Just Ask a Woman: Cracking the Code of What Women Want and How They Buy

Just Ask a Woman is a powerful book about how to tap into female consumers' needs. Mary Quinlan, the founder of the premiere consultancy dedicated to marketing to women, has personally interviewed 3,000 women in the course of her research for Just Ask a Woman. Women are the decision-makers in an estimated eighty-five percent of household buying decisions, and yet far too often, products marketed specifically to them fail to connect with their needs. Here, Quinlan explores topics such as how women judge brands and advertising, how they make decisions, the effects of stress on their consumer behavior, and their increasing demands for service and communication. Quinlan rejects the traditional focus group approach in favor of highly energized and intimate talk sessions where women reveal their deeper feelings about products and services. In Just Ask a Woman marketers, brand managers, and advertisers will find a revelatory resource filled with ideas and action steps for building your brand with women-from a woman who has walked in a marketer's shoes.

Mary Lou Quinlan (New York, NY) is the founder and CEO of Just Ask a Woman, a marketing consultancy dedicated to building business with women. Just Ask a Woman is a division of bcom3, a $15 billion global communications firm whose clients include Citigroup/Women & Co., Lifetime, Saks, Hearst Magazines, Toys "R" Us, and Time Inc. Known as a brand-turnaround expert, she has helped to remake brands like Avon and Continental Airlines. Quinlan has been quoted in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Fast Company and Advertising Age and appeared on ABC, CNN, CNBC, Lifetime LIVE, Fox and nationally syndicated news shows. Her articles have been published in Marie Claire, Good Housekeeping, Redbook, and More, among others.

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All Customer Reviews
Average Customer Review:
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

Not about the average femal consumer, 2006-10-31
You could sum up this book in a few words. "Women are stressed out and seek products or services that ease their stressed out lives. Women play many diffrent roles: the mother, sister, good wife, working woman, friend. Women are diffrent from men."
However, this could be a good business/marketing book but it is not. First of all, the author feels a need to always mention her company's name and feels a need to prove herself all the time by saying "that she has been a ceo" etc (talk about low selfesteem).
Secondly, this is not a book about the global woman, the average english or swedish woman, it is about the all american "ricky lake" woman that really doesnt know a thing about other countries or cultures. If you are marketing to this particular segment, the all american middle class woman then this book might come in handy.
Beware, this book is not about the average female consumer. And the some 220pages could easily have fitted in to 20 pages. The author has just expanded a few points with alot of TALK. This book does not deserve more than 2 stars and this is from a guy that has some 300-400 business books on his bookshelf.



2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

A Good Reminder, 2005-04-03
For most marketing professionals - or any human being that has one or more woman in his/her life - Mary Lou's book doesn't present any dramatically new information. What it does, however, (and does nicely) is clearly remind the reader that many females share some common attributes: they want to be heard, they suffer self-induced stress in addition to work & family induced stress, they put others first, they crave comfort, etc. Being a woman, I could relate with everything printed in the book; being a marketer, I know it is easy to "forget" these very simple truisms when it's time to market to women. Mary Lou's writing is clear and straightforward - a good read for any business person looking to effectively tap into the large female buying population, or any man, really, looking to improve his female relationships :)


3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

La femme est l'avenir de l'homme!, 2004-12-03
Translated, this sentence written by Aragon means: "Women are the future of mankind".
Indeed, you might say that women are the future of any commercial company. They purchase (or share equally in the purchase decisions) of about 83% of all consumer products. For example they purchase 74% of all cars, 66% of all home PCs!
This book brilliantly explains what it takes to successfully market products to women. (It was an invaluable source preparing my own book about women and job hunting). I can highly recommend it. The main strength of the book is that every single point Mary Lou Quinlan makes has been carefully researched through focus groups and discussions with a very large number of women. This is first-hand authentic stuff! Read it and your ideas on how to be successful while marketing consumer products in the 21th century will definately gain a new perspective.
David Veenhuys
http://www.davidveenhuys.com




9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

Packed with Knowledge!, 2003-10-15
Mary Lou Quinlan interviewed 3,000 women consumers about their desires and buying habits. When you finish her book, you will actually be able to answer the question, "What do women want?" Quinlan's style is direct and personable. She backs up her arguments with quotes from successful CEOs and marketers and with a smattering of do's and don'ts from the world of advertising. The book has heart - after all, Quinlan maintains that for women, business is personal - as well as practical advice, although you may have to dig for it. She provides a lot of information on broad thematic lines, sometimes making it tricky to sort out strategies from stories. This is less of a textbook than Marketing to Women (by Martha Barletta from Dearborn Trade Publishing); it is more research-based and extends beyond communications into comparable hands-on, practical counsel. We suggest this wakeup call about the buying power of women to professionals in marketing, advertising, sales and customer service. Use this primer to decode those mixed signals you've been getting from women in your marketplace - and in your life.


3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

No man bashing here, 2003-10-13
As a brand manager for a consumer products company and as a man, I recommend this book for marketers who want to succeed with their most important customers - women. The tone of the book doesn't have any layer of man bashing instead the author really just tells the truth about women today. The excerpts from her research with women were so revealing and honest and I could hear the women in my own life saying the same things. Now I understand how to translate that to strategy for growing my business. A must buy for marketers.

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