Road cycle racing has become popular enough for the grand tours and the ToB to get daily highlight programmes, and selected live coverage, on ITV4. The women's road race at London 2012 was very exciting (once they got the commentary sorted out), and was widely praised as such. So the seed has been sown for racing cycling to have general appeal. As that grows, advertisers will realise (I hope) that the appeal is irrelevant of gender, and that a women's race is just as effective marketing as a men's race - though the women's sport needs halo races to match the men's for non-enthusiast people to latch on to.
It's notable, however, how many non-cycling-specific sponsors have left the men's sport in the last year, which doesn't bode well. I hope women's cycling can attract the marketing budgets they need to put the sport on a sound financial footing, but I think it will be a long haul.