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Category: SHAZIYA KHAN

  • The second in our 10-part series where Shaziya Khan focuses on the allyship of brands for financial savviness of women

    What’s ‘Said’ Scratches the Surface of What’s ‘Experienced’

     

     

    The second in our 10-part series where Shaziya Khan focuses on the allyship of brands for financial savviness of women and girls. Link to the first part: Is there a Burden of Hidden Emotions Women carry in it?

     

    Shaziya KhanBy Shaziya Khan

    Women are known to be prudent shoppers and savers. Yet, women need to become more savvy in personal finance. This is a key and progressive attitude shift among, both, men and women.

     

    Several women, confess to being uncomfortable about taking decisions in financial matters (seeking validation, often procrastinating etc.). Also, women feel emotionally vulnerable taking financial decisions in a life context of dependency (spouse, father, brother), social “rules” and roles, subtle conditioning favoring a persona that “knows little about such matters”. These ‘silent yet significant’ barriers, lurk deep, generationally and must be surfaced and reassuringly addressed. Thereby, enabling financial savviness of women and girls as a happy ‘normal’ in the present and future. Guided by the truth that the spoken word is different from the lived experience, we looked far below the surface of what is merely ‘said’.

     

    GNAWING FINANCIAL WORRY EXPERIENCED SILENTLY. Women experience a gnawing threat and worry related to “their safety net”. Research reveals that one of the biggest advocates for purchasing general insurance, is the woman of the house, albeit with a deeply subdued voice. Wives and mothers instinctively, quickly, silently understand that “if anything were to happen”, it would sadly, blow a big hole in the family’s savings. They especially worry about the adverse impact on children’s education and future, etc. Yet, despite this threat perception being experienced deeply, they rarely voice it. Why?

    There are ‘obvious’ restrictions to voicing a ‘bad omen’, even if one is speaking practically or thoughtfully, with ‘good intention’. Due to the ‘bad omen’ factor and related manifestations of it, women barely voice their financial inclinations. This could be with regard to banking, investing, insurance, earning etc. Thus, out of fright, superstition, “not speaking out of turn”, “being a nag”, “having a black tongue” etc. women learn to live with their gnawing financial worries. Unable to voice their inclination towards purchasing relevant financial instruments. Unable to actively ‘solve for’ financial needs, protective financial measures, in good time.

     

    SOFT SKILLS MASK THE INTENSITY OF THE FINANCIAL NEED OR DESIRE. Women know, there is an art and science of successfully navigating any financial discussion. Personal finance, being a sensitive topic, and theirs being a layered authority, it needs careful ‘handling’. For instance, even blurting out a spontaneous practical suggestion, takes practice. At other times, they learn, or are taught, silence is golden. Many women “have to” master diplomacy, timing and discretion to adroitly discuss a financial matter at home. Mustering courage, faultless logic, impeccable timing and pitch perfect tone of voice are intangible and tangible ‘notes of harmony’ that women orchestrate. These soft skilled expressions, others like them, are common. “I’ll try and cajole over a few days”, “after meals is best time to discuss it”, “so and so, was suggesting”.

    Women admit to picking their battles carefully, wisely, especially financial ones. They fear that if a stray remark is seen by their spouse, elders, ‘authority figures’ of the family, to be strident or ill timed, several of their future financial needs and wishes might never see light of day. Or be denied for a long time.

     

    LACK OF ASSERTION OF FINANCIAL AUTHORITY. Many women admit that even when their financial rights exist, they feel, or are made to feel awkward, uncomfortable or guilty, when asserting them. Anecdotally there is much, varied evidence pointing to this lack of assertion. Seeking “permission” to assert what is financially due. Forgoing some part of their financial rights, is ‘taken for granted’. Being the last in the queue to get their financial due is “accepted”. Withdrawal of other familial support, if she claims her financial rights, is familiar to many middle-class women.

    This could be partly due to early subtle conditioning, across several aspects. To take just one aspect, several parents mention observing, early on, differing behavior related to gifts. The girl child is passive or vague about what she wants as a gift, versus, a boy child assertively negotiates a gift in return for “x”. Years later, this gets cemented as a ‘pattern’. Women passively “let go” of personal financial matters, preferring vagueness over ‘details’. They candidly admit to being carefree, haphazard, even “lost”, about ‘their own’ finances! Some learn a ‘hard lesson’, better their ways.

     

    ALLIES MUST EMPATHISE WITH THE EXPERIENCE BEHIND THE WORDS. We are learning, that alongside the rational budgeting and saving skills, women have an emotional (roller coaster) experience of personal finances. They live silently, or with hushed words, or muted expressions, with this experience. With gnawing financial worry, a marshalling of soft skills to mask intensity of financial needs, desires and ‘letting go’ rather than asserting financial authority. Words seem to scratch the surface of these deeply felt and lived daily “normal” experience. Brands, keen on allyship with women, must empathize with their lived experience, behind the words.

    To ally with a woman on her onward journey of financial savviness – let her know you ‘get’ her experience. Let that inspire innovation, communication, inclusivity to enable her financial savviness. You might hear just a muted phrase or see just a passive nod, trust me, her heart is probably jumping with joy, hope. It is just that her words don’t capture that. Yet.

     

    Shaziya Khan is National Planning Director, Wunderman Thompson. She has won the Jay Chiat Grand Prix  for Strategy and Three WPP Atticus Global Awards for ‘Original Thinking in Marketing Communication’. Her views here are personal.

     

  • Urban Indian consumers have lived frugally for an extended period of time, writes Shaziya Khan

    Hello, New Urban Consumer with a Hermit Mindset… Frugal, Contemporary, Creative

     

    By Shaziya Khan

     

    It is an introspective time of the year. Added to which are exhaustive charts, healthy discussions and sceptical eyebrows. Many are seeking a cloudless clarity. Above the blinding glare of information overload. Or worse, the opaque fog of misinformation. All to do with the new urban consumer. What has changed for now? What seems to have changed mainly due to the lockdown (unconscious bias – recent effect)? What has changed for the longer term?

     

    Recap of data highlights: The Wunderman Thompson and Kantar reports highlight key consumer shifts and trends which are briefly recapped here. Shift to savings, loss of personal space, security and convenience paramount, health at the forefront, digital to the rescue, media rejigged. Reskilling, back to home life as epicentre. Philanthropic brands wanted. Accelerating the purpose agenda of brands, in practical ways.

     

    New value system: Accelerating the drive toward more inclusive heroes, meaning, sustainability, nature. Future of communication: there is an acceleration of the need for checks and balances of evolved communication modes. Every business is a health business in terms of whether it informs or misinforms. Connected communities: rebuilding community and connection is a top priority. Nurturing the tribe is an accelerating trend.

     

    Health’s next frontier: Healing anxiety and well-being of the digital self – existing trends, that have intensified, given the need gap in investing proactively in health.

     

    New retail models: not only is there more contact less shopping and handsfree payment. There is also a fast tracking of initiatives like virtual services and live streaming, based on consumer journey and experience.

     

    Stitching a quilt: With hard numerical data and ephemeral qualitative texture, patch by patch, here’s a handwoven quilt on the new urban consumer. Like a patchwork quilt, this understanding is stitched with the hope of connecting past, present and future. And above all, to help the new urban consumer be treated with warmth, comfort and empathy. A patchwork quilt of understanding is not only for a new consumer but also for one living in a far from normal context. A context that has euphemistically been called the new normal, or next normal, or better normal.

     

    This is simply the examined normal – a “reading” of the lived experience of urban consumers. Their mindset. A short take on a very large topic in a very new context. The examined normal – new/next/better, normal or otherwise. What does this examined reality reveal?

     

    Emerging hermit mindset: It yields an emerging chrysalis portrait of a kind of contemporary hermit, frugal to an extreme. Digitally savvy, by necessity. A personal growth enthusiast, even an explorer, not at the level of mastery, nor competence, yet. Frugal at many levels. Urban consumers have lived frugally for an extended period of time. Spartan food, simple clothing, sore isolation, repetitive, harsh schedules, uncertain work, education, future, several blurring “lines”.

     

    A kind of life, perhaps, only ever experienced somewhat, at retreats or camps. That too, for a few days only. And voluntarily, by a niche group, that was into “this sort of thing”. This is utterly different from the urban consumer life context (not short, voluntary, niche).

     

    Nevertheless, it could be illustrative to recap what brushes with “capsule frugality” are, to shed light on the new experience of extended frugality.

     

    Capsule frugality recalled. Capsule frugality, voluntarily embraced, evoked positive feedback. Nirvana is a booking away (“you should try it”). The waiting lists are long. Despite the agenda being very tough (repeat, very tough) love. Including regimented schedules, bland food, cold baths, demanding exercises, isolation, minimal conversation. These are seen to yield the benefit of detoxification, bliss, escape, even release.

     

    Extended frugality, examined. Significantly the lockdown lived experience was not mindful. In fact, mind numbing is a better description. Yet, after the extended dismay, discomfort, resignation, a new emotion is being expressed. Out of the depths of extended frugality of the daily life, strikes the rubber slippers epiphany. It goes simply as: It is okay. Surprisingly, I am okay, you are okay.

     

    Rubber slippers epiphany: “Been wearing rubber slippers, 12 hours a day, for months, and you know what, it is okay”. Acceptance.

     

    Even a kind of liberation. The relief of survival with so little. The triumph of knowing hell we could, so now we know, we can. A struggle with disruptive frugality, at many levels, has given the urban “indulgent class” a glimpse of mettle lurking beneath the surface of shiny aspirations. A private gemstone rich mine of raw instinct. And it evidently feels rejuvenating, despite the steep and stoic efforts involved in ‘mining’ these instincts.

