Forever 21, the retail store with clothes that typically fall apart after two washes, is finally embracing something that is forever—motherhood.  Love21 Maternity debuted in states with high teen pregnancy rates and caused a bit of a stir, but I’m having a hard time seeing the link between a maternity line in a clothing store and a company encouraging teen pregnancy.

I don’t think the girl picking out 8^th grade dinner dance outfits in the dressing room line in front of me (yes, I shop there) would see the clothes and think, ‘wow, this store is so trendy, pregnancy must be in, I’ve got to get on that’, pretty sure she was just looking for a cute dress.

I am interested to see if the line does well. In research we recently did with pregnant women many admitted to not even purchasing maternity clothes, just stretching out the clothes they already owned or buying a bigger size to still feel pretty and stylish. With Forever21’s small sizing I could see a pregnant shopper just going to size L instead of buying maternity. Perhaps that will change with this new line. 

What do you think? Is Forever out of line?

Today’s WSJ featured a story about the new nutritional numbering system that will assign a number from 1(nutritionally lowest) to100(the healthy jackpot) to let shoppers know whether those whole wheat crackers are truly healthy (90) or crunchy sabotage (12). Already brands that have long seemed to be healthy are getting scores that will make women’s’ eyes pop.  We were wondering, what will women be thinking when they confront the whole truth at the shelf? “Do I like that enough to eat a 14?”  “Do I make 50 my ‘do not pass below’ barrier or should it be 75?” (“Is there enough 75+ food to survive on?”)  ”Do I close my eyes when I see an alarming number on my favorite cookie or do I trade off, like I do with WW points, one of those for two of that…or justify my choices with ‘at least it’s better than that” rationale?”

It’s interesting how something as specific as a number can raise more questi0ns than it answers. And what an opportunity for marketers to figure out those internal questions to make the most of their brand new healthy cereal introduction that just got panned with a 6!

Okay, I never thought I would start a post with that title, but I couldn’t resist. In today’s Wall Street Journal, I read about a new craze that’s kind of the push up bra for your derriere. Seems that Beyonce and Kim Kardashian’s curvy bottoms have now made a well-shaped backside top of mind for millions of women who are buying all kinds of inflated panties to make up for what nature didn’t give them.

A couple of women dreamed up Booty Pop which is really just underwear padded on the back to fill out tight jeans. Spanx has their version. Victoria’s Secret has theirs. Might there be a Butts R Us coming to a shopping mall near you?

Guess there’s a never ending market for giving women a chance to become what they’re not. Curly haired women get keratin straightening treatments. Pale girls are instantly spray tanned. And now pancakes are becoming creampuffs. The good news about this story is that for once, the bigger gals or the ones with ‘assets’ get to win for a change. And that is truly bootylicious!

At Just Ask a Woman, we are proud of the way we listen to women differently. We let them open up and tell us their stories, good or bad, and we always push for the Whole Truth, no matter how hard it is to say. But in real life, women don’t always have someone to talk to…(or to whine to!) and many of us tend to keep stuff inside because let’s face it, we all grow up being told that nobody likes a whiner.

Well, now there’s a place where you can whine your heart out! As a new Just Ask a Woman adventure, I’ve just launched WhineAt9.com, a site that features a new free weekly audio podcast with my friend Nancy Berk, a clinical psychologist, humor writer and stand-up comic. You can download it onto iTunes or listen on your computer while you work (what, you never do that?) and get a laugh as we talk about what’s bugging us…and you! You can even call your own whine into our Whine Line at 1-203-7Whine9 and be part of the show. Or send us your whine at WhineAt9@gmail.com for the site.

We just posted our second episode (enjoy!) and tonight, we will be introducing Whine at 9 here in NYC….where else? The SNL studios at 30 Rock at an event called “Ladies Who Laugh” sponsored by New York Women in Communications! Get ready for another way that we tell the Whole Truth about women.  

 Whine at 9, the show where it’s fine to whine!

