Women seeking allies, advocates from their top brands

• Band-Aid, Visa, Lysol, Ziploc and M&Ms top the list of top performing brands among women from Collage Group. The report finds that these ranking brands among women offer practical solutions, craft resonant messages and position themselves as trusted partners in women’s lives.
• Additionally, the research shows that the top brands make women feel more assured about putting themselves first and have demonstrated a sustained commitment to issues that matter to women. 
• Brands were evaluated across six dimensions: Fit, Relevance, Memories, Values, Trust and Advocacy.

While women are by no means a monolith as a category or consumer group, there are a few qualities that unite them that marketers may want to take notice of, according to Collage Group’s research. Most notably, those continue to feel a need to fulfill expectations as the person who needs to do it all for family, friends, and coworkers and, justifiably so, need to indulge in some self-care. 

“It makes sense based on everything we know about women,” said Katya Skogen, director of cultural insights at Collage Group. “When we look at the top 20 brands, we see them fall into two themes: getting stuff done and self-indulgence and self-care.” 

Indeed, that need for self-care is a top priority for women. According to Collage’s data, 80% of women feel it’s a priority to do things that make them feel better, either physically, mentally or emotionally healthier, compared with 75% of men who feel the same. In addition, 65% of women wished brands did more to address the stigmas surrounding mental health, compared with 57% of men. 

Women are also looking for brands to speak more directly to them about the challenges they face in their daily lives. Forty-four percent of younger women regularly compare themselves to others on social media, and 51% of multicultural women say it’s important that their children have toys that represent or look like them. 

For brands looking to appeal to women, it’s important to take these considerations to heart and understand how to position themselves as women’s allies in their desires to do the best they can with the resources they have available to them, Skogen said. 

“I think brands trying to learn from this research can pick a lane or do both,” she said. “But it has to be from a place that’s genuine and not appear to be pandering.”

Collage Group’s research evaluated 743 brands across six dimensions: Fit (offers a product or service I want), Relevance (intended for people like me), Memories (provided positive past experiences), Values (aligns with my values), Trust (seen as trustworthy), and Advocacy (seen as worth recommending to others). The top 20 brands, in order, were: 

1. Band-Aid
2. Visa
3. Lysol
4. Ziploc
5. M&Ms
6. Google
7. Hershey’s
8. Dawn
9. Clorox
10. Dove
11. Windex
12. Amazon
13. KitKat
14. YouTube
15. Oreo
16. Crayola
17. Bounty
18. Kleenex
19. Downy 
20. Heinz