Marketing to Women with Authenticity: Ep. 29 of Red Sky Fuel for Thought Podcast What You’ll Learn in This Episode:o  The current state of the female consumero  How brands can effectively reach women and avoid ‘pinkwashing’o  How social media has helped women take over brand marketingo  The importance of authentic representation of women in media In the late 1990s, the phrase ‘marketing to women’ became part of the corporate lexicon. Seemingly overnight, financial services brands, among others were waking up to the power of the female consumer. Some brands responded with a ‘shrink it and pink it’ strategy – just changing the size, color, or packaging of products; others created bespoke products & services designed for women by women; and others changed how they marketed to women, in terms of how they featured women in their advertising and spoke to them with email or other communications. Over the ensuing two decades, many brands put forward real game-changing campaigns, but not without a fair share of tone-deaf ones as well.  In this month's episode, Red Havas’ Linda Descano (https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindadescano/), CFA® is joined by Aliza Freud (https://www.linkedin.com/in/alizafreud/), Founder and CEO of SheSpeaks (https://shespeaksinc.com/) Inc., and Jeannine Shao Collins (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeannine-shao-collins-54a4a58/), President of SeeHer (https://www.seeher.com/), to explore the state of marketing to women and offer actionable tactics for how brands can build more authentic, meaningful connections with women across different touch points, whether advertising, marketing or PR-driven. Aliza kicks off the conversation with a look into the current state of the female consumer and how women are responding to brands, a topic covered in a recent survey conducted by SheSpeaks (https://shespeaksinc.com/womens-state-of-mind-women-are-tired/). “Women are feeling burnt out,” says Aliza. “The instability caused by many outside factors in the last few years have interrupted the lives of women and impacted the way they are feeling, both mentally and physically.” Aliza goes on to explain how this has changed the expectations women have for brands trying to reach them: “Women have hit a point where they have too many important things to focus on and don’t have enough time or energy to cut through the marketing of it all; they are looking for brands to talk to them authentically about how their product will make their lives better and easier.