     

    WT research reveals that developing market consumers view change as eventually leading to betterment. Frugality, not just financial. The extended daily lived experience of frugality yields many, many (unasked for) lessons for surviving, thriving, changing, adopting, adapting, shedding, decluttering, exhuming, sacrificing, missing, dropping, coping, creating, shutting, cancelling, learning. (For instance, a much loved corporate cartoon talks of the immense transformation in companies, wielded not by the wand of the “chief transformation officer”, but due mainly to the disruption of remote working)

     

    In effect, frugality, which at first glance seems a hard word, is actually an interesting word. It has interesting associations like moderation, less waste, temperance, simple, mindful, thoughtful. Many, resonating qualities of our times. In shifting scenarios, a steady mindset. As scenarios evolve, expectedly, many of the creature comforts may sweep back in. To the extent affordable and desirable.

     

    However, the hermit mindset, it appears, has dug in, for a longer term. Even toward embracing simple living and high thinking, in degrees. Degrees may vary, but “hermits in the mind” are likely to be or do these. Hermit mindset takes ‘tough love’ calls. Be able to take tough decisions faster, due to less attachment and more acceptance of uncertainty. Several pending, sitting on the fence, long gestation periods of consideration kind of decisions, will find the button pressed. What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger is the decision making mettle in the making (washing machines debated for five years, got installed in five weeks, hobbies on the back burner were officially launched as commercial home-preneur brands, relationship bridges long overdue, over troubled waters, got built).

     

    Hermit mindset marches to inner rhythm more. Be less outwardly motivated, be more inwardly mindful and particular in prioritising what truly matters. Having managed much, whilst “making do” with little, has been a kind of maturing. “Autumn is about the beauty of letting go”. Aspects outgrown out of deep necessity have been ‘let go’. Authenticity and transparency are not just the desirable mantras, they are live – being broadcast in real time.

     

    (Less conscious of manicured “appearances”, more relaxed about one’s private self being shared – messy hair, unshaven faces, informal or casual dressing, help sought openly, advice taken professionally, simple menus, vernacular and voice communication, desire for more expression and less suppression , comfort zone friends or family over “IT” acquaintances/ influentials and “zoom fatigue”, pursuit of learning, upskilling, new creative endeavours). Hermit mindset uses a fine toothed comb of value for sorting & sifting priorities. There appears a wholesome embrace of not just value, but value-consciousness-to-an-extreme.

     

    Born of the head: financial necessity, anxiety and generally trying times. Born of the heart, too: further, reverence and fresh appreciation, deeply heart felt, of modesty, temperance and efficiency in nearly all matters of consumption. (Recycling of items, utilising ignored kitchen goods like casseroles, skillets, old clothes and furnishings, utterly “locking down” on previously eagerly anticipated purchases, like branded sales, selling items to the kabadi to declutter one’s own home and to help keep others home fires burning, searching and waiting patiently for best deals, pack sizes, combinations, bulk buys, best times for purchase, on a steep curve digitally – accelerating knowledge, access, engagement, commerce).

     

    Especially with regard to digital interface, what matters most are simplicity, speed more than engagement or relationships is “brand respects us” via apt, timely, relevant value. A hermit mindset leans into preciousness of trusted vintage. A broad love for the enduring, both for the utility it provides, as well as of the emotional meanings it signifies, is sweeping upon the new urban consumers. There is an abiding sense of reconnecting with rootedness, including our own roots, indeed whatever gives the daily life it’s rootedness. In turbulent currents, strong anchors, help steady the boat.

     

    What started off as “making do” has turned a page, as there is a realisation of the richness of the rooted. The preciousness of the familiar, tried and trusted. The trusted motor car, or efficient two-wheeler, hardy pressure cooker, homely safe beauty routine, sturdy absorbent towel, loyal fluttering old curtain, that like us humans, is soldiering on, reliably, is often complimented. Sepia photographs of boarding school friends, paradise lost and then re-discovered, of colleagues at conferences that pre dated the virtual meetings era, are widely commented upon. The loved but slightly sagging armchairs, wherefrom the family takes fresh daily blows on the chin, from the news, are familiar comfort zones.

     

    On an unforgiving day, day after day, trust in brands has primacy more now than in the past. The trusted is gold, to have and to hold. A hermit mindset is mindful of people over things. As generations in the family retreat to their “cave”, the main treasure to cherish is conversations with people. Caves by definition are bare, whatever the cave. Conversation, hence connection is all there is. Teens in their rooms, children on their screens, parents in their kitchen, bathroom, desk, chair, senior citizens in front of heaters, singletons on their social media channels, the long distant couples on their phones, the brave retailer in his shop, and so on. Starved of experience, each realised, all we ever really can have, is a sense of connection. So the person to person connection reigns more than ever before.

     

    (Fractured generational relationships, everywhere are getting rebuilt one conversation at a time. As huddles after dinner, mutters while cleaning, even when sweating, slipping and swearing, at rare times of just chilling, intellectually debating, just simply calling to say how are you).

     

    The “hot” buttons. These are emerging as the five ‘slow living’ hot buttons of the hermit mindset.

    :: Tough love calls.

    :: Inward motivations.

    :: Extreme value consciousness.

    :: Primacy of trust and the trusted.

    :: People bridges.

     

    For these five reasons, despite the shock experienced, the hermit mindset appears braced for simple living and high thinking, relatively speaking, for an extended period of time. Born of necessity – of disruptive as well as accelerated change. Matured of experience – in living through it.

     

    Word of the year

    In a cold place (few distractions), in warm lamp light (illuminating comfort), my word of the year 2021 crystallises. Synthesizing several threads of quantitative data, qualitative insights, expert discussions. Culminating in the notion that “serious is the new cool”.

     

    Serious is the new cool

     

    Large problems demand large, simple solutions which in turn compel larger, loftier vision and thought. Serious stuff.

     

    WT 2020 surveys across developed and developing markets suggest that consumers now believe that the challenges and opportunities humanity faces loom large and new, in scope, scale and yes even, scariness.

     

    Firstly, consumers prefer brands that demonstrate a new kind of civic leadership – in tackling these big world problems, not just small ones. There is a vital need for fresh, innovative and holistic approaches, like never before. There is optimism that a fresh generation of thinkers and doers will provide this unique and much needed perspective.

     

    Secondly, consumers also believe that brands (more than several other social organisations) are best placed to provide effective, innovative, well thought through, consumer centric ideas and solutions.

     

     

    What serious is and is not 

     

    A world pushed to transform, has had a giant, collective wake up call. And a seriously thoughtful approach is emerging as vital in several fields of endeavour. Not only that, it is transforming the grammar of transformation itself.

     

    Serious is not niche, it is mainstream, part of the “what’s going on” culture. Serious is not obscure, distant nor intimidating, it is viscerally part of the lived daily existence of many. True to context, relatable, relevant. Serious is not cold, nor dry, it is vitally, warmly people centric, even more – generational / community / relationship centric. People first. Serious is not distracted or complicated, but distilled, clear and patiently resilient.

     

    Above all, serious is not boring, nor pedantic, serious is the good it does, and protects and nurtures; and what makes it the new cool. Re-orienting brands, coaching examined. It was always cool to deep dive, take a long view, dig into what really matters. It has intensified manifolds.

     

    It is cool to seek serious help. Seeking help is no longer just for losers, but also for winners, who need it most and especially for movers and shakers who might be yearning for it unknowingly. As much as normal or average people. Getting help is simply being responsible and human. Coaching spells growth. In any arena of life, work, play.

     

    The clever bit, in the coaching conceptual framework, is that the seeker is a client and not just a patient. The expert is a friendly coach not an intimidating authority. There’s a coach offering a master class package, a phone call away, and people are gratefully opting in. Are brands listening ? Are brands observing the re-orientation going on in seeking and receiving serious help via the coaching frame.

     

    Brands can be the poster child of the coaching narrative. We open the door to a year ahead of continuing disruptive change, as well as accelerated change. In such a context, brands can be the poster child of the coaching narrative. Connecting to a new consumer in new and apt ways.

     

    1. The new consumer has a slow living hermit mindset that is inclined to being frugal, contemporary, creative.

    2. The five buttons, of this mindset, are seen to be operating at multiple levels – functional, mental, emotional, social, transactional, relational.

    3. The dots connect to signify serious is the new cool. Based on fresh research on how consumers view change across markets, and their expectations from brands at a time of change. Constructive, innovative, holistic solutions are being sought from brands to address real and big issues/consequences/opportunities.

    4. Brand as coach – ushers brands that build connections like coaches via an ecosystem of empathetic serious help. To reassuringly accept new contexts and leverage new mindsets.

    5. In sum, the quilt of new consumer understanding highlights the significance of : an emerging hermit mindset, serious as the new cool brand narrative, engaging in a coach-client manner.

     

    Purpose of the “quilt of new consumer understanding”. This is primarily stitched, patch by curated patch, to help brand custodians provide much needed empathy and warmth to a hyphenated two tone consumer. Who is at the same time, isolated-connected, anxious-mindful, frugal-creative, contemporary-rooted. And coping amazingly, at full stretch, and counting.

     

    As a patchwork quilt, true to its name, this new understanding too is stitched with the hope of connecting and creating. Being a means for others to add their inputs too.Thus, all together, becoming the basis for enabling much warmth and empathy when brand custodians market, innovate, price and communicate products and services to new urban consumers.

     

     

    Shaziya Khan is National Planning Director, Wunderman Thompson. She has won the Jay Chiat Grand Prix  for Strategy and Three WPP Atticus Global Awards for ‘Original Thinking in Marketing Communication’. Her views here are personal. First published on LBBOnline at https://www.lbbonline.com/news/hermit-mindset-frugal-contemporary-creative-hello-new-urban-consumer

     

  • Shaziya Khan on how brands can provide allyship in this area of growing importance.

    Tote of Personal Finance: Is there a Burden of Hidden Emotions Women carry in it?

     

    By Shaziya Khan

     

    Shaziya KhanFor many women, a lingering, pervasive discomfort about personal finance exists, despite growing finances. Women confess to feeling uncomfortable about taking personal financial decisions. Women also feel the need for permission or validation from significant others (spouse, parent, brother etc) in matters of personal finance. For some, despite taking many financial decisions, at work, they are still uncomfortable about personal finances.

