Mktg to Women: The "Couples" Factor

Guest post by Mary Schmidt, Marketing Troubleshooter

I recently took a two-week river cruise in Europe with a woman friend.  After a couple of days, I joked "Hey, we forgot a key accessory - an old white guy!"  Viking River Cruises had a difficult time from the first with the concept that two adult women might: a. pay their bill separately; b. live at different addresses;  c. not be married. They put everything in my friend's name, including the tickets - which they mailed to her address. (They didn't, however, have any trouble actually charging my credit card.) 

Seems they, like many other companies, simply aren't set up for the rapidly growing "extremely single women" market.  In addition to the order processing issues, the river cruise director repeatedly referenced "ladies" and "shopping" "Don't worry, ladies.  It's Sunday in Nuremberg but some shops will be open!" [nudge, nudge, wink, wink to the men].  Once or twice would have been fine - but after a few days, this got tedious. My friend and I were on the cruise to see and learn,  not buy things (most of which we can get online or at home for much less money.)

Viking clearly has a target demographic for their cruises - white, middle- to upper-middle class American  male/female couples, average age 65+.  Thus, they've made some very general assumptions, including their customers aren't terribly interested in the details behind what they're seeing and they don't want to walk (or think) much.

Unfortunately, targets are living people that don't fit neatly into pigeon holes. For example, my friend is 71, I'm 49 and we have many of the same perspectives and interests, including history, art, and politics.  We think nothing of walking a couple of miles (or more) up, down and around.  We would have liked a lot more learning and a lot less time for shopping - and we would have liked more self-tour options (we're grown-ups, we can and have found our way around cities all over the world.)   

So, some quick tips to Viking:
1.  Not all women are married.
2.  People traveling together aren't necessarily a couple (different addresses, etc.).
3.  Shopping isn't necessarily the most important thing to women travelers, regardless of their age or martial status.
4.  An  increasing number of women are seasoned travelers, pay their own bills, and are traveling to see, learn, and experience - not drag home more stuff.

Sure, we want to be comfortable - that's why we're paying all that money.  But the key word from Viking's tag line above is "exploring."

It pretty much said it all when a question on the customer survey at the end was, "Was enough time allowed for shopping?"  Sigh.

Comments

[J.Brown]

It's funny the assumptions people make when they could ask you about yourself.

[J.Brown]

It's funny how people are comfortable making incorrect assumptions when they could ask someone about themselves.

[Mary Schmidt]

Ah, the bafflement of separate bills. It took us days on the cruise to convince them to give us separate tabs when we ordered drinks and such. (They tally everything up by cabin at the end of the cruise.) The frowns of perplexity!

Of course, I have nothing against either old white guys (or guys of any age or color, for that matter)...or shopping. I just hate it when others try to define women within such limited, traditional parameters.

[Average Jane]

I took a trip with my sister last year to a couples-oriented resort (we were there for a wedding) and had the same type of thing happen. I think she ended up paying for the whole trip on her credit card and having me reimburse her by check.

A similar thing happened with my first BlogHer roommate in 2005. We shared a room but wanted to split the cost onto two credit cards. Man, what a federal case that was!

[Yvonne DiVita]

I'm not likely to cruise...something about the water I don't like...but, I like going places with my gal friends. And, while I like shopping, I sure like doing other things, too. Still... it's up to us to get these companies to change. Let the cruise companies be aware: women have brains and like exercise and... don't like to be patronized!

[Lucy]

I so agree with this. It makes me very cross indeed when people assume that I, as a woman, am particularly interested in shopping to the exclusion of other, perhaps more intellectual, activities. I find it deeply patronising.

In fact, it is indicative of the whole cruise market, in my view, and this kind of mindset is one reason why I will never be a cruise customer.

Oh dear, perhaps you can tell you hit a nerve there ...