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A new global study by Euro RSCG Worldwide that looks at the Millennial generation—both males and females—has found an interesting shift: The notion of an outright battle of the sexes is no longer relevant for young women, and they don’t consider their rights a cause to be fought over, or perceive their decisions and life choices as having an impact on women as a whole. Instead, finds the study, today’s young woman is focused on individual achievement and satisfaction.
“Gender Shift: Are Women the New Men?,” a survey of 3,000 young adults across China, France, India, the United Kingdom and the U.S., finds a sense of individualism based on clear objectives: happiness or love, says Marian Salzman, president of Euro RSCG Worldwide PR, North America.
When asked what happiness means to them, a majority of women and a plurality of men in each of the markets answered: Happiness means love. “This is an important shift from a time when money and power were the coveted prizes at the end of the rat race,” says Salzman. “It’s clear that the gender wars of the past are no more and that Millennials view gender in a totally different way than their parents’ generation did. This has a massive effect on global business and, especially, on communicators.”
Marti Barletta, CEO of The TrendSight Group, says that the finding is significant—and heartening. “It reflects the attitudes and expectations that Boomer women hoped to create among their daughters and sons,” she says. “The next step will be to see if we can move beyond attitudes to actual changes in behavior.” Specifically, Barletta refers to a failure of businesses to respond to this change in Millennials’ updated lifestyles, such as better childcare during work hours and more telecommuting opportunities. That recognition is borne out in the findings. For example, in the U.K. a quarter of men, but more than four in 10 women, cite work-life balance as their No. 1 priority in job selection.
For communicators, Barletta says there are no great challenges in these findings, only lost opportunities. Marketers and PR professionals, says Barletta, must recognize that women are the primary “action takers” on everything having to do with private society, with strong family and home values.
Make no mistake, though, wanting it all still includes career success, but it also includes a healthy dose of family and personal time, adds Salzman. That means they are busy, a fact known very well by Leslie Dance, VP of worldwide brand marketing and communications at Kodak. “As the study states, women are being pulled in many directions, much more so than men,” says Dance. What they’re looking for in technology, she adds, are products that are easy to use and provide a unique experience. “For Kodak, that experience is the ability to share—images, photo books, moments and memories,” says Dance.
With that strategy in mind, perhaps the real lesson learned from this study is to communicate beyond gender, establishing an intellectual or emotional bond instead of thinking in terms of pink or blue. PRN
CONTACT:
Mariann Salzman, [email protected]; Marti Barletta, [email protected]; Leslie Dance, [email protected].