     

    It matters to understand why women are uncomfortable about personal finance. Why? In modern times, both men and women believe, it is important for women and girls to be financially savvy. This is a key attitude shift of our times. Encouraging an all-out pursuit of financial savviness is a key area of allyship for brands related to women’s progress.

     

    How can brands provide allyship to enable women and girls in this area of growing importance? This is an important question for brands in financial categories – banking, insurance, investing, saving. Also, a relevant question for brands in other categories, as financial aspects impact most purchases.

     

    A starting point, is what is already well-known about women’s financial experiences

    It is known that most women try to have a small financial cushion.  They literally, and figuratively, stuff it, every opportunity they get. Quietly, prudently, cautiously, providing for a little more. This could be via  the ingrained ‘small saving’ experiences, home budgeting skills and a growing influence on big ticket purchases.  Yet, attitude shifts and indeed lifestyle expectations, demand a lot more than a small financial cushion! In effect, it is about “bigger, better financial cushions wanted!” for women and girls.

     

    Synthesise the Well-Known with the Well-Hidden

    Guided by the truth that people hide their true emotions, it is key to ‘read’ the well-hidden factors alongside the well-known factors. There could be ‘well -hidden’ emotions women experience related to personal finances. These are not revealed via conventional research.  Rather they are revealed, whilst unpeeling the women’s life context, learning from experts within that life context, adjacent to it or in some way intimately related to women’s lives as well their ‘financialscape’.  Stepping outside the functional lens of category creation, to empathize with the emotive lens of category creation, is vital. I call it, synthesising the ‘well-known’ with the ‘well-hidden’.

     

    This perspective helps unlock priorities for allyship.  Sheds light on ‘what is going on, silently’ and how practically, brands can provide allyship. In short, looking at women’s (halting, tentative, uncomfortable) journey towards financial savviness, within the context of their life journey, is revelatory.

     

    Life context cannot be ignored. Women navigate personal finances in the broader context of navigating their everyday life. Women’s life context – the relationships, social norms, psychological frameworks, individual versus collective aspects, all impact their financial choices, or lack of them. Each life context is influentially and sensitively related to personal financial matters. A bit like the proverbial pea hidden underneath the soft mattress – causing a sleepless night for a sensitive person.

     

    A ‘Well-Hidden’ Emotional Vulnerability

    We unearthed a ‘well-hidden’ emotional vulnerability, that holds women back from becoming more financially savvy, even when they wish too. This emotional vulnerability is a triangulation ‘compromises’, ‘rules’, ‘understanding’ operating silently yet strongly in women’s life context. There is a combination of dependency, role expectations and perceived personas that women “have to” usually abide by.

     

    Firstly, by mid-life, many women are financially dependent. Having ‘given up’ financial independence when younger (by necessity, choice, whim. They are then, compelled, to make compromises in personal finances, in mid-life. Secondly, women internalise social, cultural and family ‘rules’ on financial matters. Their ‘role and rule-based’ involvement is restricted mainly to home and lifestyle finances. Thirdly, stepping beyond a certain ‘boundary’ of financial savviness, women carry a psychological risk. That of possessing a negatively perceived persona, in the eyes of significant others, as too ‘money minded’ for their own good.

     

    Need for Allyship

    Hidden emotions are a double weight that women carry. Not only does the vulnerability of their life context, weigh heavily on them, the fact that it cannot expressed nor resolved, makes it ‘heavier’. The emotional vulnerability related to personal finances often cannot be discussed, in a context of dependence, role expectations and conditioned personas. It crystallises, helplessly, as “What choice do I have” or “what choice does she have”. These phrases surface frequently. Providing proof of both the vulnerability being experienced, and also, alas, its acceptance. Allyship, from brands, is much needed to lift the lid off hidden emotional vulnerability and then provide practical choices to help discuss and resolve it. Here are some thought starters

     

    Dependency is a key context. Experts like psychologists, life coaches and marriage counsellors shed light on women’s personal finances journey, its impact in the context of her life relationships and dependency.

     

    Many women entertain a certain ambiguity, or a casual attitude about personal finances. This can end up becoming a fault line in long term relationships. Sadly, even among the educated, working married couples. Resulting in emotional inequality, lack of sensitivity, shrinking of choice. Typically, young women ‘give up’ financial independence.  They realise, many years later, how vulnerable they have personally become. Subject to threats, social posturing, forced masking of growing distance, compromised life choices. Women ‘live with it’, as they literally cannot afford not to! A role for allyship is bring out the importance of financial independence in a woman’s life, early on, and practical avenues for sustaining it.

     

    A role for strategic development is understanding and milestones of the lifetime value of financial independence, the zones of ambiguity, the zones of certainty, for women.

     

    Unspoken ‘rules’ are a key context, too.  Life contexts have silent influence, on women’s personal finances, via family ‘norms’. The “unspoken rules” silently dictate where a woman can and cannot have a say.  Where she can and cannot take a “stand”. The “unspoken rules” exist in nuclear families, extended families, middle-class & upper-class families.

     

    These “norms” are imbibed early, “understood” and adhered to, by all involved. A ‘need to know’, ‘be happy with you’ve got’ frame governs the family’s financial ‘equation’ with women folk. Women’s indulgences are financed (jewellery, vacations, home, personal makeovers, entertainment, socialising) yet, in doing so, a ‘boundary’ is also set. There are generally few questions asked, or entertained, on personal financial matters beyond the above. A role for allyship is create new women centric personal finance ‘rules’ and help them gain acceptance among both men and women. A role for strategic development is unearth the financial “rules” and “borders”, help women better navigate them, eventually redraw them.

     

    Subtle conditioning is another key context. Another subtle life context relates to verbal and non-verbal cues about womanly personas. Oft heard remarks, glances, grimaces, nick names, informal network exchanges, excluding and including behaviour on who is ‘in’ and ‘out’ are types of subtle conditioning. These can associate a woman who is less involved in money matters, as a “good (naïve, harmless) woman”. Coy comments unwittingly cue this type of ingrained conditioning e.g. “I know nothing about finance”, “I have hardly ever gone to the bank”, “I can’t recall when I last signed a cheque”, “I am so unfamiliar with an ATM”, “My brother/husband/father knows every time I use my card”. Such remarks are associated with a certain type of womanly persona – likeable, comforting, trusted, reliable, safe. Thus, lack of interest, or knowledge in financial matters is endearingly ‘acceptable’. It is subtly encouraged.

     

    In contrast, a woman who asks for details on finances, or has questions – about bank accounts, single versus joint cheque books, her own ATM card, seeking professional financial advice etc., is regarded warily. In some cases, even negatively referred to e.g. “money minded”, gold digger, climber, “shrewd (calculating) type”. Thus, interest in and knowledge of financial matters are subtly discouraged. A role for allyship is to help to positively reframe the perceptions and personas of financially savvy women. A role for strategic development is to uncover the negative myths, associations and fears perceived with women being savvy; uncover positive role models, behaviour, values, rituals associated with women being savvy.

     

    Ease the Burden of Hidden Emotions

    The hidden emotional vulnerability women experience, due to life contexts, must be assuaged, to the extent possible. This will help to ease and accelerate the journey toward functional savviness. Infusing clarity, where casualness and ambiguity abound. Inviting refreshing, empowering ‘rules’ in families. Reshaping the naïve versus shrewd stereotypical personas. These are starting points for building allyship with women. Emotional lightness makes room for functional savviness. When you see a woman striding confidently with her tote, ask if she is truly feeling emotionally lighter about being more actively involved in matter of personal finances. If she is feeling lighter, it is likely, she will become savvier, too. And sooner, than later, one hopes.

     

    Shaziya Khan is National Planning Director, Wunderman Thompson. She has won the Jay Chiat Grand Prix  for Strategy and Three WPP Atticus Global Awards for ‘Original Thinking in Marketing Communication’. Her views here are personal.

     

  • The fourth in our 10-part series where Shaziya Khan focuses on the allyship of brands for financial savviness of women

    Amidst Informal Ties & Prying Eyes

     

    This is the fourth in our 10-part fortnightly series where Shaziya Khan focuses on the allyship of brands for financial savviness of women and girls. Link to the first three parts: https://www.mxmindia.com/category/columns/shaziya-khan/

     

    By Shaziya Khan

     

    Shaziya KhanA key attitude shift is the need for women and girls to become financially savvy.

    Women have well-known home budgeting skills, yet when it comes to personal finances, they are uncomfortable. Plausible reasons being contexts of dependency, subtle conditioning. There are other well-hidden emotional factors in play too. For instance, women’s financial experiences necessarily include masking intensity of financial needs or desires, “letting go” instead of asserting financial authority, staying quiet about gnawing financial worries. Thus, women hold themselves back or are held back from purchasing or advocating financial instruments, actively solve for financial needs, take protective financial measures, in good time.

     

     

    Guided by the truth people hide their true emotions, we dived a deeper to understand what could be areas of allyship to help women and girls to become financially savvy. These areas for allyship matter for brands across all financial categories such as banking, insurance (life & general), investing, saving as well as brands in categories beyond finance to whom impacting progressive attitude shifts for women and girl matter.

     

     

    “Old ways” of ‘a secret pocket or secret lining’ linger in some fashion. (Traditionally, it was not uncommon to hear of people carrying money, precious items, important papers “hidden securely” in clothes, sewn in by women discreetly, for family members). Informal versions of “hiding securely”, continue. There lingers a certain familiarity about ‘informal safe-keeping’ of personal financial assets. Lack of familiarity, ease of access, affordability, to formal avenues (bank accounts, lockers, home safes, cupboards with safes, financial instruments etc.) reinforces the loop. Many women are habituated to informal ‘corners’ (literally). This, however, is a relatively minor aspect. The issue is the informality of financial ties per se.

     

     

    DOUBLE BURDEN OF INFORMAL FINANCIAL TIES

     

    Women’s informality goes deeper than “hiding of notes in sugar pots or cloth linings”. There is a pervasive and worryingly, acceptable lack of formality vis a vis women’s personal finances.

