0:00:01.251,0:00:03.533
Like a lot of people around the world,

0:00:03.533,0:00:06.395
earlier this summer[br]my friends and I were obsessed

0:00:06.395,0:00:08.762
with the Women's World Cup held in France.

0:00:08.762,0:00:11.647
Here we are, watching[br]these incredible athletes,

0:00:11.647,0:00:15.408
the goals were amazing,[br]the games were clean and engaging,

0:00:15.408,0:00:17.834
and at the same time, outside the field,

0:00:17.834,0:00:20.379
these women are talking about equal pay,

0:00:20.379,0:00:23.754
and in the case of some countries,[br]any pay at all for their sport.

0:00:23.754,0:00:27.311
So because we were mildly obsessed,[br]we wanted to watch the games live,

0:00:27.311,0:00:31.015
and we decided that one of[br]the Spanish-speaking networks in the US

0:00:31.015,0:00:32.807
was the best place for us to start,

0:00:32.807,0:00:36.058
and it wasn't until a few games[br]into the tournament

0:00:36.058,0:00:38.702
that a friend of mine[br]talks to me and says,

0:00:38.702,0:00:41.020
"Why does it feel like[br]everything I'm seeing

0:00:41.020,0:00:45.021
is commercials for makeup and[br]household cleaning products and diets?"

0:00:45.021,0:00:46.966
It did feel a little bit too obvious,

0:00:46.966,0:00:49.211
and I don't know if[br]we were sensitive about it

0:00:49.211,0:00:52.358
or the fact that we were watching[br]with men and boys in our lives,

0:00:52.358,0:00:55.812
but it did feel a little bit too obvious

0:00:55.812,0:00:57.722
that we're being targeted for being women.

0:00:57.722,0:01:01.016
And to be honest there's nothing[br]necessarily wrong with that.

0:01:01.016,0:01:04.825
Someone sat down and looked[br]at the tournament and said,

0:01:04.825,0:01:07.534
"Well, this thing is likely[br]to be seen by more women,

0:01:07.534,0:01:10.611
these women are Hispanic[br]because they're watching in Spanish,

0:01:10.611,0:01:11.841
and this is women content.

0:01:11.841,0:01:15.366
Therefore, this is a great place for me[br]to place all these commercials

0:01:15.366,0:01:18.606
that are female-centric[br]and maybe not other things."

0:01:18.606,0:01:20.204
If I think about it as a marketer,

0:01:20.204,0:01:23.082
I know that I absolutely[br]should not be annoyed about it,

0:01:23.082,0:01:26.149
because this is what marketers[br]are tasked with doing.

0:01:26.149,0:01:29.898
Marketers are tasked with building brands[br]with very limited budget,

0:01:29.898,0:01:32.226
so there's a little bit of an incentive

0:01:32.226,0:01:34.475
to categorize people in buckets

0:01:34.475,0:01:36.230
so they can reach their target faster.

0:01:36.230,0:01:37.725
So if you think about this,

0:01:37.725,0:01:39.294
it's kind of like a shortcut.

0:01:39.294,0:01:43.394
They're using gender as a shortcut[br]to get to their target consumer.

0:01:43.622,0:01:47.623
The issue is that as logical[br]as that argument seems,

0:01:47.623,0:01:50.392
gender as a shortcut[br]is actually not great.

0:01:50.392,0:01:53.972
In this day and age, if you still[br]blindly use a gender view

0:01:53.972,0:01:55.685
for your marketing activities,

0:01:55.685,0:01:57.806
actually it's just plain bad business.

0:01:57.806,0:02:02.226
I'm not talking even about the backlash[br]on stereotypes in advertising,

0:02:02.226,0:02:04.823
which is a very real thing[br]that has to be addressed.

0:02:04.823,0:02:08.286
I'm saying it's bad business because[br]you're leaving money on the table

0:02:08.286,0:02:10.139
for your brands and your products.

0:02:10.139,0:02:13.828
Because gender is such an easy thing[br]to find in the market

0:02:13.828,0:02:15.468
and to target and to talk about,

0:02:15.468,0:02:17.852
it actually distracts you[br]from the fun things

0:02:17.852,0:02:19.877
that could be driving growth[br]from your brands,

0:02:19.877,0:02:22.001
and, at the same time,

0:02:22.001,0:02:24.602
it continues to create[br]separation around genders

0:02:24.602,0:02:25.899
and perpetuating stereotypes.

0:02:25.899,0:02:29.059
So at the same time this activity[br]is bad for your business

0:02:29.059,0:02:32.079
and bad for society, so double whammy.

0:02:32.079,0:02:35.810
And gender is one of those things[br]like other demographics

0:02:35.810,0:02:38.436
that have historically been[br]good marketing shortcuts.

