Four out of five Asia Pacific women are always or often influenced to switch products if the products are easy to use or more convenient.
SINGAPORE, 11 March 2020 – By 2028, women will own 75% of the discretionary spend, making them the world’s greatest influencers. Brands must first understand the household, financial, and societal pressures and challenges women face today, in order to capture their hearts and minds. The World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index ranks Singapore 54 in the global ranking. With more women joining the workforce, Singapore has attained gender parity in the marketing profession, leading to more discretionary spend.
A global deep dive by Nielsen’s Wise Up To Women campaign revealed that women are looking for more ways to help balance their over-complicated lives. Women in Asia Pacific feel the need for speed in this economic era, and convenience is one of the top concerns for them.
EACH FOR EQUAL: SHARING RESPONSIBILITIES
Women are still more inclined to shoulder household and family responsibilities. The Q4 2019 Conference Board Global Consumer Confidence Survey, in collaboration with Nielsen, found that major concerns over the next six months for Southeast Asian men and women were: childrens’ education/welfare (5.6% women vs 2.6% men); parents’ welfare/happiness (4.5% women vs 2.8% men); increasing utility bills (4.2% women vs 2.9% men).
These domestic-related concerns are extremely real, but with more women in the labour force, the traditional role of women taking care of shopping, cooking and other domestic duties is shifting to a shared role between men and women.
Outside of the workplace, women today want products and services that simplify their day and return to them what they value most: time. When deciding where to shop, close to 65% of women in Southeast Asia prefer to shop online. Amongst them, nearly two in three women (62%) across Southeast Asia look at convenience while shopping online, compared to only 55% of men.
Majority of women in Asia Pacific (84%) have shared primary household responsibilities, compared to just half of men (51%). But compared to other regions, men and women in Asia Pacific are more aligned in their agreement of who has primary responsibility for household chores. In Singapore, 76% of women are the primary shoppers and decision-makers of grocery shopping.
The increase in dual working couples means that convenience is an even more important factor in their choices. This makes women one of the largest opportunities for convenience-led technologies and services.
A/VR AS AN ENABLER
When shopping online, Asia Pacific women are more likely to want a risk-free experience without sacrificing the convenience they crave at a price they are prepared to pay. Almost one-third (29%) of women are already using an in-home device or virtual assistant to receive notifications and automatically order products. Four out of five women (80%) are always or often influenced to switch products if the products are easy to use or more convenient.
Artificial and Virtual Reality (A/VR) technology can transform brand engagement as companies can reach out to consumers wherever they are, with personalised and compelling experiences. Women across the globe are early adopters, with half of them (50%) open to using AR/VR for assessing products/services. This enables risk-free scenarios, allows women to try before they buy, and helps them make faster and smarter decisions.
According to the Nielsen Tech Consumption Global Survey 2019, 74% of women use in-store apps. They are 1.2 times more likely to adopt technology if there was a mobile app for in-store navigation and to help them find new products and promotions, or an in-home device/virtual assistant to receive notifications and automatically re-order products, as all these help them save time.
With women as the key decision-makers of brands that enter their homes, navigational technology could transform their conventional shopping journey, providing newfound convenience via in-store map apps or personalised promotions and layout locations for dinner.
Holding on to the status quo and just paying lip service to their causes without real change is detracting women, encouraging disloyalty, and causing fatigue.
Click here for more information about Nielsen’s Wise Up To Women campaign.
About Nielsen
Nielsen Holdings plc (NYSE: NLSN) is a global measurement and data analytics company that provides the most complete and trusted view available of consumers and markets worldwide. Nielsen is divided into two business units. Nielsen Global Media, the arbiter of truth for media markets, provides media and advertising industries with unbiased and reliable metrics that create a shared understanding of the industry required for markets to function. Nielsen Global Connect provides consumer packaged goods manufacturers and retailers with accurate, actionable information and insights and a complete picture of the complex and changing marketplace that companies need to innovate and grow. Our approach marries proprietary Nielsen data with other data sources to help clients around the world understand what’s happening now, what’s happening next, and how to best act on this knowledge. An S&P 500 company, Nielsen has operations in over 100 countries, covering more than 90% of the world’s population. For more information, visit www.nielsen.com.