     

     

    Women a ‘significant absentee’ on documents. Often, women are simply absent in the formal aspects of personal finance. These formal aspects could relate to financial documents or forms, deeds, signatures, nominations, accounts, cards. Most women accept, or are unaware, that their names do not feature in financial documents. This is acceptable not just for large assets like a home but also for small assets like an account, card or scheme.  Being a common pattern, in many homes, it is shrugged off as the “norm”.

     

     

    Accepted it might be, yet undoubtedly it lingers troublingly, as a denial or neglect, of formal financial acknowledgement and agency. Voiced or not, it is a fact that women are conscious of. For instance, during banter, or argument, or outburst, being ‘reminded’ that a financial asset is not truly “theirs”.

     

     

    Informality in financial ties, for women, is a potential iceberg to watch out for. It can threaten, bring about a crash, silence or in other cases loom large, more below the surface, than above, as a deterrent of choice, a type of cold non-verbal control.

     

     

    Open access by others to women’s personal finances. Anecdotal evidence abounds of women’s earnings being “handed over” to significant others in the family almost entirely or to a very significant extent. Women’s earnings, it is ‘accepted,’ are “managed” in accounts held by others entirely, or jointly. It is also generally ‘accepted’ that women’s savings, earnings, gifts are the first and easiest to access when the family’s need or desire for money arises. “took my money for buying x”, “had to give my money to y” “ I cannot refuse z”.

     

    As a result of this open access of others to her personal finances, women find themselves having to ‘answer’ to others when they spend, save, invest their money! Reinforcing the informal hiding loop described earlier.

     

     

    THRIVE NOT SURVIVE LENS

     

    Women generally have less formal agency on personal financial matters, at the same time others have open access to their personal finances. Thus, many, many women find themselves in a life situation of bearing a double burden of financial informality and it being “acceptably” demanded of them as the norm, for the long term. As a result, women’s innate resourcefulness turns into survival mode. For their financial self- preservation, their attention is on discretion – to extract some semblance of ‘personal’ in personal finances. While that helps them survive, the progressive shift of our times, is towards helping women and girls thrive and become financially savvy. Allyship by brands can provide timely, progressive measures to enable this in degrees. Supportive, empathetic and modern means of security, privacy, agency, in personal finance for women and girls, matter. Enabling a fresh habit loop for women and girls, to financially thrive, not just survive.

     

     

    Shaziya Khan is National Planning Director, Wunderman Thompson. She has won the Jay Chiat Grand Prix  for Strategy and Three WPP Atticus Global Awards for ‘Original Thinking in Marketing Communication’. Her views here are personal. 

     

  • The sixth in our 10-part series where Shaziya Khan focuses on the allyship of brands for financial savviness of women

    Small is Significant

     

    This is the sixth in our 10-part fortnightly series where Shaziya Khan focuses on the allyship of brands for financial savviness of women and girls. Link to the first three parts: https://www.mxmindia.com/category/columns/shaziya-khan/

     

    By Shaziya Khan

     

    Shaziya KhanA key attitude shift in modern times is that women and girls should be financially savvy.

     

    This shift presents an opportunity for allyship to almost all brands, both in the financial categories and beyond.

     

    Our understanding of current personal finance behaviour reveals a pervasive lack of comfort with personal finances, several related emotional and social barriers.

     

    Interestingly, there are a few experiences which are also significant in the opposite direction – enabling a growing sense of comfort, eventually savviness, in personal financial matters. These were candidly, generously shared as real-life anecdotes, early lessons, personal stories by women. These ranged from their own lives, their own families, their friends’ families, relatives and others they knew well. All upclose experiences, where the impact and benefits were well-known, appreciated over time. These small experiences stood out on their mental radar, as vital steps of informal, yet conscious allyship.

     

    WELL-BEING STARTS WITH SMALL STEPS

    Micro steps are all the rage in formation of constructive habits,  positive change. Especially in areas of health and well-being. In the domain of personal financial savviness, a kind well-being and health, too, small steps and experiences go a long way.

     

    It is practically evident that small steps and their related first-hand experiences are useful at three vital, inter-related levels.  They facilitate

    • familiarity with personal finance

    • ritualisation of taking financial action

    • informal training in a disciplined financial approach.

     

    Small steps, consciously encouraged, early on, are likely to ripple positively in the long term. What is of particular significance, is that these steps are not difficult to implement and can be encouraged, adopted or adapted in ‘as is’ conditions.

     

    PURCHASING: Being responsible for small errands of purchase, for oneself or for the household, helps women and girls, with early and simple familiarity with personal finance.  Being given shopping errands to run, enables familiarity with handling money, in a responsible way, an understanding of the right amount of change to bring back, a grasp of the value of things, a knowledge of balancing the target versus the actual expense.

     

    In many homes, partly due to protective reasons, or simply due to established patterns, girls are not so much involved in making the purchases. Though they give the recommendations on what to buy, they may not be the ones doing the actual purchasing (online or physically). The fact is, girls being engaged in making purchases can potentially and simply land several positives – summarised as a familiarity with handling financial aspects, from an early age.

     

    RECORD-KEEPING: Record-keeping of expenditure, savings, gifts is another beneficial small step. Early, child-like record keeping of one’s small finances can be utterly simple – envelopes, handwritten lists, orderly clipping of bills, a small note book mentioning gift amounts or even just a close watch on piggy bank treasures. Parents are quick to notice how some young children are meticulous in being up-to-date on these matters. They remark how being careful, having detailed record keeping helps build a mindset of accuracy, awareness and order when dealing with personal financial matters, later in life.

     

    FESTIVE INVESTING & SAVING: Festive investing and saving is a useful and fun small step too. Charming yet impactful stories recalled by women (who are relatively savvier than average), relate to early investing and saving encouraged by parents. During the festive new year, there was a choice of investing that was specifically encouraged for the young child – a small amount but nevertheless one that was chosen by the child. Other empowering accounts, relate to children being encouraged to save “their” money (via gifts) in a methodical manner. Building a nest to buy a prized toy, game, dress or shoe.

     

    These small steps of investing or savings were often ritualized, around special occasions (festivals or occasions like new year, birthday, start of holidays, start of new school year and so forth). The reason for this ritualization, was it helped to imbue a goal orientation, a sense of ‘independence’, of decisiveness, of choice making between attractive options. Also,  learning the value of being patient, encouraging anticipation as opposed to instant gratification.

     

    BUDGETING FOR GIFTS: Budgeting for gifts, wishes, requests is another helpful small step in building the financial savviness muscle. Innocent yet powerful stories were related on how children are encouraged to stick to a ‘budget’ for their ‘wish list’. As a result of this ‘constraint’, they learnt, early on, to think smarter, in the ‘wish list’ area. For instance, do their homework on the options they seek, find the best one within their budget, look at timing, discounts, offers that are available, consider swapping where possible.

     

    This necessarily brings in a disciplined approach even towards much looked forward to choices. In this way, providing a certain amount of financial indulgence yet also imparting an early experience of financial savviness.

     

    DOCUMENTATION: Handling financial documentation personally is something many women or girls avoid or defer as much as possible. They would rather that documentation be handled by spouses, parents and siblings (due to their perceived or actual lack of knowledge, fear of errors, etc.) Yet, caring empowering allies in real life, encourage women and girls to personally and directly engage with financial documentation. Both, for personal and professional matters.

     

    These include writing cheques, opening a bank account (at the branch or online), figuring out GST related details (small business owners), start handling paperwork for the filing of their tax returns (working women), making insurance applications and so forth. Financially savvy women, remark that familiarity with personally handling financial documentation brings on clarity and empowerment. One learns at each step. These learnings increase financial savviness.

     

    SMALL STEPS OF ALLYSHIP FOR BIG STRIDES OF FINANCIAL SAVVINESS.

    Small steps, and their related first-hand experiences, encouraged early on, are lauded by savvy women as one of the key reasons for their savviness. These small yet significant life experiences seemed to even break through the most entrenched personal financial category barriers. Factors like discomfort, social conditioning, stereotypical roles and rules, “limited expectations” that often ‘hold back’ women and girls, in the financial domain, can loom less.  Small steps are especially significant because they are generally about everyday actions, possible in ‘as is’ conditions. Yet, they lead to bigger strides. Sowing small steps of financial familiarity can reap big strides of financial savviness.

     

    Shaziya Khan is National Planning Director, Wunderman Thompson. She has won the Jay Chiat Grand Prix  for Strategy and Three WPP Atticus Global Awards for ‘Original Thinking in Marketing Communication’. Her views here are personal. 

     

  • The third in our 10-part series where Shaziya Khan focuses on the allyship of brands for financial savviness of women

    Shaziya Khan: Tote of Personal Finances – Part 3: Pizza, Paisa and Opening the Box

    This is the third in our 10-part fortnightly series where Shaziya Khan focuses on the allyship of brands for financial savviness of women and girls. Link to the first two parts: Is there a Burden of Hidden Emotions Women carry in it? and What’s ‘Said’ Scratches the Surface of What’s ‘Experienced’

     

    By Shaziya Khan

     

    Shaziya KhanThere is a progressive attitude shift among both men and women – women and girls must be financially savvy.

     

    However, there is a gap between the progressive attitude and current behaviour.

     

    Allyship of brands is much-needed to help bridge the gap.

     

    Allyship at influential points of this bridge is relevant, progressive and timely. Particularly for brands in the financial category, but also for brands across all categories to whom progress of women and girls, matters.

     

    We’ve learnt, that women feel uncomfortable about taking decisions about “their” personal finances!  When we empathetically examine women’s journey of personal finances we see this could be due, partly, to  factors like dependency, ‘norms’ and subtle conditioning.

     

    The well-honed, generational skills of women in  saving, budgeting, bargaining lend a natural inclination towards  prudence, thoughtfulness, goal orientation. All rational qualities well suited to financial savviness! Despite this ‘bent of mind’,  home finance experiences why are women less comfortable, less decisive about personal finances?

