As the marketing maven for international bike super-brand Trek Bicycles here in the UK, Chris Garrison has her fair share of experience of the cycling media. Her industry perspective is an important part of the equation. Chris deals with journalists, marketing teams, retailers and riders, and knows the ins and outs of the bike biz well.
“In my role I often get questions from publishers for my thoughts on the idea of them launching more women-focused content. Every time I see an email with this topic in the subject line, I know exactly what’s coming. This usually consists of three things: a desire to understand how much of an emphasis women’s products are to our brand (huge), a question about what types of content I’d like to see, and something along the lines of ‘Would you support this commercially?’.
My thoughts on this are pretty well-formed, after years of seeing this sort of thing play out. Or not, as is often the case when the industry isn’t willing or able to stump up the cash. Suddenly, that idea about producing more women’s content goes away. Shocking.
Most of the time when people attempt to create a women’s element to a publication, it’s written in the same style as standard articles. This assumes that women want to know the exact same things about products as men, which isn’t entirely the case.
I want to see the bike media produce content for women that takes into consideration the way women make choices about the products they buy, and tailor the information so that it’s presented accordingly. Truth be told, men don’t understand high-level technical jargon nearly as much as they pretend to, so toning down the technobabble actually works better for the vast majority of readerships.
When it’s time for me to talk about how much value I’d place on women’s content, I cringe. I hate this question. I know why it’s being asked, but it’s essentially a publication saying ‘we’ll only talk about half the population if we can make money out of it’.
That might seem like a jaded view, and I understand how the publishing side works enough to know that they need to have financial support to some degree. BUT I think making that the priority over producing the content is putting the cart before the horse, and that’s a bad choice.
We know that retailers can make more money in their store if they emphasise the women’s market. They have to assume risk in order to do this, and providing they do it well, they always capitalise on it.
So in short, I’m not going to throw money at a publication based on the promise of producing women’s content. As a woman, I clearly think that I’m worth having content made for me without requiring the industry to pay for it up front.
The cycling media should be talking about women. Now. Not later. And way more than is currently happening. Anyone who is paying attention knows that the way this sport grows and prospers into the future, is by getting more women on bikes.
It’s not simply about women’s specific publications churning out women’s specific information. It’s about ALL cycling media including women in their content. Simple.”
