In an article by Caroline Winnett, Chief Marketing Officer, NeuroFocus titled “Gender and Marketing: The Female Brain,” Ms. Winnett articulates the results from NeuroFocus’s research on how marketing to women is different than marketing to men on a neurological level. This science, used by some of the top consumer packaging brands such as Frito-Lay, measures brainwaves, eye-tracking and skin conductance, to determine whether a message resonates with a consumer.

• Women’s brains have more distributed functions than men, especially for language and memory. Women’s brains have stronger connections between the two hemispheres.
• Women have a larger hippocampus, a major area of the brain that is involved in memory function. Women rely more heavily on brain areas that contain mirror neurons during empathic interaction. Mirror neurons enable a person to feel what they see another person is feeling.

Does this all sound too scientific and irrelevant to the marketing equation? She goes on to discuss how women respond significantly more strongly to certain styles of packaging designs, branding, advertising messages, and store layouts. Here is a small sampling of NeuroFocus’ guidelines for marketing to women:

• Be authentic
• Focus on cooperative, reciprocal, collaborative conversations
• Keep messaging exploratory, not flatly declarative
• Provide plenty of information
• Acknowledge that she’s integrating many goals with every shopping experience and purchase

These differences can’t be dismissed. How often are companies presented an under-tapped audience that supplies significant financial power with scientific studies that provide a conduit to creating brand loyalty?