Get a better read on women

Newsflash: the female attention span is not dead. Stylist’s  head of  brand Susan Riley on why words matter more than ever for marketeers  in an age of  clip culture

Every single year one of my January resolutions is to read more. This year started strong: January I ploughed through Sarah Wynne-Williams’ Careless People, David Szalay’s Flesh and Yael Van Der Wouden’s The Safekeep. Then from February onwards, my good intentions turned into buying books but not completing them. Slags, Butter and Famesick are now piled up on my bedside table as I get distracted by other, more addictive entertainment before bed. And getting my 11-year to curl up with a book in the same way as I did at her age? That’s another, much longer and more aggravating story.  

The state of reading is teetering on the edge of crisis. It’s why the Department of Education declared this year the National Year of Reading: a year-long initiative to address the steep decline in reading among young people (and the rest of us) and reverse the lowest levels of reading enjoyment in 20 years.  

To do our bit, earlier this month Stylist launched “Your Next Great Read”: a new series from literary and cultural tastemakers about what to turn the page of next. We know our audience are a book-loving lot – 16% are in a book club, with 34% getting their reading recommendations from Stylist – and we want reading recommendations and interrogations to be as prominent as we can across our eco-system.   

So, what is the current read on UK women? Think Stylist’s recent research with over 1,400 Gens X, Y and Z women confirmed what we already knew: that out of everyone, women in these demographics are in the reading lead. 42% of UK women describe themselves as ‘voracious readers’ and 31% confirm reading is their top pastime.  

The most cheering news? 20% more women read books than social media, with more UK women reading printed books (87%) than any other form of content, including digital articles and e-books (73%) and social media posts and carousels (67%). Even more  high-fivesome  is the fact that 36% of women say they’ve been reading  more  books in the last two years. Only 10% are reading less.  

To be clear, book reading isn’t a daily habit (74% of women read social media every day versus 46% reading books every day), but just over a third of women are reading enough to get through 2-3 books a month.  And it’s something that brings them great comfort, with  89%  stating  relaxation is the No. 1 reason they read (the second being escapism). Then there’s the where. Sofas are where most of their reading takes place, closely followed by bed, with before they go to sleep being the most popular time to open a chapter.    

The comfort connection is not that surprising when you consider reading to be one of our most accessible tools for nervous system regulation. In an age of fragmented attention and ‘clip culture’, reading is one of our only focused pastimes. It shifts our nervous system from sympathetic fight or flight state to the parasympathetic rest-and-digest state; it makes our breathing steady, our heart rate slower and our muscles more relaxed. Way cheaper than a sound bowl session, no?  

When you start to  understand  reading as a modern-day  refuge, it makes  sense why the celebrity book club  is  booming (Dua Lipa’s monthly recommendations on  via her Service95 Book Club go out to half a million women) and  why  print is making a  steady  comeback.  The rise of scrapbooking, journalling and vision boards has progressed into zine-making;  zine fairs are firmly on the social map, and  more  indie and luxury zines  are emerging, perfect places for undocumented voices who want to convey their message in more than a soundbite. Content brands are shifting gear in response. Last year  Reese  Witherspoons’s  media production company Hello Sunshine  launched  an offshoot called Sunnie  for the next generation and, you guessed it, has produced a zine alongside its book club and social meets.  W is also launching  WYouth in print in September  to serve up magazine culture to the digital-dominated Gen Z.  There is a strong desire to return to analogue experiences  right now and reading is at the heart of this shift.  

That’s not to say the short-form video is on the descent. Far from it. It’s how women across Gens X, Y and Z discover and emotionally connect with brands right now and these formats also deliver clear metrics for those at the helm chasing immediate KPIs. But short-form content alone doesn’t build depth, credibility or meaning. Speed shouldn’t be confused with substance and clip culture has a role to play in a much bigger story. So, what is your brand story and how else are you going to tell it? Because women are primed and waiting to read it.  

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