     

    Guided by the truth that people hide their true emotions, we dived deep – beyond these rational factors to solve the puzzle.

     

    Pizza, a story  

    There is a pizza story that sheds light on many emotional sensitivities at play in women’s financial decision making. To buy a pizza for herself, a mother confessed, she ‘has to’ highlight ‘the child wants pizza’ and it was “allowed” as a “treat”. Else, she feared, it would be perceived as “lazy mother doesn’t want to cook fresh wholesome food at home, instead orders expensive “outside food”.

     

    The strain of these perceptions indicates that even a small purchase by women, is carefully calibrated. It hinges on factors like dependency, approval, validation, rationalisation, role expectation, boundaries, coping mechanism, personal image etc. Often multiplied 10x in the case of larger financial decisions.

     

    Uncomfortably mindful of creating, inadvertently, negative perceptions, for the smallest of financial requests, women tread on eggshells, emotionally speaking.

     

    Paisa, a ‘boxed-in’ feeling

    How does this pizza decision making get magnified 10x for paisa decision-making? The weight of emotional, contextual factors make her feel uncomfortably “boxed in” about personal finances. ‘Emotionally speaking’ is in a flat, dull, cardboard box. A bit like the pizza.

    In a situation of ‘dependency’ on family/spouse financially, a woman treads carefully. She ‘has to’ navigate within her role, its unspoken ‘rules’. She cannot risk a negative perceptions. Compounded effect of these factors is that she has little agency to discuss, navigate, all out purse financial savviness.

     

    Allyship to help ‘open up’

    Allyship  to ‘open up’, enlighten, enhance the context for financial savviness can go a long way. When the immediate context around women’s personal finances shifts from one of ‘compression’ to one of ‘expansion’, women and girls can have more agency to pursue financial savviness. Expansive contexts matter, and they can be sensitively shaped to encourage positive ripple effects in the domain of personal finance.

     

    Hungry to make women and girls more financially savvy? Time to take paisa ‘out of the box’ of emotionally straining factors.

     

    Shaziya Khan is National Planning Director, Wunderman Thompson. She has won the Jay Chiat Grand Prix  for Strategy and Three WPP Atticus Global Awards for ‘Original Thinking in Marketing Communication’. Her views here are personal. 

     

  • The fifth in our 10-part series where Shaziya Khan focuses on the allyship of brands for financial savviness of women

    Shaziya Khan: Providing Women Personal Space for Personal Finance

    This is the fifth in our 10-part fortnightly series where Shaziya Khan focuses on the allyship of brands for financial savviness of women and girls. Link to the first three parts: https://www.mxmindia.com/category/columns/shaziya-khan/

     

    By Shaziya Khan

     

    Shaziya KhanTote of Personal Finances: needs personal space

     

    A key attitude shift is the need for women and girls to become financially savvy.

    There is much good work to be done, now and in the future, in this area. There is a distinctly uncomfortable relationship women have with personal finances. Yes, that’s right, with their own personal finances. The clue to defining the problem, lies in the name. Personal finance is not regarded as personal, because there is insufficient personal space to engage with it.

     

    To empathetically understand why this so and what are the zones of allyship, to enable this personal space, matters. This is relevant for several brands, in the financial category, across other categories too, for whom progress of women and girls matters. Guided by the truth, that there is a human emotional glue to every business challenge, we set out to understand more of what is going on or not. We unpacked, what is personal and what is not.

     

    HOME BUDGET IS PERSONAL

    Women profess considerable personal ownership of household finances.

    Their well-respected budgeting savviness is often transferred across generations and relations. In this domain, women are not only comfortable, they are astute, demonstrating mastery in managing smoothly, despite constraints, uncertainties. Regularly exercising efficiency, finesse, forward thinking and more. “I managed”, “I will cope”,  “Leave the matter with me, do not worry now”. Amazing anecdotes abound behind these oft heard remarks. Real life stories, cue personal ownership, a courageous stepping up to challenges,  strong sense of responsibility for making  “it all work” for the benefit of all at home.

     

    SAVING ‘EXTRA’ IS PERSONAL, TOO

    In small savings behaviors, too, women exhibit personal ownership. They demonstrate a delightful resilience, a “lean in” attitude, an ingenuous “opt in” to opportunities, a quick grasp of outcomes. In short, “making the most” of what is “within their means”. Women have a dynamic, evolving well habituated small saving behavior pattern. From the monthly home budget itself, occasional gifts, windfall gains, festive, weddings or other celebrations as well as bargain hunting, exchanges, informal lending, recycling.

     

    LEANING INTO SMALL EARNINGS IS PERSONAL, TOO

    Also, women nurture ingenuity in small services they can personally provide or help to organize via other women in their ‘circle’. Often, they ‘make the best of’ channeling innate talents or acquired skills for “little extra” earnings. For instance, teaching, tele / online services, being an ‘agent’, cleaning, repairing, grooming or gourmet services. They actively seek opportunities, drive word of mouth, network. They advertise their offerings, work extra hours, build a loyal circle of customers. In short, they demonstrate personal ownership toward “every little helps” earning avenues.

     

    WHY ARE OTHER MATTERS OF PERSONAL FINANCE NOT SEEN AS PERSONAL?

    Savviness in budgeting, small savings and earnings, piques our curiosity. With such keen skills, a financially active mindset, why is a sense of personal ownership, in other matters of personal finance so muted (insurance, investing, banking and so forth)?

     

    We learnt, there is little personal space for women to engage in personal finances beyond home budgeting, saving, small earnings. On the surface there is much personal space – best described via sentiments like “everything is yours”.  Indeed, for many women, there is financial protection in the warmth of familial bonds. Yet, even this rousing emotionality, can and does have personal boundaries.  Several factors collide to create narrow personal financial boundaries, erasing personal financial space, eventually erasing personal financial ownership.

     

    • Discouragement: Several women have experienced discouragement, passive or aggressive, when mildly inquiring or seeking clarifications on financial documentation, leave alone requesting formal agency.

    • Exclusion: Women’s exclusion during significant family financial discussions is ‘normal’. They are ‘informed’, at a later stage, ‘when appropriate’. The range of exclusion extends from being entirely excluded; initially kept ignorant, unless they find out for themselves; being included, but more as a “favour” or obligation, versus a natural right.

    • Collective pool: Thirdly, women’s earnings are kept and managed in a collective pool in accounts held by other family members, entirely or jointly. There is visibility of her personal finances to other members of the family, who assess, manage, use, transfer and so forth. Anecdotal evidence abounds from working women whose earnings are rarely kept with them, rather bulk of them are “handed over” to and for “the family”.

    • Answerable to others: Women find they are ‘answerable’ to any questions on personal finances. As a result of this lack of privacy, women find themselves having to ‘answer’ questions about their personal finances. What is money being spent on, why, how and so on. This behavior pattern pre-sets limits on what is permissible or not for them.

    • Extreme discretion: Speaking in whispers, out of range of other family members, not fully disclosing personal financial questions, worries, plans, ideas are common behavior.

    • Invisibility: Many women are compelled to take financial discretion to a different level, when they request financial assistance. Rather than be given to the women, they request it be given directly to the women’s beneficiaries like their parents, siblings, spouses, children etc.

     

     

    ALLYSHIP FOR PROVIDING PERSONAL SPACE, FOR SAVVINESS IN PERSONAL FINANCES

    In effect, we are learning that many women feel that apart from home budgeting, small savings and earnings, they have little personal ownership and agency in other financial matters. Providing personal space for women to engage more with the gamut of personal finances, is an area of allyship. This personal space can be enabled via education, advocacy, role models, communication, innovation, value added services. Providing personal space enables personal ownership of personal finances. This is a vital step on the journey to savviness in personal finances. Personal finance is personal.

     

    Shaziya Khan is National Planning Director, Wunderman Thompson. She has won the Jay Chiat Grand Prix  for Strategy and Three WPP Atticus Global Awards for ‘Original Thinking in Marketing Communication’. Her views here are personal.

     

  • Self-discovery matters when communicating with millennials, writes Shaziya Khan

    7 Emotional Keys to Growth for Brands engaging Millennials

     

     

    By Shaziya Khan

     

    Shaziya KhanI had been looking at data on Millennials for many months. Fascinated with the distinctions, nuances being signalled through the reports.

     

    (Millennials is the term used to describe a person born between 1981 and 1996, 27 to 42 years, though different sources can vary by a year or two).

     

    Curious to understand Millennials more, I continued synthesising primary data from several depth interviews, tracking secondary data from Wunderman Thompson BRICS Millennials Report, reviewing Target Group Indexing data (TGI) focusing on Millennials, SEC B, graduates (which a report, cited as a significant group). Added to which, at a WPP Stream Seminar, several Millennials shared their views generously, eloquently and candidly, one on one with me – for which I am deeply grateful. All these inputs provided a rich, multi layered, well rounded background perspective on this particular audience.

     

    Dramatically – it was in the middle of witnessing a melt down at a Millennials Seminar amongst the Millennials presenters, that the hard won nuggets from months and months of prior work, crystallised.

     

    Thereafter, this piece practically wrote itself.

     

    What triggered this inspiration? In the course of the post presentation discussions, the Millennials, who were the presenters as well as the hero subjects, expressed to us (in the audience) vehemently that most people did not understand them – that it was happening again, even at their own seminar!

     

    Sharing below, seven emotional keys to growth for brands and businesses engaging with Millennials, and wanting, needing to understand them.

     

    Businesses find it hard to capture emotions. More so, when engaging with complex, multi-layered target audience like Millennials, who frequently keep changing, and evolving too.

     

    The learning is: Making, enabling, supporting, yielding, championing space for self discovery – can be a vital emotional root of growth for brands and businesses addressing Millennials.

     

    Sharing seven keys each amplifying the significance, nuances, shades of self-discovery that can matter when communicating with Millennials. Some more than others, in particular contexts.

     

    Self-discovery as an emotional root of growth has broad relevance for a variety of brands and businesses that are seeking to connect better with Millennials – such as product brands, service brands, employer brands, education brands, travel brands, media brands, corporate brands, leadership brands etc.

