Report from Lithuania
As long as I have Internet access, I thought I’d give you notes/impressions from this very interesting roadtrip I am on.
This morning I presented to a marketing/advertising industry audience in Vilnius, Lithuania (very beautiful city – but colddddd, so I’m glad I’m from Vermont and can take it). The women in the audience were nodding their heads and smiling at what I had to say. The men may have had a difficult time understanding me – both, because I talk fast and the poor translator couldn’t get it all, and because things are still fairly male-dominated here and sex is used to sell a lot of things, which goes counter to what I presented in a lot of ways.
Anyway, as I told one male questioner in the audience – I don’t have anything against using sex to sell, per se, but you’ve got to do the research to see if it really serves the market you are targeting. We know that consumer electronics is a huge market for women in the U.S., for example, but here it is still very targeted to men. There is a campaign here that presents a stereo speaker system in a print ad with a black background and a nude woman’s body posed sensuously behind it.
Hmmm…
The copy in the ad is "Super sound for super life" and "Exclusive High-End Compenents" and "State of the art." So, what does that have to do with the naked woman, again?
Would that influence U.S. men to consider those speakers? I’m thinking not, but please give me your thoughts. Perhaps there is a very specific segment of the men’s market for whom that’d be all they needed to make the purchase. As for the Baltics – I understand that that approach is still effective, but I’m wondering how long until female consumers have a bit more influence on marketing.
Anyway -
This is a fascinating place. In talking with a woman after my presentation, she let me know that these countries (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia) are more influenced by Scandinavian business culture than you’d think, for example.
OK.. need to sign off for now. I hope to report from Latvia (depending on the Internet connection, of course) tomorrow.
