As we approach this year’s International Women’s Day, I find myself thinking about the role of women in branding and design. Mainly, asking myself why consumer-facing companies still don’t have women front of mind when designing their services, products, packaging, and experiences?

It’s an enormous, missed opportunity – both in reputational and commercial terms – for businesses, particularly when you consider that women are far more likely than men to be responsible for household spending. In fact, 89% of women across the world reported controlling or sharing daily shopping needs in 2019…with those women responsible for an estimated $31.8 trillion in consumer spending between them that year.

But despite holding the purse-strings on literally tens of trillions of dollars worldwide, women are a consumer group who aren’t always reflected, represented or listened to when it comes to the design or branding of products.

Embracing equitable design

To truly connect, businesses must have a clear vision for what inclusivity means for their customers, brands, categories and markets, and factor that into their offering.

Obviously, completely inclusive design is not something that is going to happen overnight. But there are a growing number of brands already taking big steps in the right direction – working to create a positive platform for driving gender equality by breaking taboos and meeting the needs of women.

Barbie is a brand you might not typically associate with being a champion of gender equality, but Mattel is an organisation that is surprisingly self-aware and one which is rethinking how it speaks to its female-dominated customer base. It identified that from the age of five, too many girls start losing self-belief that they can do or be anything they can dream of.

So, the ‘Dream Gap Project’ was launched – a global initiative from Barbie that introduces girls to support, resources and inspiration through stories and products, showcasing underrepresented careers and inspiring girls to dream big. With 60 million Barbies sold each year, the positive impact Barbie can have as a brand on gender equality is unparalleled. This is a great initiative from an organisation using its design and brand as a platform to tackle gender inequality.

Another truly ambitious example which has stuck with me was from Frida Mom – a company that is redesigning products for new parents. They support women with postpartum recovery through a specially designed kit, looking to simplify the process for women across the world and address a need that is common but very rarely spoken about.

They aspired to break taboos and address the reality of recovery with an advert due to air during the Oscars ceremony in 2020, which was ultimately banned for being ‘too graphic’. Any woman who’s given birth will tell you the content of the ad is absolutely not ‘graphic’, but just a true representation of postpartum life. And to me, this is a real example of a company looking to speak to its customer base and empower women through brand-led inclusivity, using effective and honest design to appeal to its target audience. 

Gender equality & creativity

Much like Barbie and Frida Mom, brands must act on the real opportunity to create a better - and more equal - future by ensuring they are inclusive of women’s needs and reflect women’s reality in the design of their products and services. It sounds simple, but an obvious place to start is by creating a more gender-equal working environment. This provides a greater platform for nurturing creativity and innovation, and allows businesses to ensure their decision making is more diverse – reflecting women’s needs and points of view.

In turn, this means businesses and brands are better prepared, educated and equipped to understand and meet the changing needs of female consumers – and gives them the insight and authority to tackle taboo subjects through innovative and brand-led design. Doing so will boost gender equality, but also provide huge commercial benefits in the process.

With 56% of Landor & Fitch employees being women, we’ve seen first-hand how gender-equal working environments contribute to greater levels of creativity, and means we’re fully considering the role and needs of women in our business vision and strategy. That then filters down into how we build our brand, our offer and innovation. It informs our communications and the client experience. And there’s always more to be done.

We have a global community of volunteers called ‘The Good Squad’ who are currently dedicated to working on solving the challenges and barriers to making design more inclusive and accessible. We’ve seen first-hand the effect this has had on our culture, our design, but also on our clients and how they view and approach their own agendas. It’s programmes like this – if adopted by brands and providing a place for creativity and inclusive thinking – that can have an enormous impact.

Time to act

So this International Women’s Day I urge brands to look seriously at their business, how it operates and creates, and take a brand-led approach to inclusivity. By taking small steps, they can tap into a global market that is undervalued and crying out for better design, suited to their needs.

There are four simple questions that brands can ask themselves:

• Do we understand the gender dynamics in our category?

• Do we understand how our brand creates value in the lives of our female customers?

• Have we created a brand identity that does not alienate or marginalise any women?

• Does our product development process consider the perspectives of women?

If every business uses these questions as a starting point, we’re likely to see a lot more progressive design and marketing in the near future. Those that fail to adapt will see themselves left behind in a more creative, more equitable world…with more products designed by women, for women.