0:02:38.560,0:02:39.969
At some point, however,

0:02:39.969,0:02:42.414
we forgot that at the core[br]we were targeting needs

0:02:42.414,0:02:47.070
around cooking and cleaning[br]and personal care and driving and sports

0:02:47.070,0:02:51.002
and we just made it all a bucket and[br]we said, "Men and women are different."

0:02:51.002,0:02:53.670
We got used to it and[br]we never challenged it again,

0:02:53.670,0:02:55.332
and it's fascinating to me

0:02:55.332,0:02:58.092
and by fascinating I mean[br]a little bit insane

0:02:58.092,0:03:00.537
that we still talk about this as a segment

0:03:00.537,0:03:02.866
when it's most likely carryover bias.

0:03:03.615,0:03:06.262
In fact, I don't come[br]to this conclusion lightly.

0:03:06.262,0:03:10.314
We have enough data to suggest[br]that gender is not the best place

0:03:10.314,0:03:13.771
to start for you to design[br]and target your brands.

0:03:13.771,0:03:15.791
And I would even go one step further:

0:03:15.791,0:03:20.325
unless you are working in[br]a very gender-specific product category,

0:03:20.325,0:03:21.807
probably anything else

0:03:21.807,0:03:24.314
you're hypothesizing about[br]your consumer right now

0:03:24.314,0:03:26.743
is going to be more useful than gender.

0:03:27.646,0:03:31.083
We did not set up to draw[br]this conclusion specifically.

0:03:31.083,0:03:32.344
We found it.

0:03:32.344,0:03:34.870
As consultants, our job[br]is to go with our clients

0:03:34.870,0:03:36.273
and understand their business

0:03:36.273,0:03:40.011
and try to help them find spaces[br]for their brands to grow,

0:03:40.011,0:03:44.253
and it is our belief that if you want[br]to find disruptive growth in the market,

0:03:44.253,0:03:45.963
you have to go to the consumer

0:03:45.963,0:03:48.384
and take a very agnostic view[br]of the consumer.

0:03:48.384,0:03:50.653
You have to go and look[br]at them from scratch,

0:03:50.653,0:03:54.940
remove yourself from biases and segments[br]that you thought were important,

0:03:54.940,0:03:57.719
just take a look to see[br]where the growth is.

0:03:57.719,0:04:01.002
And we built ourselves[br]an algorithm precisely for that.

0:04:01.002,0:04:04.855
So imagine that we have a person[br]and we know a person

0:04:04.855,0:04:07.609
is making a choice[br]about a product or service,

0:04:07.609,0:04:10.776
and from this person, I can know[br]their gender, of course,

0:04:10.776,0:04:13.795
other demographics, where they live,[br]their income, other things.

0:04:13.795,0:04:17.154
I know the context where[br]this person is making a decision,

0:04:17.154,0:04:19.351
where they are, who they're with,

0:04:19.351,0:04:21.002
the energy, anything,

0:04:21.002,0:04:23.169
and I can also put[br]other things in the mix.

0:04:23.169,0:04:24.671
I can know their attitudes,

0:04:24.671,0:04:26.222
how they feel about the category,

0:04:26.222,0:04:27.726
their behaviors.

0:04:27.726,0:04:31.838
So if you imagine this kind of blob[br]of big data about a person,

0:04:31.838,0:04:34.731
I'm going to oversimplify the science here

0:04:34.731,0:04:37.942
but we basically built an algorithm[br]for statistical tournaments.

0:04:37.942,0:04:42.182
So a statistical tournament[br]is like asking this big thing of data,

0:04:42.182,0:04:46.705
"So, data, from everything[br]you know about consumers at this point,

0:04:46.705,0:04:50.815
what is the most[br]useful thing I need to know

0:04:50.815,0:04:52.773
that tells me more[br]about what consumers need?

0:04:52.773,0:04:54.834
So the tournament is going[br]to have winners and losers.

0:04:54.834,0:04:57.810
The winners are those variables,[br]those dimensions,

0:04:57.810,0:04:59.673
that actually teach you[br]a lot about your consumer,

0:04:59.673,0:05:02.367
that if you know that,[br]you know what they need,

0:05:02.367,0:05:05.210
and there's losing variables[br]that are just not that practical,

0:05:05.210,0:05:08.647
and this matters because[br]in a world of limited resources,

0:05:08.647,0:05:12.111
you don't want to waste it on people[br]that actually have the same needs.

0:05:12.111,0:05:14.022
So why treat them differently?

0:05:14.022,0:05:16.860
So at this point, I know,[br]suspense is not killing you,

0:05:16.860,0:05:18.451
because I told you what the output is,

0:05:18.451,0:05:22.055
but what we found over time

0:05:22.055,0:05:25.720
is, after 200 projects around the world,[br]this is covering 20 countries or more,

0:05:25.720,0:05:29.118
in essence we ran about[br]a hundred thousand of these tournaments,

0:05:29.118,0:05:36.069
and, no surprise, gender was very rarely[br]the most predictive thing

0:05:36.069,0:05:37.402
to understand consumer needs.

