The Rise of Female Consumer Power - I Am Woman, Hear Me Shop!

This deeper-pocketed female consumer's aspirations and taste have given rise to the new "mass luxury movement," where the mainstream public has become aware and acquisitive of designer and brand names previously solely in the domain of the affluent. Karl Lagerfeld, the doyen of haute couture, designed pieces for mass retailer H&M that sold out in hours, and discounter Target (TGT) has such names as Isaac Mizrahi, Cynthia Rowley, and Liz Lange in its stable of designers. Brands like Coach (COH) are making handbags and key chains at lower price points, and Mercedes (DCX) and BMW (BMW) are putting out cars that middle-class consumers can afford.

Not that reaching this type of shopper is without challenges. The female consumer is very busy and has a complex web of duties that makes her less than readily available. Take Shubha Varma, a 39-year-old vascular surgeon and mother of two children, ages 5 and 1. On a typical day, she gets up at 6 a.m. After a short exercise routine, she wakes up her older child and makes sure he brushes his teeth and eats breakfast, then drives him to preschool after handing the baby to the sitter.

PR CRUCIAL. Through it all, Varma is mentally ticking off the things she has to do that day: remembering to pick up milk that ran out, schedule an appointment with her kid's music teacher, and decide what she will put on the dinner table that night for the family.

Forget multitasking -- women like Varma are "multi-minding," a newly coined buzz phrase that describes the process of simultaneously thinking about various things. Marketers have found it hard to grab such women's attention with TV ads. "Today's woman has less time and is such a tough consumer she has single-handedly pushed marketers to actually go to PR budgets," says Silverstein. "She reads magazines and wants to know the detail around products." That's one reason marketers are increasingly emphasizing product placement, sponsorships, and shaping editorial content over TV ads.

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