Lack of Diversity is Bad Marketing.

Despite the research that shows that having more diverse teams and boards is good for business, Australian business doesn’t seem to be changing, and that’s bad news for Australian consumers.

A new study, reported in Melbourne’s Age newspaper, suggests that Australian CEOs aren’t too interested in diversity with only 22% of 1200 Chief Exectutive Officers saying that they have appointed – but worse – even intend to appoint a female senior manager. When asked if they had any women in, or intended to appoint any women to, senior management (a C-level job) – 75% of CEOs of small- to mid-sized firms said no.

The lack of diversity in the boardroom means that Australian businesses may be making bad decisions, not just in relation to who they employ, but also in relation to their customers too.

Christina Ioannidis, an international marketing consultant who works with Pilote Media spoke from Dubai where she is running a training course for companies in the middle east who want to get it right:

If you don’t have a diversity of experience and points of view in your management team, how can you have empathy with over 50% of your customer base? Men and women make buying decisions in very different ways, so if your marketing communications are not aimed at the right audience, you may be losing customers, which in turn will impact your bottom line.

Female consumers want to know that their interests are being looked after at the highest level, but it flows all the way down the business. In online marketing, women consumers use social media more than men, so if you have social media as part of your digital marketing strategy and you don’t have diversity in your online marketing team, then you might be getting it very wrong.

Pilote Media offer companies training and consulting in the areas of diversity in marketing and marketing to women. In the short-term, Christina can facilitate product innovation sessions and advise on marketing strategies that ensure the huge female market is being properly addressed.