The Escape Artist

Maria Reitan
Senior Principal
10/18/2012
 

Do you feel you are stuck in a financial rut and have no way to dig out? Do you seek any opportunity during the day to carve out a moment of mindless pleasure? Is dark chocolate your go-to indulgence? If these statements describe you, then you are an “Escape Artist.”

Earlier this year, Carmichael Lynch Spong and Carmichael Lynch fielded proprietary research that sought to answer the question, “How are women emerging from the recession?” We found that women, who’ve been dealing with the recession for at least four years now, were coping with their new normal in three distinctly different ways. Most women had a dominant coping mind-set, along with an evident secondary mind-set. We termed these mind-sets, Creative Controller, Connection Craver and Escape Artist. This posting tackles the somewhat pessimistic Escape Artist.

The Escape Artist is a woman driven by a sense that her current condition is not changing anytime soon, and it’s a bit overwhelming to her, not to mention more than a tad depressing. She feels she must grab any solace wherever and whenever she can, because she has to live with this situation for a good long time. Therefore, she’s driven by fun and spontaneity. 

So how is she coping? She releases stress by planning vacations. The Escape Artist may not take a grand vacation, but the pure act of dreaming and planning for one gets her excited. Instead, she’s taking mini-vacations, extending the weekend for a brief getaway or even sitting in the sun in her backyard for a short reprieve. One woman from our ethnography study said simply going to the grocery store at night when things were quiet felt like a vacation.

And those vacations aren’t just physical. The Escape Artist is taking multiple mind vacations. In fact, she seeks to mentally escape multiple times a day. She does this through watching entertaining television shows, reading a good book, playing a video game or listening to music.

The Escape Artist is intuitive. She recognizes that these escapes have a theraputic effect and may assist her in staying sane. At the very least, keep her from slipping into a depression. Therefore, she has no guilt about such escapes. And unlike the Connection Craver, the Escape Artist is a woman who relishes escaping alone. She appreciates having her partner and children out of the home. She indulges alone, too. Because she feels like she has “earned” a reward and should redeem it now to help get her through the long haul, she will indulge in things such as premium coffee, dark chocolate and little snack breaks during the work day.

So how can you connect with the Escape Artist? Make sure your brand is front and center in the places where she escapes, including YouTube, Hulu, iTunes, Facebook and other online destinations. Consider creating escapist activities for her where she can engage with your brand – an interactive game would fit the bill. Insert your brand in women’s general interest, lifestyle and entertainment magazines where she seeks inspiration.

The Escape Artists likes to shop. Her shopping cart is the largest of the three mind-sets, spurred in part by her tendency to be spontaneous. Make sure your brands are visible in readily available locations for her impromptu purchases, such as on end-caps or at the checkout aisles.

Wit and humor help transport her. So create messages that deliver product benefits in ways that will make her pause, think and laugh.

These mind-sets should be used as a guide, working in conjunction with a more fully developed target. If you’d like to see which mind-sets align with your specific female target, email me at maria.reitan@clynch.com or Tweet me @mariareitan.