     

    1. ‘OWN BRAND’ FILTER RULES

    Seriously, each Millennial first thinks of his or her own personal brand before any other brand. And they cannot stand lowering the standards of their own brand, as they consider their own personal brand a high integrity brand.

    ‘Own brand’ filter match is one of the biggest triggers (or barriers) to brands that Millennials embrace (or do not)

    Illustrative statements (with high index scores among Millennials) indicate how ‘own personal brand’ can flex in their attitudes, behaviours: I think fast food is all junk, I can’t stand even a little bit of untidiness, I have a very good sense of style, I am responsible for everything that happens in my life etc.

     

    Implications for actionable new brand work

    This implies that the target audience : : brand relationship is possibly reversed. Your brand is what the Millennial searches using his/her “own brand filter”. Thus, understanding how Millennials view their “own personal brand” matters – its associations, values, and especially its proximity (or distance) from your business brand values, associations etc.

     

    2. ‘CONSTANTLY CHECKING’ SCEPTIC RULES

    As a Millennial put it to me “our whole lives we have been processing data”. Millennials have learnt the hard way, that what people say is not what they do. Across families, organisations, media and so on.

    So, they habitually keep going to the source – to verify what is being said versus done.

    Even while meeting someone, they are multi-tasking: finding out everything about that person. “No Facebook, I would rather go to the source to check” – Millennials explaining how they check on everything.

    Illustrative statements (with high index scores among Millennials) indicate how ‘constant checking’ can flex in their attitudes, behaviours: I am worried that any personal information I share online will not remain secure, I am usually among the first among my friends to know what is going on, I regularly clear my cookies from internet browsing history.

     

    Implications for actionable new brand work

    This implies that trust is the most elusive currency in Millennial worlds. Millennials at their core, trust nothing, nobody, except their own values. This is often, from a place of prudence and validation. Understanding what Millennials believe of the claims in your category, adjacent categories and what/who are sources of credibility in their eyes, matters.

     

    3. ‘BEING TOLD IMPLIES INCOMPETENCE’ RULES

    The fault lines in many Millennial relationships (personal, professional) are to do with being subject to over instructing and under stimulating, in their eyes.

    What connects most with them is empathy, sensitiveness. Lack of this, and a glut of the ‘obvious’ (instruction, direction) leads to a melt down or worse, silent withdrawal.

    Millennials respond to stimulation better than they do to instruction, to guidance and enquiry than to direction. What resonates is something not with an ‘agenda’.

    Illustrative statements (with high index scores among Millennials) indicate how ‘stimulation and enquiry’ can flex in their attitudes, behaviours: I really enjoy any kind of shopping, I ask people for advice before buying new things.

     

    Implications for actionable new brand work

    Explore and develop indirect, stimulating, enquiry oriented ways to have Millennials engage emotionally or intellectually with your brand or business.

     

    4. ‘SUBTLETY WINS’ (AS IT ACKNOWLEDGES THEIR SMARTNESS) RULES

    On a related but separate note, apt subtlety matters. Millennials switch off when something is made too obvious, because they are a generation that ‘gets it’. What resonates, is subtle content, or apt context.

    Illustrative statements (with high index scores among Millennials) indicate how ‘subtlety’ can flex in their attitudes, behaviours: When I buy a product, its style and design are as important as its quality, I often refer to the internet before making a purchase.

    Subtlety is perceived as a brand’s validation and acknowledgement of Millennials innate smartness. In contrast, trying too hard is perceived by Millennials as almost an insult their smartness, and worse – a sign that a brand does NOT ‘get them’.

     

    Implications for actionable new brand work

    Test a few subtle executions (with apt contexts, cues) and see for yourself how rewarding the Millennial audience finds it. For starters, test new acronyms, short forms and see the thrill of them ‘getting it’, and that your brand ‘gets them’.

     

    5. ‘ARGUE LESS, WITHDRAW MORE, QUIETLY MOVE ON’ RULES

    When it comes to feeling dis-connected, Millennials can be relatively silent, or withdrawn in their expression. Millennials are hyper sensitive, and also, astute with regard to almost everybody and everything.

    Illustrative statements (with high index scores among Millennials) indicate how ‘quiet withdrawal’ can flex in their attitudes, behaviours: I do not like to show my real feelings, I have refused to buy products of a company of which I disapproved, how I spend my time is more important than the money I make.

    Silence is not a sign of acquiescence but can often be a sign of ‘checking out’ from Millennials.

     

    Implications for actionable new brand work

    Test a few stimuli that evoke mere silence or disengagement and you might then uncover a zone that deeply upsets them – albeit silently. And in turn, explore the OPPOSITE of that: to counter intuitively, discover what deeply engages, them and why so.

     

    6. ‘CHANGING ONE’S MIND IS GOOD’ RULES

    Get used to the fact that Millennials can keep changing their minds. Millennials are frequently charged, even blamed, for being a generation that keep changing its mind. Education, career, friends, locations, food choices – keep changing for Millennials.

    Their eloquent defence is that they are processing data, stimulation, discovery all the time. Their minds, hearts are always dynamic, evolving, and responsive.

    “It is the burden of the evolved” – as one Millennial explained to me.

    For them it is normal to keep changing one’s mind. Millennials like options. They don’t want to be boxed into one way.

    Illustrative statements (with high index scores among Millennials) indicate how ‘changing one’s mind’ can flex in their attitudes, behaviours: I find I am easily swayed by other people’s views, it is important to keep learning new things through out your life, news on food influences my dietary habits.

    Change signals evolving, not merely change for Millennials.

     

    Implications for actionable new brand work

    Keep a finger on the pulse of changing category and also life trends, for Millennials. Keep your brand and business in sync with how Millennials are evolving in this regard. Understanding why they have changed with regard to your category.

     

    7. ‘MY JOB DOES NOT DEFINE ME’ RULES

    Millennials have disconnected with snappy or easy definitions of identity. They anchor self, identity in something human, fundamentally. Something more connected to the world outside, and the self inside. Millennials believe they have an uncaged identity, anchored in intangibles like values, concepts, more; and less in tangibles, or what is familiar, or what is a generalisation eg. a kind of job.

    Millennials defy easy definition, they seem to loathe generalisation because each person, context, challenge is different, for them.

    Illustrative statements (with high index scores among Millennials) indicate how ‘defying job based definitions’ can flex in their attitudes, behaviours: life should be more than a career, it is okay to work in unconventional careers, I like to pursue a life of challenge, novelty and change, I am prepared to make lifestyle compromises to benefit the environment.

    It can be a mistake to cast Millennials identity into familiar moulds (demographics, work, etc.). Not-ness can be starting point to understanding them better.

     

    Implications for actionable new brand work

    Write a new kind of consumer pen portrait based on who the Millennial target audience is NOT. It can help to dispel perceived stereotypes, about them, and see them in fresh light.

     

    IN CONCLUSION

    Communicating with Millennials might seem like a lot of work. But it is not. The bottom line echoing through the keys is – not trying too hard and letting them think for themselves. Self-discovery is a vital emotional root of growth for brands, businesses addressing Millennials.

    You don’t have to figure it all out, because they will. And thank you for letting them do so.

     

    Shaziya Khan is National Planning Director with Wunderman Thompson.

    First published by the writer on her LinkedIn handle. Republished with permission of the writer.

     

  • It is both interesting and important to see how vital fun, playfulness, bliss, enjoyment, liberation are, writes Shaziya Khan

    Fun in Category Creation

     

     

     

    By Shaziya Khan

     

    Shaziya KhanAs a species, the childhood of humans is the longest, which implies the longest time for play. As life expectancy rises, there is more time for leisure (globally life expectancy has increased by 6 years, as per one estimate). For this reason alone, and several others, fun matters.

    It is both interesting and important to see how vital fun, playfulness, bliss, enjoyment, liberation are. Relatedly, how businesses and brands can tap into this understanding of fun, playfulness, for making more meaningfully, apt connections with people.

     

    SPARK OF INSPIRATION

    This article was sparked by a pattern observed for several years (which recent experiences, cemented). This is the story of how it came about:

    Travelling to a peaceful part of a war torn country overseas, on a longish work assignment, is where the inspiration struck.

    I was surprised to see people having so much fun, the same people had lived through and were living through uncertainty, trials and tribulations. Yet, their zestful spirit, generosity, warmth, humour spilled over and embraced all. These qualities were not only intact, but abundant right in the midst of rather trying circumstances.

    Meal times were grand, fashions were extravagant, plans were exciting.

    Basking in their effervescent spirits, as a visitor, but still mystified by them – I finally asked : how are you people like this? how are you able to be so fun loving and care free given your circumstances? Most of their answers were to the effect: when life is uncertain, or problematic, one makes the most of every bit of good one has, rather worry about what is going to happen. The views shared were surprising, impressive, simple but also quite profound. There must be more to learn here, I imagined.

     

    FUN – A SERIOUS MATTER

    I was set on a path of curiosity – to discover more about the real place of fun in the human experience. Again, to my surprise, I learnt that even in serious fields like philosophy the topic of fun is regarded as important!

    Indeed for philosophers, fun is vital to the human experience, contributing meaningfully at several levels. Democritus believed that the goal of life was contentment or cheerfulness.

    Homo Ludens (“Man the player”), a book brings out the natural basis of playfulness and fun. It argues that “Play is older than culture, for culture … always presupposes human society, and animals have not waited for man to teach them playing.”

    On a related note, another book Play, Playfulness, Creativity and Innovation, argues that playfulness facilitates originality in nature and society (so a lack of it should be particularly worrying).

     

    FUN – AN UNLIKELY BUT MEANINGFUL ROOT OF GROWTH

    In short, fun, playfulness can be the basis of a lot of good. It is not only an ancient root of personal growth, it is so – across a variety of human experiences.

    Fun is an unlikely but meaningful emotional root of growth for: learning, education; adjustment; well-being, health; social engagement and life skills.

