South African urban women don’t believe that advertisers understand them. That's according to a poll conducted recently by imagineNATION Alliance, as part of the brand strategy and research company's WomenNATION study.

It's a shocking statistic, especially when you consider that women make up 41% of South Africa's working population, that they own about 70% of informal businesses in the country and that 40% of black households are run by women.

But it doesn't surprise imagineNATION Alliance founders Amanda Reekie and Fiona Ross, who launched WomenNATION in a bid to improve corporate South Africa's understanding of the 'fairer sex'.

"Many advertisers and marketers have been slow to recognise the purchasing power as well as the complexity of the new female ‘prosumer’ or female professional consumer,” says Ross.

"The biggest problem seems to be that they can't quite grasp the multi-dimensional nature of women; their tendency to play many different roles at the same time - mother, wife, lover, business exec. So they typically create products and communication that appeal to one of these roles, with the result that there's a lot of stererotyping out there."

Ross believes that beauty ads, generally speaking, are guilty of this type of misunderstanding, as are products targeted at the 'mother' figure in the house.

"They're very one-dimensional. Where are the ads that show women dashing out their house, two kids in tow, wiping yoghurt off their suits and checking their lipstick before they walk into a meeting?" she asks. "That's reality, and brands that show that level of understanding of a woman's life, and her daily needs, are likely to develop a real relationship with her."

Other brands are getting it half right - but then all wrong.

Standard Bank, says Ross, is one of those - a brand that, judging by its communication, understands the nature of women, but is using this understanding to ill effect.

Ross quotes one press ad that says, "Tired of having to choose between the jacket and the pair of pants? With Standard Bank credit card you can have them both without breaking the bank”.