So, while The Spice Girls are already on the way to becoming a particularly irritating trivia question ("OK, there was Victoria, and Ginger, and Marianne, and unnh..."), the "Girl Power" attitude they helped define will be a force to be reckoned with at Ford and, undoubtedly, everywhere else.
Redmond put "Girl Power" right up there as one of nine key consumer trends of the future. The others are bi-polar brands, living longer and better, consumer control of brands, it's a virtual world, experience and smarts, simplify my life, "globalization," and safety and security.
Girl power is not new, Redmond said, since women have long been known to influence 80 percent of all purchases. But increasingly, more women are "arriving both econonomically and psychographically, and they are continuing to gain power, control and influence."
Women's growing economic clout has been obvious for some time, Redmond said, but what's "not so obvious is that traditional 'feminine' values have permeated society. For example, women tend to be more brand conscious then men when they buy, and brand management is now the dominant marketing strategy in the auto industry."
Women also want to develop relationships, Redmond said, "and sure enough, relationship marketing is all the rage. In particular, the younger generation just coming of age is really picking up these feminine values."