    Thus, businesses and brands, operating in these areas, definitely, and in others too potentially, could find it useful to leverage the fun, playfulness lens and potential of their category.

    I believe modern day businesses and brands could benefit from seeing or making a fun connection! Especially for new categories, for spurring growth.

     

    BUSINESSES FIND IT HARD TO CAPTURE EMOTIONS

    Businesses find it hard to capture emotion, especially a ‘non serious’ emotion like fun.

    The roots of an emotion like fun can be harder to take note of, discern and capture let alone articulate. Yet, the pursuit of growth, demands, I believe, tools and analyses to uncover new (especially surprising) roots of growth.

    This analysis brings additional clarity, sheds biases, baggage, helps businesses and brands stay alive to their unique human connection; stay true to what is emerging now and for the future, and can be the basis of thriving, surviving.

    This clarity is required – to pursue fresh human centred design, customer experience, engagement, innovation, communication, evolution and re-crafting category and brand worlds to be in step with people, and times.

    Non-linear tools (like mind maps) are a useful type of analysis to get going. Sharing a brief map of why fun matters (more so now than ever). Sharing a short take on a very large topic based on synthesis of multiple reports and studies related to the topic (source: Warc, Medium, psychology studies, GFK, Brandz)

     

    RELEVANCE OF FUN – IN EFFECTIVENESS, VALUES, MEANING

    What puts a bow on the growing relevance of fun for people, and brands engaging with them is – that as leisure time has increased, so have opportunities for play, fun.

    If people are going to enjoy more leisure, playfulness and fun, they will love brands that echo more fun, playfulness, and associated aspects like liberation, engagement, spontaneity.

    These shifts have already been showing up in research studies for several years- signalling a change of expectations from communication and engagement from brands and businesses.

    1. Shifts in effective ways to communicate: A recent study (Kantar) on Five Fs Of Creative Effectiveness on what makes some brand communication more effective than others points out fun as being among the top 5 factors of the most effective brand communications.

    2. Shifts in core consumer values: A study on Core Values (GFK) revealed enjoyment or fun are among the top core values of consumers along with long standing core values like security and achievement.

    3. Measure of meaningfulness: Last but not last, we already know, from measures of brand meaningfulness that one part of the measure of a meaningfulness is UTILITY based (consumers answer is this “useful to me”), the other important part of the measure of meaningfulness is AFFINITY based (consumers answer do I “love this brand”) (BRANDZ).

    Studies reveal six major psychological underpinnings of fun: novelty, spontaneity, connectedness, boundedness, engagement, liberation. These are potentially rich emotional zones for businesses and brands to meaningfully create connections with their customers, across categories.

    In sum, for modern day brands, fun is a serious matter.

     

    ROLE OF FUN IN CATEGORY CREATION

    Many already know, that fun is key to learning and interaction. This by itself, is a big and useful (perhaps overlooked) starting point for a business or brand – operating directly in any kind of education or any category where it is important to educate. A category that focuses on adopters, triers upgraders, relatively nascent consumers.

    The fun key to learning can aid category creation in four ways – safe place creation, social interactivity facilitation, weaving in improvisation and richer types of gamification.

     

    SAFE PLACE CREATION:

    Several experts in the social sciences share that play, fun create a safe place to learn. A safe place to adopt new tricks and tips, use tools and solve problems.

    Creating a safe place for consumers in a new category – to spur more learning is starting point for brand and business owners, custodians.

    An enlightened parenting view, again with universal application, quoted in one of the reports: “I’ve been trying to weave more fun into my days with my kids”.

    I loved that – and ask are enlightened brand and business custodians trying to weave more fun into the regular days of consumer interactions, in the apt way.

    Unboxing, is now a thing, but it was really a way to mindfully weave more fun into an everyday experience. What are fun ways to “open the box”, so to speak, for consumers of a new category, is a question to start with.

     

    SOCIAL INTERACTIVITY FACILITATION:

    Social scientists emphasise that play is also key to learning social engagement, finding ones’s place in a hierarchy, learning how to interact. Emotional control, curiosity, resilience are positive results of play. (Researchers have found that play deprived children manifest responses ranging from unhappiness to aggression).

    Creating zones for interaction, facilitates relationships beyond the day to day transactions – indeed provide a foundation for building life time value with target audiences. The notion of community has already captured the imagination of many; the findings on play, fun re-iterate the importance of facilitating social interaction in the community via more playfulness, fun experiences.

    To share a recent example (there are many) – simply the fun way in which an airline crew handled an unfamiliar situation for customers : of a 6 hour delay, sitting in a stationary plane – created a few life life long fans of an airline brand. And it was just two crew members – whose fun attitude, constant interactivity kept spirits up in a plane load of disappointed, tired and hungry people and one howling baby. Their being in the zone meant a lot to customers – keeping the channel of interaction open and ‘on’ mattered and was noticed and appreciated (distinct from other crew members who were not interacting socially).

     

    WEAVING IN IMPROVISATION:

    Social sciences experts say that unstructured play is most important for development, because that is when rules are created, improvised, negotiated.

    I loved this quote from one of the research reports, which can be universally true in its local adaptation:

    “The kids skateboarding down the street, sipping imaginary tea, and building a pillow fort are learning just as much—perhaps more—as a peer in a piano lesson”.

    Many know how the modern day aspiring but sceptical, well informed consumers, love to think for themselves. Consumers, especially Millennials, love to figure it out on their own.

    Crafting brand experiences that facilitate the amateur, the first time user, the learner, the experimenter, the non serious flirter matter more than ever; this field is demanding requisite attention, care from business and brand custodians.

    As an aside, it is these type of consumers (who are on the fringes or on the edge) who can often inspire the best innovations and improvisations for the future, in several elements of the mix (packaging, ingredients, usage/dosage etc.) .

     

    RICHER TYPES OF GAMIFICATION:

    Gamification is key to creating modern brand experiences and connections with consumers. There can be several types of fun experiences designed that are based on gamification.

    A commonly known type is Challenging fun (objectives, rewards, levels, etc.). Yet there are others too that experts point out:

    1. Easy fun (imagination, curiosity, content, experiences, exploration)

    2. People fun (niche interests, collaboration, community, co-operation)

    3. Creative fun (individuality, personalisation, avataars, customisation, expression, creativity)

     

    WRAPPING IT UP

    Fun has received a lot of worthy attention from social scientists. Philosophers and psychologists regard fun to be a vital life goal.  Fun is seen as essential not only to learning (as described above) but to many other areas, especially health, well-being, living an ideal life. More on that another time perhaps. For now, for brand and business custodians:

    1. It is timely to audit funand explore if there is a fun deficit in the experiences being provided for consumers – at present, for the future.

    2. Most immediately, leverage the learning benefits of funto spur category creation – via provision of a safe place, enabling social interactivity, facilitating improvisation, and a richer, varied embrace of gamification

    The fun of category creation is putting fun in category creation, too!

     

    Shaziya Khan is National Planning Director, Wunderman Thompson. This is republished from a post first published on LinkedIn

  • The ninth in our 10-part series where Shaziya Khan focuses on the allyship of brands for financial savviness of women

    The Power of One Visionary Ally

     

    This is the ninth in our 10-part fortnightly series where Shaziya Khan focuses on the allyship of brands for financial savviness of women and girls. Link to the first seven parts: https://www.mxmindia.com/category/columns/shaziya-khan/

     

    By Shaziya Khan

     

    Shaziya KhanA positive progressive attitude shift is that women and girls must be financially savvy. Easier said than done. We learnt that there are entrenched barriers, related to roles, conditioning and expectations on the road to financial savviness.

     

    Interestingly, we also learnt that positive, relevant interjections from allies can help bring about change that is relatively effortless, long lasting and empowering too.

     

    We were fortunate to learn from several real life journeys  of allyship from women who are relatively more financially savvy. There was still something new to learn –  at each stage, as the journey continues. Yet on reflection, each woman could appreciate, one vital aspect that meant the world to her.  It was the caring and timely interjection, encouragement of one real life financial ally who reached out to her.

     

    Financial Allies for  women and girls emerge in  all shapes, sizes and life contexts. They belong to a different generation or the same generation. They belong at the workplace or at home. In the immediate or extended family. Among friends or among colleagues. They have a formal or informal engagement in financial matters. What is common across all these variations is a  quality that sets them apart. This quality is personal ownership about encouraging women or girls in financial matters – no matter how reluctant they might initially be.

     

    Fathers. Among the earliest and wisest financial allies are fathers. A story shared was about a dad  who insisted that his young daughter makes investments, have a bank account of her own. Often occasions like festivals or birthdays were times of riutalised personal financial discussions.  Over the years a habit was created. . The amounts involved were  small, but the benefit involved was big – a good habit of investing early in life. Also. a pattern  was being set – of getting personally involved,  being aware and making choices in personal financial matters.

     

    Mothers. Among the most resourceful and inventive financial allies are mothers. Often they do not have recourse to the same financial tools and knowledge as fathers do. Yet, they wisely deploy “every day contexts” as a platform to impart a lesson or two on personal financial savviness. A story shared was about a mother insisting that her daughter (and not just the son) do the monthly shopping  of a few items. This was to inculcate a certain “comfort factor” around handling money, early on. The lesson being imparted was – becoming aware of the value of things bought. Fortunately, affordability was not a constraint in the family. Yet, it was felt strongly, that the value of purchases must be known, not taken for granted. Understanding the notion of  ‘value’ was the foundation being created consciously, deliberately  on an everyday basis for future financial savviness.

     

    Spouses. Among the most knowledgeable and empowering allies are spouses. These examples are about a progressive approach of involving the wife in personal financial discussions rather than treating the topic as a ‘black box’ (unknown except in the case of emergency). The proactive approach shared in stories was about  regular reviews of personal finances among couples. Patiently including and explaining key details, implications to the wife. Initially, wives were reluctant or passively engaged but with time and regular discussions, there was a fuller engagement eventually leading to great mutual ownership and mutual support. A story shared was about a wife getting into details of housing for the first time (owning, renting implications, location impact) and the couple jointly realising a better option for housing and making the shift. A sense of shared and complementary responsibility lightens the burden of decision making, brings in more savviness from two different perspectives being balanced.

