Women and children are indeed major influencers in the choice of food products for several reasons. Let’s explore their roles separately:
Women as Household Decision Makers:
Women have historically had a big say in what gets bought for the home, especially food items. They frequently handle grocery shopping and meal preparation, which puts them in a key position to control the kinds of food that are brought into the house. Women who are the major caretakers for their families are also worried about their families’ dietary requirements and overall health, which makes them more aware of their food choices.
Children as Influencers:
Children significantly affect the household’s choice of food goods. Parents’ shopping selections may be influenced by their interests, tastes, and demands. Food marketers are aware of this and frequently construct marketing programmes that are expressly aimed towards kids in order to build brand recognition and brand loyalty from a young age.
The Dive
The majority of consumer purchases are made by women, so it is important to address their needs. Every day, women spend more time than men shopping for their families.
Why don’t more firms, large and small, prioritize women when developing new products and services?
Women spend more time than men making every day financial decisions for their families, especially those involving services and consumer goods. Women have substantial purchasing power; women account for 70-80% of all consumer purchases due to their influence and purchasing power.
Women often make the majority of purchasing decisions for their families, controlling a significant portion of the nation’s wealth. However, only 4% of venture capital funds go to women-founded businesses.
Different family members may play different roles in the decision-making process, such as where to buy, which brand to buy, how to pay for products, how to consume products, what advantages to expect, and how to share responsibilities in product maintenance. These roles may vary over time due to environmental changes, economic development, and changes in how people see women’s positions in society.
Women have traditionally had the most sway in deciding what would be served at home and shaping the culinary traditions of their families and communities. Modernization is predicted to affect cultural norms, providing women with more opportunities to work outside the house, delayed marriages, and changes in society traditions. As a result, the relative influence of husbands and wives on family decision-making may need to be altered in certain households.
Children’s new responsibilities within the family emerge when a wife works outside the house and provides an amount equivalent to the husband’s. In most cases, the woman has more authority and influence over the family’s critical financial decisions. Women are typically in charge of managing home finances and ensuring there is enough food for everyone, making them more likely to be educated about ingredients available in their local markets.
Despite their significant contributions, women’s culinary expertise and innovation are sometimes ignored or given a low priority, resulting in a lack of attention for women-founded businesses.
Recognizing and honoring women’s contributions to diets and culinary traditions is crucial for maintaining a positive culinary culture. By allowing women to teach others, products and services can adapt to their demands, as necessity is the mother of invention. Imagine market gaps in consumer needs unfulfilled and the potential for profit if business concepts primarily rely on men’s financing.
How to adequately meet women’s requirements?
Women are better suited to design items with women in mind, making it essential to hire them for various aspects of business, such as venture capital funds, female-founded businesses, and gender diversity in boardrooms and leadership.
Women buy over 50% of conventional male products, making it crucial for businesses to strike the right balance. Research is the first step in women’s discovery, as they prefer to understand the problems they face before making a purchase.
This knowledge can promote awareness and change, as women shoppers want to be acknowledged and given genuine options that address their concerns.
A fair economy should be established where goods and services providers and consumers reflect society. Investors should diversify their holdings to support women-led businesses and be deliberate in their spending. Successful branding, strategy, and campaigns should focus on the message being sent, not the product itself.
Nielsen’s consumer research defines women as having impressive purchasing prowess, and women influencers are essential for successful branding strategies. By adapting marketing ideas and approaches, businesses can develop their businesses with female customers and achieve greater success.
It’s a proven fact that women can influence branding strategies and business, whether it’s creating brand strategies or making purchase decisions. Considering women control more than 85 % of purchases across a range of categories, many brands are missing a valuable opportunity if they fail to communicate with women.
Let’s now talk about the branding of goods targeted at women. Marketing has become simpler for any company aiming to draw in female customers. It’s all because of social media.
Women’s psychological profiles play a crucial role in influencing their decision to buy. Contrary to popular belief, understanding women is not as difficult if you take into account the following profiles.
Decoding the target profile helps successful social media marketing companies in India create their brand communication strategy.
Understanding a woman’s motivations, personality, values, and habits is crucial for businesses to create value and impact purchase behaviour. A successful marketing strategy for women-oriented products should address these questions, avoid using pink as the default colour, and offer products or packaging in various colours to cater to different preferences.
Finally, we believe the essence of marketing for women is to consider the demographic without any assumptions and ‘listen’ to what they want. The future of marketing for female-oriented products and services is exciting and hopeful with marketing services agencies upping their game by going above and beyond the perceived notions.
