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NEW YORK -- Dozens of marketers are slathering their online sites with games, Myspace-like communities, Web romances, lessons and even artfully revamped TV shows as they try to attract more women and keep them on their sites longer.
Once companies get women to the sites, the goal, of course, is to turn them into buyers by making them more familiar with and informed about the companies' products.
Marketers see online opportunity with women -- who account for $5 trillion in purchasing power, according to marketing consultants Just Ask a Woman -- as a fast-growing Web audience. Since 2003, the number of female unique Internet users is up 19% vs. 12% for men, according to Nielsen/NetRatings. They are now 52% of Web users, and their time spent online grew 6% to an average 58 hours a month in the past year, while time spent by men grew 1% to 67 hours.
Marketers' efforts to attract women online could spell more trouble for sellers of TV advertising: Spending on TV ads was flat last year at $22.4 billion, while marketers' spending for Internet ads rose 13%, to $8.3 billion, according to TNS Media Intelligence.
To buy more time with women, Dove recently launched an online series of two-minute vignettes that put Desperate Housewives star Felicity Huffman in scenes from a trio of vintage TV shows. It hired Hollywood heavy hitter Penny Marshall to direct the segments. Marshall, who directed A League of Their Own, says advertisers are looking online in their 20-year battle against TV commercial-zapping.
Viewers "used to fast-forward through commercials with the VCR or Beta or whatever recorder they had," says Marshall, who also produced Cinderella Man and Bewitched. "But now consumers can seek out commercials. They can go to a site and see talent and have uninterrupted viewing."
Nike, Oral-B, ThermaSilk, H&R Block and USA Networks are among those using entertainment to woo women, who increasingly go online for leisure.
"Women have really embraced the Internet for information, organization and communication. Now, they are at the point of engaging with entertainment," says Rob Master, Dove marketing director.
ThermaSilk recently targeted teen girls in Canada with its "hitonmyhotguy" where they could create an ideal boyfriend. H&R Block's "deductabuck.com" uses a quiz show format to teach about taxes. USA Networks recently launched a community site.
Women may be online but are they buying? Marketing-to-women expert Jen Dreschler says it depends on whether marketers "have thought long and hard" about their targets. "My concern is how much are you spending to draw women to the site and are you drawing women who will use the product," says Dreschler, who advises marketers for Just Ask a Woman.
Many marketers use traditional mass media to drive Web traffic. Dove, for instance, used ads on a recent episode of Desperate Housewives to promote the website. TV still reaches huge numbers in one shot, while the Web can get a narrower audience for minutes, rather than seconds.
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