Winning Over Women
By Kantar UK, UK
For Self-funded thought leadership research in the financial services sector
Highly Commended in category Data Driven Insights
Project Description
Are Banks bad at marketing to women? Does the investment industry have a male bias and are women failing to save enough for their retirement as a result? That’s what a cross-Kantar group in the UK suspected. So, we set out to uncover the truth in order to help not only our clients, but society at large.
This cross-Kantar team undertook a self-funded programme of research into women’s experiences of Financial Services. Our hypothesis centred on women being less well served by an industry they believe has a male bias, and – as a result – value to both parties is diminished. Beyond proving or disproving our hypothesis, we wanted to provide much deeper insight into the who, why, and how in order to identify strategies and actions to help everyone win.
In the UK today, there are more women than men, they are living longer and their financial resources have been rising steadily. But whilst considerable attention is paid to women’s equality in society at large and in the workplace, their status and value as customers receives less attention. The growth in women’s prosperity means that the challenge is particularly pertinent in financial services, a sector traditionally dominated by men.
While many Financial Services brands are indeed actively promoting greater gender equality and boosting the number of women in the higher echelons of their institutions, that has yet to translate into effective engagement with women as customers.
There are certainly more campaigns aimed at women. But acknowledging women as customers isn’t the same as getting inside women’s heads. When it comes to money, the weight of legacy means it’s still pretty much a man’s world.
The answer isn’t as straightforward as simply looking through a male/female lens at customer segmentation, however. It calls for a more nuanced approach that resonates with all customers. After all, when customers do well, companies do well.
As Anne Kirk, Marketing Director at Swinton said to us, “Much of our industry still talks in riddles and jargon so we are working hard to ensure that people really know what they are (and aren’t) buying so they can make the right decision with confidence”.
The ‘Winning Over Women’ project therefore set out to demonstrate the challenge facing the Financial Services sector, to offer solutions and to put a size on the prize.
This cross-Kantar team undertook a self-funded programme of research into women’s experiences of Financial Services. Our hypothesis centred on women being less well served by an industry they believe has a male bias, and – as a result – value to both parties is diminished. Beyond proving or disproving our hypothesis, we wanted to provide much deeper insight into the who, why, and how in order to identify strategies and actions to help everyone win.
In the UK today, there are more women than men, they are living longer and their financial resources have been rising steadily. But whilst considerable attention is paid to women’s equality in society at large and in the workplace, their status and value as customers receives less attention. The growth in women’s prosperity means that the challenge is particularly pertinent in financial services, a sector traditionally dominated by men.
While many Financial Services brands are indeed actively promoting greater gender equality and boosting the number of women in the higher echelons of their institutions, that has yet to translate into effective engagement with women as customers.
There are certainly more campaigns aimed at women. But acknowledging women as customers isn’t the same as getting inside women’s heads. When it comes to money, the weight of legacy means it’s still pretty much a man’s world.
The answer isn’t as straightforward as simply looking through a male/female lens at customer segmentation, however. It calls for a more nuanced approach that resonates with all customers. After all, when customers do well, companies do well.
As Anne Kirk, Marketing Director at Swinton said to us, “Much of our industry still talks in riddles and jargon so we are working hard to ensure that people really know what they are (and aren’t) buying so they can make the right decision with confidence”.
The ‘Winning Over Women’ project therefore set out to demonstrate the challenge facing the Financial Services sector, to offer solutions and to put a size on the prize.
Agency Solution
To meet our ambitious goal, we needed to gather insight from different perspectives to understand the prevailing behaviours and attitudes. This called for a bold ‘Kantar First’ approach, with Kantar operating brands working together, drawing on several methodologies and Kantar products. In 2016 we restructured to become closer as a Kantar group and this work was part of demonstrating the power of Kantar brands working together. With all of the Kantar UK agencies involved, an editorial board with representatives from each was established to oversee the research. The team took a blended approach using qualitative and quantitative data, drawing on client work, existing assets and commissioning new research.
A number of Kantar’s most innovative methodologies were used, including Kantar Millward Brown’s Facial Coding and Intuitive Associations. A new decile analysis of Kantar Media TGI was also created and Vox Pops sourced using Kantar TNS’s Spotlight tool.
We started the project with 20 expert interviews with senior financial services marketers. We also interviewed opinion formers outside the category to incorporate key insights from other sectors. These helped to create the overall framework and identify areas with the greatest potential for exploration.
We then looked across all of Kantar’s data assets to see what existing insight could be brought to bear. New primary customer experience research and communications research was commissioned and two pieces of quantitative research undertaken.
Qualitative research was conducted by Kantar TNS among two groups of women investors – one group who were less confident and one group who were more confident investors. We used Kantar TNS’s Spotlight tool to capture consumer generated film so the women investors could share their thoughts with us. These were followed up with qualitative groups where they shared more by drawing their experience and our analysts decoded both the videos and pictures.
Another work stream focused on social media analytics with Kantar TNS’s social media team reviewing 1.5 million conversations (622,774 of these were conversations with women).
Using Kantar Media TGI, the financial attitudes and behaviours of 24,000 GB consumers were analysed to enable the development of a financial confidence index.
Finally, our clients Blackrock and HSBC both kindly let us use data points from three major thought leadership studies Kantar TNS conducts for them.
We devised a three-step framework as a way of understanding the world of financial services through women’s eyes. By using this framework we reached a more granular understanding of women’s needs in each area and what financial services institutions can do to serve their women customers better. A picture of this framework (Fig. 1) is attached to this submission to illustrate.
A number of Kantar’s most innovative methodologies were used, including Kantar Millward Brown’s Facial Coding and Intuitive Associations. A new decile analysis of Kantar Media TGI was also created and Vox Pops sourced using Kantar TNS’s Spotlight tool.
We started the project with 20 expert interviews with senior financial services marketers. We also interviewed opinion formers outside the category to incorporate key insights from other sectors. These helped to create the overall framework and identify areas with the greatest potential for exploration.
We then looked across all of Kantar’s data assets to see what existing insight could be brought to bear. New primary customer experience research and communications research was commissioned and two pieces of quantitative research undertaken.
Qualitative research was conducted by Kantar TNS among two groups of women investors – one group who were less confident and one group who were more confident investors. We used Kantar TNS’s Spotlight tool to capture consumer generated film so the women investors could share their thoughts with us. These were followed up with qualitative groups where they shared more by drawing their experience and our analysts decoded both the videos and pictures.
Another work stream focused on social media analytics with Kantar TNS’s social media team reviewing 1.5 million conversations (622,774 of these were conversations with women).
Using Kantar Media TGI, the financial attitudes and behaviours of 24,000 GB consumers were analysed to enable the development of a financial confidence index.
Finally, our clients Blackrock and HSBC both kindly let us use data points from three major thought leadership studies Kantar TNS conducts for them.
We devised a three-step framework as a way of understanding the world of financial services through women’s eyes. By using this framework we reached a more granular understanding of women’s needs in each area and what financial services institutions can do to serve their women customers better. A picture of this framework (Fig. 1) is attached to this submission to illustrate.