Gag-Worthy Marketing Campaigns And The Technological Gender Divide
Mon 26 September 2011
, LEAP redactie, LEAP
Women play the games and use the gadgets to transform their lives, so why is the technology industry still marketing to them as if they slept with fuchsia-clad, faux-diamond-studded Barbie dolls tucked under their arms? A good question posed by expert blogger Belinda Parmar, who says: “Women are smart, economically powerful and increasingly active in the way they look to technology to enhance their lives. This isn’t my opinion, it’s fact. Look at the figures: according to research we conducted with Forrester, over half of women attempting to make technological purchases walk out of shops because they simply can’t find what they are looking for. The missed opportunity here is calculated at £0.6 billion per year in the U.K. alone.“
Parmar,founder of Lady Geek, says in her blog which appeared in the Huffington Post: “The more you look at women’s market share, the more baffling the industry’s approach becomes. Out of every 10 gadgets, four are bought by women, and we’re talking high-end consoles and digital cameras, not steam irons or hair curlers. Furthermore, in the 25-34 age bracket, women make up 50% of all gamers. So the question remains, why is the industry still trying to palm them off with patronizing, dumbed-down products?”
Bittersweet examples
Parmar gives some quite funny examples. Like the disastrous Della website (a site that gave you recipe tips with email suggestions). On this site for women of computer manufacturer Dell netbooks and laptops were presented as fashion statements, and the site's "tech tips" included a feature, "Seven Unexpected Ways a Netbook Can Change Your Life," which starts out by saying, "Once you get beyond how cute they are, you'll find that netbooks can do a lot more than check your e-mail." Yeah, like finding recipes……
Must have cost Dell a fortune to find out what women really want. Like it must have cost HTC a lot of money to develop the new Bliss phone, with it’s calming wallpapers, calorie counter, shopping apps, and irritating "charm indicator" that flashes when you get a message. Parmar says: "When this was being designed, someone really should have taken a step back and asked just who really wants a girlie charm hanging off their phone.”
The most hilarious example Parmar mentions is the iPhone PMS SOS Betty Crocker app, which sought to cure pre-menstrual tension through cocoa-laden product vouchers.
We also found an app called PMSBuddy designed for men. A free service: “created with a single goal in mind: to keep you aware of when your wife, girlfriend, mother, sister, daughter, or any other women in your life are closing in on "that time of the month" - when things can get intense for what may seem to be no reason at all.”
We agree with Parmar when she concludes: “What we are witnessing here is a marketing approach that isn't so much sweet as perilously hard to swallow.”
Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/belinda-parmar/tech-gender-divide_b_924314.html
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