Children are frequently perceived as oblivious observers in domestic decision-making processes. However, it’s critical to understand that kids have a big say in the decisions made by their families. Children’s preferences and opinions are taken into account by parents when making decisions about everything from what to eat for dinner to where to go on family holidays.
Children’s behaviours and mindsets significantly influence domestic decision-making. Parents often consider their children’s responses to decisions and may adjust their plans accordingly. Interests and pastimes also influence domestic decision-making, as parents may choose to enroll their child in extracurricular activities or organize outings based on their child’s interests.
Furthermore, as kids get older, they express their thoughts and desires more outspokenly. This might encourage parents and kids to make decisions together more often.
In a nutshell, although it may not always be apparent, children impact domestic decision-making. When making choices that affect the entire family, parents must keep their children’s needs and preferences in mind.
Kids are crucial for marketers as they influence parents’ purchasing decisions and future consumers. Factors like smaller families, dual incomes, and postponing children can lead to increased disposable income and guilt-ridden spending decisions. Industry spending on advertising to children has increased significantly in the past two decades, with companies spending over $17 billion in the first decade since 2000. Parents are willing to spend more on their kids due to these factors.
Here are some of the strategies that marketers employ to target children and teens :
The text highlights the importance of family meals, casual dining, clothing purchases, computer and software purchases, and family trips and outings. It emphasizes the importance of the application rather than being the main flavour.
Persuasion and psychological tactics
Children now have greater autonomy and decision-making power, increasing “pester power” in family purchases. Marketing to children involves persistence and importance nagging, appealing to parents’ desire for their children’s best. Advertisers must understand their developmental, emotional, and social needs. Child psychologists can help craft sophisticated marketing strategies, but it gained public attention in 1999 when mental health professionals urged the American Psychological Association to declare it unethical.
Commercialization of education
School boards are now allowing corporations to access students in exchange for cash, computers, and educational materials. Companies exploit the school environment for promoting their products and brands, using sponsored educational materials, technology, exclusive deals with fast food or soft drink companies, advertising in classrooms, school buses, and computers, and contests and incentive programs. This shift in marketing strategies aims to protect children from advertising and consumer messages. Educators and retailers benefit from hands-on experiences for children, fostering positive associations between companies, students, parents, and teachers
The Internet
The Internet is a popular medium for targeting children due to its youth culture and unregulated nature. Parents often don’t understand the extent of online marketing, and children online alone without parental supervision. Advanced technologies enable targeted marketing research and building brand loyalty through interactive environments.
Companies target young people online through relationship building, viral ads, behavioral targeting, and influencer endorsements. These methods aim to connect consumers with brands, build personal relationships, and reach friends. For more information on targeting kids, visit the Online Marketing section.
A Few research findings
The professor’s research focuses on children as consumers, highlighting the increasing consumerism and brand awareness among young people, making them the new followers of consumerism in modern societies.
Affluence, dual-income families, and parental involvement make children important factors in household buying decisions. Children’s desires are increasingly influencing parents’ consumption behavior, shifting the focus from spousal dynamics to the triadic parent-child relationship. This shift influences marketers’ promotions for family consumption products and services, influencing buying decisions beyond children’s products.
Child influencers play a significant role in high-involvement buying, as their voices count in decisions like vacations, cars, and houses, even in high-value purchases. Children influence family dining choices, according to Giraj Sharma, Founder-Director of Behind the Moon Consultants.
At Haldirams, a high-end Delhi Street food restaurant, the menu features pasta, a Baskin-Robbins counter, and kulfis for dessert. Observing families with young children, Sharma realized the restaurant was smart in offering these items for their children to enjoy while enjoying chaats and chola batura.
Age positively influences a child’s involvement in purchase decisions, with older children providing advice on education choices. Children’s preferences influence family purchases, making them a significant secondary market.
Teenagers dominate the consuming class, earning or receiving pocket money and influencing parents’ wallets.
They are brand-conscious and tech-savvy, offering various options and prices. Teenagers significantly influence electronic goods decisions, particularly smartphones, as they know of the latest products from companies like Boat and Boat’s Bluetooth speaker.
Tweens (8-12 years old) form perceptions about brands and family consumption, requiring marketers’ attention.
Marketer’s Opportunity
It is highlighted that the third group of children below eight is uninhibited, apprehensive, and receptive to cartoons and TV programs, making them crucial for marketers’ socialization.
Companies must understand children’s consumption patterns to gain insights and capitalize on this opportunity for marketers.
In the final analysis, women and kids have a big say in what food products are chosen in families. Their tastes, dietary concerns, health issues, and demand for convenience all have a significant impact on how the food sector is shaped and how marketing methods are implemented.