     

    Relatives. Near and dear ones, especially those who step up and encourage financial savviness of women in the family are treasured and appreciated. Stories were shared of a working woman, who encouraged her brother’s wife to handle GST, insurance, banking and related matters. Her sister in law was a self-made home entrepreneur but was hesitant when it came to financial matters. The working woman nudged her niece to support her mother. Creating a comfort zone but also insisting that her sister in law learn for herself and not “put it off” or “out-source it to  her husband”.  She made personal financial matters less intimidating and ‘normal’ in her eyes – simply something to handle and get familiar with. Soon, the allyship bore fruit and the sister in law was able to handle financial matters that earlier she could not. There are also several stories of brothers, cousins, elder sisters who were like pillars of strength and support in matters of financial savviness.

     

    Financial allyship is about ‘the everyday’ and tomorrow too

    The support and encouragement given to women and girls from real life allies have far reaching impact. Even one financial ally can change the course of a life. And in turn, the beneficiary cascades her financial learnings to those around her. Financial allyship ‘works’ in ‘as is’, ‘where is’ conditions.

     

    The financial amounts involved in investing, banking or other personal financial matters are often not large.  What is large is the gentleness yet firmness of intent. What is also large is the consistency of effort and encouragement put in. What is large too, is the long term vision being upheld in the mastery of seemingly ‘small stuff’ early on. Allies are caring visionaries. Allyship represents a rich, empathetic opportunity for brands across categories to help women and girls become financially savvy. The power of one visionary ally can be incredible, today and tomorrow.

     

    Shaziya Khan is National Planning Director, Wunderman Thompson. She has won the Jay Chiat Grand Prix  for Strategy and Three WPP Atticus Global Awards for ‘Original Thinking in Marketing Communication’. Her views here are personal. 

     

     

  • The concluding of our 10-part series where Shaziya Khan has been focusing on the allyship of brands for financial savviness of women

    Financial Savviness as a Life Skill

     

     

    This is the concluding (or tenth) in our 10-part fortnightly series where Shaziya Khan has been focusing on the allyship of brands for financial savviness of women and girls. Link to the first nine parts: https://www.mxmindia.com/category/columns/shaziya-khan/

     

    By Shaziya Khan

     

    Shaziya KhanA key attitude shift among both men and women is that women and girls should be financially savvy.  We have learnt that there are several barriers lurking deep that hold women back from being more involved in their own personal finances. We have also learnt that there is a big role for allyship that brands can fulfil – enabling a positive, progressive shift towards financial savviness.

     

    To nudge things along, we need a small shift in perspective that can make a huge difference to the big picture.

     

    A SHIFT IN PERSPECTIVE: ‘OPTION’ VERSUS ‘LIFE SKILL’

    I digress, momentarily, to illustrate the power of a small shift in perspective. It is not the ideal nor the parallel analogy but serves simply as a limited, illustrative example.  I was discussing swimming with people from across the world.  Learnt that swimming is regarded as an elite hobby in some places, while in other places swimming is regarded as a life or survival skill.

     

    In places where it is considered a hobby, it is optional, an ‘on and off’ engagement. The training received is often absent (it was ‘picked up’), informal, even left incomplete in some areas.  People are skilled in a limited way, with untested proficiency levels. They are fine with it being so throughout life (eg. usually nothing more than light weekend or holiday swimming, floating, only in shallow pools, not swimming in the ocean or the deep).

     

    In places where it is regarded as a life skill, swimming was generally taught early on, as part of the essential curriculum, by professional coaches, involving perfect technique, even children are accomplished at it. Certain levels of proficiency and mastery must be reached for the training to be considered complete. Often, it is put into practice on a fairly regular basis throughout life (eg. in the ocean, seasonally, including long distance or long time, having better quality or professional gear, comfort in water sports).

     

    The shift in perspective, (hobby versus life skill), made a big difference to how the activity was engaged with. This shift in perspective applies to the notion of increasing financial savviness of women.

     

    SHIFT IN PERSPECTIVE – FINANCIAL SAVVINESS OF WOMEN IMPACTS LIVES

    Data is quite sobering in revealing how financial savviness impacts women’s lives. The impact is broadly related to milestones and quality of relationships.

     

    Milestones related impact: The impact of personal financial aspects on lives of women includes anecdotally relatable and worthy milestones such as:

    • Security – enabling a secure financial life

    • Goals – planning for and meeting key life goals

    • Retirement – creating apt resources for retirement

    • Lifestyle – supporting a certain type of lifestyle consistently across life stages

    • Contingency – making provision for contingencies so that there is no drastic change to the quality of life

     

    Apart from these milestones, there is also limited gender-related data on the quality of relationships in women’s lives being impacted by  their financial status.

     

    Quality of relationships related impact:

    • Among Property-less women (owning neither land nor house): many more experienced physical violence & psychological violence versus property owning women (owning land and house).

    • Education and career are the biggest factors responsible for improvement in women’s lives and relationships. Both of these are closely related, in different degrees, to financial savviness.

     

    ALLYSHIP TO PROMOTE THE PERSPECTIVE OF FINANCIAL SAVVINESS AS A LIFE SKILL

    The milestone and relationship impact of financial savviness (or lack of it), are well known. These alone are significant enough to spur much action and engagement. Yet, there remains so much to be done in this area.

     

    A compelling shift in perspective is required here – one that frames financial savviness of women and girls as a life survival skill. This perspective brings into view several enabling elements via potential brand allyship eg. early education, expert training, overcoming barriers and fears, technical proficiency and above all regular life application across a range of financial products and services.

     

    Financial savviness of women and girls ought not to be regarded as just a progressive shift in attitude, which it is, nor should it be regarded as just a ‘nice to have’ option, which also it is. It ought to be regarded as a life skill. Why? Financial savviness is one of the skills that can help women and girls to swim confidently in the currents of life – shallow, medium or deep.

     

    Shaziya Khan is National Planning Director, Wunderman Thompson. She has won the Jay Chiat Grand Prix  for Strategy and Three WPP Atticus Global Awards for ‘Original Thinking in Marketing Communication’. Her views here are personal. 

     

  • The eighth in our 10-part series where Shaziya Khan focuses on the allyship of brands for financial savviness of women

    Women help the family stick to ‘the plan’

     

     

    This is the eighth in our 10-part fortnightly series where Shaziya Khan focuses on the allyship of brands for financial savviness of women and girls. Link to the first seven parts: https://www.mxmindia.com/category/columns/shaziya-khan/

     

    By Shaziya Khan

     

    Shaziya KhanA fantastic and progressive attitude shift is that women should be financially savvy. This holds several opportunities for allyship for brands to whom women’s empowerment matters. We’ve learnt there exist deep seated barriers – roles, expectations, social conditioning that often hold women back from being actively involved in personal finances.

     

    Interestingly, there are also encouraging signs on women’s prowess in investing.

     

    In the context of changing financial needs of families, investing contribution and support is a welcome input from women (wives, daughters, sisters, aunts etc.) for their families.

     

    Family – New dreams. New needs.

    The family as a unit is funding new dreams and new needs. In addition to the usual family household budget, there are new experiences to provide for as well (travel, entertainment, social engagements etc.). Experiences cost money. But dreams apart, needs too demand careful thought, especially in an uncertain context.

     

    Unlike other markets where “revenge consumption” is being spoken of, commoners as well as experts believe that the Indian mindset, will be continue to value conscious, in fact more so.

     

    Thus, both for the sake of new dreams and new needs, additional financial contribution to the family unit, is relevant. More than ever, the Indian family is thinking of financial planning for a secure future. Double incomes are more relevant today than before across families.

     

    Investing is a contributor to the family income.

    Investing is a kind of passive income. Investments can be a contribution to the family kitty. Several of our panelists encourage looking at investments as “contributors”. A simple and powerfully metaphorical story shared by a panelist was about two farmers having to water a far-away farm every day. One carried two pails of water every day, the other dug a trench to lay pipeline for watering.  Implying that investments are like a long term pipeline of contribution to the family unit. A pipeline can ‘water”  (fund) the farm (family) even on days when it is not possible to carry pails of water (work/earn/travel).

     

    Women are good investors – patient, goal-based.

    Studies, in evolved markets, show that women investors outperform men investors. Qualities like “tend to research more”,  have a “long term orientation” are a few of the innate qualities of women that make them better suited at making and maintaining investments.

     

    We learnt that the best financial planners and consultants, in our market, insist on speaking to the husband and wife together. “Wife helps a family stick to the plan”. This short statement highlights the vital role women of the family play in wealth creation. In laying the investment pipeline and maintaining it, to serve the family’s needs and dreams.

     

    Our panelists shared that typically women have a patient, long term, goal based perspective on investing. For instance, goals like funding family education, retirement etc. Women help the family unit prioritise and patiently adhere to the plan. (In contrast, men are excited by the ups and downs of the market). Thus, women can be a great moral support, in family investments.  Actively involving women of the family in investing, aids in creating wealth for the family.

     

    Global data suggests men trade 45% more than women do. Women get better returns by trading less, and saving on transaction costs. Women as investors tend to be more studious, sceptical and reasonable.

     

    Role for Allyship – Stick to the women to help the family stick to ‘the plan’.

    Allyship from brands, can educate, encourage, nurture, sponsor women being actively involved in family investments. Earlier attitudes of mainly addressing the ‘chief wage earner’ or believing “investing is not for women” are both, less relevant and less true. Women’s input in investing is especially vital in a time of changing family needs and dreams.  Actively wooing women investors for the family’s wealth creation is an idea whose time has come. A book title nails it “Warren Buffet invests like a girl and why you should too”.

     

    Shaziya Khan is National Planning Director, Wunderman Thompson. She has won the Jay Chiat Grand Prix  for Strategy and Three WPP Atticus Global Awards for ‘Original Thinking in Marketing Communication’. Her views here are personal.