0:05:37.402,0:05:39.608
From a hundred thousand tournaments,

0:05:39.608,0:05:42.293
gender only came out[br]as the winning variable

0:05:42.293,0:05:44.117
in about five percent of them.

0:05:44.117,0:05:47.002
This is true around the world, by the way.

0:05:47.002,0:05:49.834
We did this in places where[br]traditional gender roles

0:05:49.834,0:05:52.252
are little more pronounced,

0:05:52.252,0:05:53.195
and the conclusions were exactly the same.

0:05:53.195,0:05:55.840
It was a little bit more important,[br]gender, than five percent,

0:05:55.840,0:05:57.287
but not material.

0:05:57.287,0:05:59.349
So let's let that sink in for a second.

0:05:59.349,0:06:01.630
No matter how you're looking[br]at a consumer,

0:06:01.630,0:06:06.648
most likely anything else is going[br]to be more interesting to you than gender.

0:06:06.648,0:06:09.793
There's probably something very important[br]you need to know about them,

0:06:09.793,0:06:13.566
and you're getting distracted because[br]you're doing everything based on gender.

0:06:13.566,0:06:15.791
And that's why I say you're leaving[br]money on the table.

0:06:15.791,0:06:16.836
Gender is easy.

0:06:16.836,0:06:19.065
It's easy to design advertising[br]based on gender,

0:06:19.065,0:06:21.252
it's easy to target people online[br]and on TV based on gender.

0:06:21.252,0:06:21.722
But at the end, that's not where[br]the exciting growth will come from.

0:06:21.722,0:06:28.428
If you're a food company, for example,

0:06:28.428,0:06:31.358
it's actually much more interesting to you

0:06:31.358,0:06:33.618
to know where people are eating,

0:06:33.618,0:06:35.148
who they are eating with,

0:06:35.148,0:06:38.473
are they very nutritionally oriented.

0:06:38.473,0:06:41.148
All of those things are actually[br]significantly more powerful and useful

0:06:41.148,0:06:43.427
than knowing if a person[br]is a man or a woman.

0:06:43.427,0:06:45.422
And that matters, of course,

0:06:45.422,0:06:48.300
because then if you're putting[br]your limited budget into action,

0:06:48.300,0:06:50.912
then you're better off creating[br]solutions for different occasions

0:06:50.912,0:06:54.619
than trying to target women[br]versus young men.

0:06:54.619,0:06:57.129
Another example if alcoholic beverages.

0:06:57.129,0:06:59.890
Thirty-five percent to 40 percent[br]of consumption in alcoholic beverages

0:06:59.890,0:07:02.651
around the world actually[br]happens with women,

0:07:02.651,0:07:04.991
but, you know, "women don't drink beer."

0:07:04.991,0:07:07.645
Those are the things[br]that we typically hear.

0:07:07.645,0:07:12.909
But actually, when a man and a woman are,[br]for the most part, in the same location,

0:07:12.909,0:07:15.788
the emotional and functional needs[br]they have at that moment

0:07:15.788,0:07:17.101
are very similar.

0:07:17.101,0:07:19.395
There's only one exception, by the way,

0:07:19.395,0:07:21.287
and the exceptions exist,

0:07:21.287,0:07:23.364
where if you have a man and a woman

0:07:23.364,0:07:24.245
on a date,

0:07:24.245,0:07:26.877
the man is trying to impress the woman

0:07:26.877,0:07:29.189
and the woman is trying[br]to connect with the man,

0:07:29.189,0:07:30.851
so there's going to be[br]a little bit of tension,

0:07:30.851,0:07:33.840
but that's important to know.

0:07:33.840,0:07:36.300
We'll take a few dates.

0:07:36.300,0:07:36.918
Financial institutions:

0:07:36.918,0:07:38.952
that's something where we've heard

0:07:38.952,0:07:39.312
a lot about the difference[br]between men and women,

0:07:39.312,0:07:41.485
but actually talking about[br]men and women as different

0:07:41.485,0:07:44.398
actually is distracting you[br]from the thing that is underneath.

0:07:44.398,0:07:47.645
We made it so simple[br]as "women don't like to invest,"

0:07:47.645,0:07:49.467
"women hate managing their money,"

0:07:49.467,0:07:51.736
"men are great and aggressive[br]and risk-takers,"

0:07:51.736,0:07:53.727
but at the end it's not[br]about men and women.

0:07:53.727,0:07:55.586
It is actually a different narrative.

0:07:55.586,0:07:57.723
It is about, there are people[br]that are excited and energized

0:07:57.723,0:08:01.644
and educated to manage their finances

0:08:01.644,0:08:03.141
versus people that are not.

