
- Claudia Rose, Director of Business Strategy at JWT, discussed the subject with her as to how the campaign was planned and how it developed.
- The concept for this category is in sharp contrast to past DTC campaigns, as the right hand ring would not be marketed as a symbol of love but rather an emblem of style. Something that could work as both a "self-purchase" piece of jewelry for the woman herself or as a gift from a significant other.
- The DTC "Average Joe" Valentine's Day Campaign for the Right Hand Ring was obviously not part of the original plans.