In a world where we return phone calls with emails and meet old friends through Facebook, I had an eye-opening moment this morning. I was sitting aboard a Continental flight waiting to take off for Denver, and a uniformed man stood in the aisle at the front of the plane. An attendant? No. A food service person? No. “Hello, everyone,” he said, “I’m your captain.” A real, live person who, without the disembodied microphoned voice of the cockpit, stood right next to us and looked us in the eye and told us about the flight in the friendliest, professional way. Stunned silence.

As he went back to take us up, the woman in the seat behind me sighed, “That is the nicest pilot I ever saw.” I’m sure she’s seen others as she walked off planes…but I have to agree, the simple human contact in a world gone remote…was a joy. Don’t know if it was an aberration or a new policy from Continental but I loved it! If they can bring their well-honed personal style to the United merger, I say “Let’s fly together!”

OK, on behalf of 50 plus people everywhere, I officially cry Foul! to the positioning of the new medical findings reported in the Wall St. Journal today “When Older Drivers Excel.”  The point of the article was no surprise to any parent of a teen, that ‘older’ drivers are better at anticipating and reacting to surprise road hazards, children on the street or just aggressive driving behavior while their younger, less experienced counterparts perfect the art of straight-ahead-only driving.  But as I read the piece, I was shocked to see that those astute drivers with 37 years of experience or more were termed “elderly.” That would mean, if someone started driving at the learner’s permit age of 16, they are officially elderly at age 52. You gotta be kidding!

For years, I’ve sat in my share of meetings where “older” women (those anywhere north of 39) were marginalized into the not-our-target zone. It always ticked me off and naturally, gets more annoying with each passing year. Who doesn’t hate to discover that they have moved into a new ‘checkoff’ box on an age questionnaire? When networks still count 21-49 as their demographics, what does that mean for the rest of us plunging off the cliff into death?

Meanwhile, those ‘older’ women who have the bucks to spend on everything from skin care to apparel to new homes and cars and yet they are shelved into feeling like they’ve passed their ‘use by’ date. While an economy still staggers to its feet, lurching from an uptick to another slump, you’d think it would finally be time for the media, for brands, for everyone to court the women who can save our collective bottom lines. As a copywriting friend once wrote for an article I did for MORE magazine, “Older women still kick butt…they just do it in more expensive shoes.” Elderly, my—.

Today’s New York Times article lauded the arrival of the Holy Grail: Lucy Phone, a technology that answers the perennial consumer scream “WHY AM I ON HOLD SO LONG?” Customers who truly hate automated systems will rejoice to know that now they’ve got a button of their own that forces the company to call you back, rather than waste your time. I know that there are already businesses who do this themselves, inviting you to press whatever # and an operator will return your call. But Lucy puts the choice in consumers’ hands. (One scary side note in the piece is that the Twitter universe is fanning consumer rage, with hoards of on-hold folks banding together to gang up on companies…sort of a mass citizens’ arrest. Something to keep an eye on.)

Meanwhile, thanks to services like Lucy, I was thinking of all the phone messages that soon may be a thing of the past.

“Your call is important to us. Please hold.” (If it is, then why don’t you answer now?)

“All customer service representatives are currently speaking with other customers. Please hold.”

(in other words, “other customers” who are more important to you than I am.)

“This call may be monitored for quality by our customer service specialists.”

(really, when has anyone ever interrupted your frustrated profanity as you watch the waiting minutes drag by? )

Go, Lucy, go! You’ll not only save waiting customers’ needless anxiety and wasted minutes, you might even save some companies the money lost to customers’ exasperation…and defection.

Activia is reaching out with a campaign that touts home-done footage of women documenting their 14 days of digestive improvement, in response to Jamie Lee Curtis’s 14 day challenge. Two things struck me about it. First, that with so many reality shows revealing TMI to the max, is showing ‘real consumers’ in commercials that noteworthy anymore? We are too real for our own good right now, so announcing they are “real” makes them seem less real than Bethenny or any Bachelorette we’ve grown to love/hate.