0:08:03.141,0:08:04.888
So if you change the conversation

0:08:04.888,0:08:07.637
from men and women[br]to actually what's underneath

0:08:07.637,0:08:11.040
then probably you'll stop being[br]so condescending to women

0:08:11.040,0:08:12.919
and you may start serving some men

0:08:12.919,0:08:15.580
that are actually shy[br]about managing their finances.

0:08:15.580,0:08:17.836
I'll leave one more example.

0:08:17.836,0:08:20.501
If I go back to the women[br]that were playing sport at the beginning,

0:08:20.501,0:08:22.395
one of the fascinating things we found

0:08:22.395,0:08:24.325
over different countries

0:08:24.325,0:08:26.364
exploring sportswear

0:08:26.364,0:08:28.824
that if a person is a competitive person

0:08:28.824,0:08:30.708
and they are in the moment of action,

0:08:30.708,0:08:33.587
the needs are not different[br]between a man and a woman.

0:08:33.587,0:08:35.446
An athlete is an athlete.

0:08:35.446,0:08:37.565
It doesn't matter for men and women,[br]it doesn't matter for old and young,

0:08:37.565,0:08:39.189
you are an athlete,

0:08:39.189,0:08:41.819
and in the moment of action[br]and extreme competition,

0:08:41.819,0:08:43.759
you need this gear to work for you.

0:08:43.759,0:08:47.285
So these soccer-playing women have[br]a lot in common with their counterparts.

0:08:47.285,0:08:49.417
Out of the field, it doesn't matter.

0:08:49.417,0:08:51.256
Out of the field, they may be[br]into fashion, into other things,

0:08:51.256,0:08:52.787
but on the field,

0:08:52.787,0:08:54.816
the needs are not different.

0:08:54.816,0:08:58.674
So these are just a few examples[br]on categories where we found

0:08:58.674,0:09:01.145
that gender was not the best place to go,

0:09:01.145,0:09:03.928
and actually the argument is that

0:09:03.928,0:09:06.775
at this point it's not even[br]a feminist push,

0:09:06.775,0:09:07.924
it's just we got used it.

0:09:07.924,0:09:09.482
We got used to using gender,

0:09:09.482,0:09:12.191
and it's important for us[br]to start finding ways

0:09:12.191,0:09:14.917
to measure other things about consumers

0:09:14.917,0:09:16.931
so that we don't revert back to gender.

0:09:16.931,0:09:19.311
I am not naïve,

0:09:19.311,0:09:21.321
and I know there's still[br]going to be appetite

0:09:21.321,0:09:22.628
and certain ease around using gender,

0:09:22.628,0:09:24.298
but at least this warrants conversation.

0:09:24.298,0:09:26.422
In your business, you have to inquire,

0:09:26.422,0:09:29.035
is this really the best lens[br]for me to grow.

0:09:29.035,0:09:32.916
So, if you are, like me,[br]a person that is in business

0:09:32.916,0:09:36.811
that I am constantly worried[br]about what is my role

0:09:36.811,0:09:39.643
in the broader societal discussions,

0:09:39.643,0:09:42.226
if you're listening to your business

0:09:42.226,0:09:43.105
and you hear things like,

0:09:43.105,0:09:45.035
"Oh, my target are women,[br]my target are men,

0:09:45.035,0:09:47.910
this goes to young girls, young boys,"

0:09:47.910,0:09:49.823
when it's that gender conversation,

0:09:49.823,0:09:51.359
unless you are working, again,

0:09:51.359,0:09:55.482
in a very specific,[br]gender-specific product category,

0:09:55.482,0:09:57.277
take this as a warning sign,

0:09:57.277,0:09:59.875
because if you keep[br]having these conversations,

0:09:59.875,0:10:02.392
you will keep perpetuating[br]stereotypes of people

0:10:02.392,0:10:04.879
and making people think[br]that men and women are different.

0:10:04.879,0:10:07.405
But because this is business,[br]and we're running a business

0:10:07.405,0:10:08.654
and we want to grow it,

0:10:08.654,0:10:11.644
at least kind of challenge[br]your own instinct to use gender,

0:10:11.644,0:10:15.435
because statistics say that you're[br]probably not choosing the best variable

0:10:15.435,0:10:17.447
to target your product or service.

0:10:17.447,0:10:19.941
Growth is not easy at all.

0:10:19.941,0:10:22.102
What makes you think[br]that growth is going to come

0:10:22.102,0:10:25.138
from going into market[br]with such an outdated lens like gender?

0:10:25.138,0:10:28.283
So let's stop doing what's easy[br]and go for what's right.

0:10:28.283,0:10:30.413
At this point, it's not just[br]for your business, it's for society.

0:10:30.413,0:10:32.046
Thank you.

0:10:32.046,9:59:59.000
(Applause)