No jacket required

In a nod to being a bit recession-friendly, my invite to last week’s Cream Awards said ‘casual attire’.

I took them at their word. 

And, to a man, so did every other bloke there. We all turned up in what we’d been wearing at the office that day. A scruffy, crumpled sight we looked too.

Yet the word ‘casual’ apparently hadn’t registered with any of the women there. 

Their brains had just filtered that mean, ugly little word out.

So they turned up more glammed up than the women in the Boots ‘Here Come The Girls’ ads. Either they’d gone home first and spent a good deal of effort making themselves look fabulous, or they all worked at an agency in a Jennifer Aniston rom-com.

Whatever the reason, the difference between the two sexes was striking: it was like we’d dressed for two completely different events.

Clearly, we’d interpreted the same short paragraph of copy quite differently.

It reminded me that a few years ago, Tangible tested male versus female copy in a fundraising mail pack.

It followed research that suggested men and women responded to copy differently, and so crafting the copy to suit each might affect response. Women wanted more emotive, story-telling copy, it claimed, whereas men apparently favoured bullet points (perhaps because ‘bullet points’ sounds so macho).

In fact, the results weren’t statistically significant – but that may have been to do with the copy, rather than the premise behind it. Because it’s an interesting idea, that we should tailor our message – our conversations with our donors – a lot more than we currently do.

Most charities still only tailor their message on a purely transactional basis – how much someone gave, how recently, whether they give individual gifts or are direct debit regular givers. Which seems quite crude in this day and age. Surely we should be looking at more and more ways of making what we say more relevant and personal to each individual donor.

When I was a copywriter starting out in direct marketing, I was told, “just write to one person.” Nowadays, we need to write to lots of ‘one person’.

Gender may not be the answer – but at least it’s something we do often know about our audience. And men and women certainly do interpret language differently – as a hundred comedians (and comediennes) have often pointed out.

The sale signs currently springing up where I live in Cheltenham are another example. I see the word ‘sale’ and interpret it as spending money. To my girlfriend, the same word means ‘saving money’.

Although... maybe we’re both right. Because it turns out that men spend £350 million in the January sales on clothes they’ll never wear. Whereas women only fork out £230 million on sales clothes that stay unworn – a saving of £120 million.

Actually, I’ve got a jacket I bought in the sales last year (half price, bargain) that I’ve never worn.

Maybe I’ll follow the award-winning women’s lead and make an effort. 

I’ll wear it at the upcoming DMA awards.