Second, do we really want to hear about the day by day bowel changes of these satisfied real customers? Ick. I would rather trust Jamie Lee that the stuff does the trick than watch a blow by blow on the topic. And funny enough, even getting the Whole Truth from consumers with cameras isn’t as easy as it sounds. When we do Self-nographies with women, we often double back to ask them a second round of tougher follow up questions. The camera can lie, or at least tell some ego-protecting Half Truths, when it’s in her hands. (Of course, in this case, I’m kind of glad that those Activia “real” women are keeping some things behind closed bathroom doors!)

So in the last week I endured 12 hours in delays at different domestic airports. I can deal with the downtime and try not to be one of those people who whine about everything. But with all of this time to think, I’ve come up with business recommendations for the airports, airlines and the retail so that they can have happier travelers (read: who will spend more money). This memo is a work in progress and I’d appreciate any builds.

TO RESTAURANTS AND BARS

1. Invest in an electrical upgrade so that you can have accessible outlets for travelers like me who are desperate to give our iPhones some extra juice or to charge up our laptops. When I got seated recently at the Callifornia Pizza Kitchen in Las Vegas and there was an outlet next to my table I was elated. I happily ate my soup (yes, soup at CPK) and powered up. Happy customers order more drinks which means to higher tabs and more tips for your wait staff. Want to really show how much you “get” it? Put an outlet at each of the bar stools (and a purse hook)

2. Work with the airlines/airports to put departure boards INSIDE your establishments. When I travel alone, I don’t feel like I can leave my things unattended to walk out of the restaurant to check on my flight delays. So I prematurely close my tab (robbing you of revenue) so that I don’t foolishly miss my flight. It might be nice if your restaurants that are located before security if you also had arrivals boards. Better yet though would be an app where the whole board could appear on my phone but I digress.

TO RETAIL

1. I’m going to guess that the Brooks Brothers store in the Milwaukee airport is not a high volume establishment. Instead why don’t retailers with more practical items/services take over the airport. My favorite thing about the Pittsburgh airport is that it has a store assortment like a mall (Gap, Victoria’s Secret, a drugstore…) and I never complain about being delayed there. I’d love to see more service oriented spots like pharmacies and express salon/spas, One year I did all of my holiday shopping in the Pittsburgh airport while I waited for my flight.

TO AIRLINES

1. Offer a code for free airport wifi when you have a delay of more than 90 minutes.

2. When you delay a plane that is already boarded, comp everyone free Direct TV (for those airlines that charge and I mean you Continental!). I’d imagine that an entertained travel bitches and moans a whole lot less than a traveler who is bored. If you are really delayed could you comp adults for a premium beverage for when the flight finally gets off the ground?

Let’s build this manifesto. What would you like to see added?

It’s nice to write books but it’s extra nice to be featured in someone else’s!  This month, three terrific authors were kind enough to include pieces about Just Ask a Woman and me and I want to thank them here and give them some ink.

First up, Maddy Dychtwald, nationally recognized demographer and marketer just launched “Influence, How Women’s Soaring Economic Power Will Transform Our World for the Better”, written with Christine Larson, a wonderful journalist. The book from the VOICE division of Hyperion is a huge resource for any business that’s ready to learn about the transformative economic power of women. In the book, the authors interviewed dozens of successful corporations and marketers to advance their story of women’s influence. Just Ask a Woman pops up all over it. Here’s an example from one of our interviews: “As a marketer, I would look at my most successful competitor and wonder why I’m not getting that money. Intelligence about women customers will give you a leg up.” Thanks, Maddy and Christine! We are so glad to be part of your provocative new book.

On a more personal note, Ellyn Spragins has just launched the latest in her “Letters to my Younger Self” series, this one called, “What I Know about Success.”  She asked me to write a letter to my younger self, helping me understand a career lesson learned later in life. My letter titled, “You are not in charge of everyone else’s happiness” appears alongside letters from rockstar women I admire, like Barbara Walters, Bobbi Brown, Diane Von Furstenberg and Soledad O’Brien and Cathie Black. What an honor! And  my plug…it’s a great gift for new graduates…as well as women reflecting on their own reinventions!