How Social Stigmas Influence Taboo Purchases

How Social Stigmas Influence Taboo Purchases

Social stigmas are a powerful force in the product and service world, serving as a literal wall between women and their communities. However, brands are uniquely positioned to take that wall down, brick by brick, making it easier for women to talk about products and services that benefit them.

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Ending Gender Discrimination in Advertising

Ending Gender Discrimination in Advertising

To advertise to women effectively, you need to understand their context. For many women, discrimination and gender disparities are realities they’ve faced and continue to face. These experiences are sources of pain, stress and are part of their daily lives. Advertising is more effective when it solves a problem, and many women have a big problem at work, at home, and just living in society.

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How Advertising Can Help Solve Gender Equality

How Advertising Can Help Solve Gender Equality

Advertising has a problem, and women want a solution. Women want better on-screen representation—to see themselves in ads the way they see themselves in life. And they want brands to wield their enormous power and influence to change society for the better. Our attitudinal segmentation research explores how women feel about advertising and what they want from brands. If advertisers want to get it right, they have to start listening.

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Younger women are more likely to have positive brand perceptions. Here’s why: 

Younger women are more likely to have positive brand perceptions. Here’s why: 

Age is not just a number. It’s a guiding light for smart brands that sell products and services to women. But if you limit your understanding to tired demographics you’ll be left wanting for conversions (and losing with women). It’s time we took a holistic look at age.

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600 women will tell you what they really want from brands and how to talk taboos

600 women will tell you what they really want from brands and how to talk taboos

Advertising has failed to reach women since its inception. Call it stereotypes. Call it too few women steering the ship. But either way, women want you to call it like it is. Women are tired of brand silence on the issues that matter most. Our taboo research proves it.

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Fancy releases results of new survey covering feminine taboos

Fancy releases results of new survey covering feminine taboos

We believe that for too long, the marketing world has ignored women’s lived experiences (and voices). Taboos exist to silence women, surrounding aspects of their lives with stigma and shame. It’s time women have space to say what they want. It’s time we get real and have the conversations women have been trying to have for their entire lives.

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It’s not over.
Fancy POV, Fancy For Good Katie Keating Fancy POV, Fancy For Good Katie Keating

It’s not over.

Yesterday I wanted to celebrate the one day that the world pays a little more attention to women. I really did. But then I thought about how very far we have to go to achieve equality. And how despite some gains in some areas basic rights are being stripped from women. Around the world and here at home.

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Working Works at Fancy
Fancy POV, agency life Katie Keating Fancy POV, agency life Katie Keating

Working Works at Fancy

While on a panel at the Ad Age Small Agency Conference last month I was asked why Fancy was deliberately set up a bit differently from the typical agency model of FTEs, butts-in-seats, show-up-Sunday-or-don’t-bother-Monday.

Well, we’re building the agency we always wanted to work for but never could find.

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Owning Up at the Small Agency Conference
Fancy POV Katie Keating Fancy POV Katie Keating

Owning Up at the Small Agency Conference

Last week, I was part of a panel of women agency leaders who were discussing “Owning up: The rise of female leaders and how to make your workplace more equitable” at the Ad Age Small Agency Conference. We talked about why we started our agencies, what it means to be driving progress, uplifting equity, and creating the industry we know can change the world. It’s a conversation that doesn’t happen nearly often enough.

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Mothers are more than moms, just ask one. We did (500 actually).
Fancy research, Fancy POV Katie Keating Fancy research, Fancy POV Katie Keating

Mothers are more than moms, just ask one. We did (500 actually).

Motherhood isn’t everything. Even to moms. That was made clear in our survey when 9 out of 10 mothers said they wanted to be portrayed in roles other than mom. In no way does this diminish the role of motherhood in a person’s life. It can be defining. It can be exceptional. It can be transformative. It isn’t, however, everything. The pre-motherhood self does not simply evaporate, replaced by the selfless devotion to others and instant knowledge of laundry cycles, sheet pan dinners, and where the extra AA batteries are.

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Marketers are more obsessed with our looks than we are
Fancy research Katie Keating Fancy research Katie Keating

Marketers are more obsessed with our looks than we are

How much of our lives has been spent on living up to impossible beauty standards? Standards created by the media, the patriarchy, and yes, advertising. Global ad spend in the beauty category continues to grow, but who’s really paying attention? Who is absorbing the nonstop barrage of content messaging and predetermined ideals? Apparently not women over 40.

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Women over 40 are different
Fancy POV, women over 40 Katie Keating Fancy POV, women over 40 Katie Keating

Women over 40 are different

A woman over 40 is anything but typical. So brands, when you’re considering broadening your focus to include her, be sure to really include who she actually is, how your brand can connect to what is important to her, and the kind of difference you can make for the life she’s living.

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Want to reach women 40+?
Fancy research Katie Keating Fancy research Katie Keating

Want to reach women 40+?

It’s a fact that women over 40 are integral to the consumer economy. They’re heading households, buying for their families, often spending discretionary income on themselves. They’re loyal to their favorite brands and willing to try something new if there’s credible evidence to suggest it will solve a problem, or enhance an experience. But the question remains: how to connect with them in a way that’s interesting, relevant, and most importantly, motivating?

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How Old is a mom?
Fancy POV Katie Keating Fancy POV Katie Keating

How Old is a mom?

When you picture a “mom” in your head is she 25? 35? How old are her kids? Newborn? Pre-schoolers? School-aged? Mothers in their 40s, never mind 50s, are largely left out of the motherhood conversation brands are having no matter how old their kids are.

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Our Positive Purpose
Fancy POV Katie Keating Fancy POV Katie Keating

Our Positive Purpose

At Fancy, we’re recommitting to the whole reason we’re in this game in the first place. The three leaders of Fancy came together because we knew the power of advertising to change the world. And we also knew that business as usual wasn’t going to change anything.

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