To wrap up 2023, Mediaweek is looking at the biggest trends, events, platforms, and brands of the year.
Welcome to Mediaweek’s A to Z of 2023 … and beyond.
By Eliza Sorman Nilsson, Editor-in-Chief, Mamamia
If three examples of something is a trend, 2023 was the year it became official: Women are moving economic mountains more than we’ve ever seen in history.
The 1-2-3 punch of Barbie, the Matildas and Taylor Swift demonstrated how women can move global culture across all demographics. Smashing records, opening wallets, generating billions of dollars, and reversing downward financial trends. 2023 was the year women made their economic strength known, loud and clear and pink and green and gold.
From Taylor’s record-breaking Eras tour, which is on track to become the highest-grossing tour in history, Barbie’s record-breaking achievements – including highest grossing film of 2023 and first $1 billion movie by a solo female director – and the Matilda’s record-breaking viewing audience for its semi-final clash with England – 11.15 million Australians, which is more than 43 per cent of the population.
The connection here is the phenomenal women who powered the moments that entertained, united, and inspired us. Yes, they showed generations of girls and boys that women can run the world. However, they also showed businesses, investors and, most importantly in our industry, advertisers that the days of overlooking women-led ventures should be well and truly over.
Obviously, here at Mamamia, we’ve always known women have the power to do this. (They’ve literally been powering everything we do for 15 years now.) Our research has confirmed that women are overwhelmingly and consistently the decision-makers. From beauty to home entertainment to telco to auto to pretty much everything, women are the ones making ‘all or most purchase decisions.’ Put simply: Women are a tsunami of purchasing power. As wallets tighten, women are the ones calling the shots and managing the household budget.
While the financial squeeze is very real right now, there are still key areas where women intend to spend more money, not less, in the new year. Putting aside the things she has no choice about (rent, mortgage, groceries) women want to spend more on health and fitness and travel and holidays in the next 12 months.
Women are done living a small, timid life where she’s at the bottom of her list of priorities.
No more burnt chops for her. She’s levelling up. She’s in doing-mode. She wants to grab experiences, to travel and maximise time with the people she loves. She’s had a tough few years of life being on hold, and she’s re-evaluated what’s important. She wants to invest in herself. Beauty, entertainment, health and fitness are about self-care. It’s about mental health, physical strength, freedom, and a life well lived.
The conversations are shifting, too. Women are talking candidly and openly about what it means to be a woman. The conversations are frank, sometimes uncomfortable, but always crucial in moving the dialogue forward. From 2023’s Australian of the Year Taryn Brumfit and her campaign to help women and children embrace their bodies, to Imogen Crump announcing she was having a peri-menopausal hot flush live on-air, and media powerhouse Jackie O’s candid conversation about divorce and dating again at 47.
Women dominated popular culture in 2023 and the marketers who are not already paying attention should listen up.
See also: Mediaweek’s A to Z of 2023: V is for Video Advertising
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