The female brain

This chapter provides an overview of the scientific evidence of the differences between women and men and how they affect their brand perceptions and purchase behaviors. We start from a child-developmental standpoint and identify the hybrid of the nature and nurture opinions to support a modern perspective of gender-based marketing. This framework allows us to identify the issues that provide deep insights into the differences and similarities between women and men. The first of these issues is the differences in the brain and central nervous systems that result in the different hard wirings of the female and male brains. These govern how we gain our brand perceptions. Second, it describes the effect of hormonal differences, especially during childhood development, on female behavior. Next, we identify howthe mind links perceptions with the creation of powerful brand memories: how they are interpreted, organized and retrieved. The chapter goes on to link these to the emotional purchase behaviors of women toward brands that characterize many of the essential differences between women and men. The evidence is that women’s behavior is driven more by emotional factors than men’s and that their behavior is likely to vary more widely than men’s. To summarize, the key differences in behavior between women and men are driven by theirDNA, the hard wiring of their brains, the effects of hormonal differences and their upbringing. This chapter sets out the fundamental differences betweenwomen and men and why they matter, and shows how they might influence how we market towards women.