What Do Women Want? Less Pink, More Tech

The opening paragraphs of this article annoy me:

Bring on the tech gear, but don’t make it girly: That’s what women want, according to a survey released today.
Just 9 percent of the fair sex want products that “look feminine,” like a pink Playstation or Hello Kitty keyboards. The remaining 91 percent seek something sleek and sophisticated, more boardroom than teenage bedroom. The data comes from a study, done by the advertising firm Saatchi & Saatchi, of 750 British women age 24 to 45.
The agency says its study indicates it’s time for tech companies to go beyond the pink ghetto.

But I know at least 3 pinkoholics, and 9% is a perfectly respectable market sector.

So why not just make the stuff, try selling it and let the market sort it out?

And why make a big deal out of it? What are they trying to say?

And the article finishes with this:

“Demands on women’s time tend to be greater,” said Sydney-born Bell. “If you wanted to design technology that would appeal to women, it needs to work flawlessly the first time out of the box and every time thereafter. They don’t have time to faff around.”

That goes for men, too – with the exception of a) any classic car or b) any italian car, where tinkering is considered to be part of the fun. That they go at all is the marvel.

Sigh. I don’t understand this… needz caffeine.

Comments

6 responses to “What Do Women Want? Less Pink, More Tech”

  1. Also seems to imply that only women would buy the pink variants of products. Which might be mostly true but I’m sure there are some guys with pink PSPs out there – me I’ve got white one.

  2. I agree that both men and women basically want something which works, works well, works well and is easy to use.. well except a few bloody minded individuals who seem to think that it’s manly to have a gadget which requires you to spend half a day tinkering with just to find out what time it is.

    As for pink.. it’s just a colour. Make the devices in various colours or have an ingenious way of allowing the owner to customise it. Problem solved.

    Anyone for a Ferrari red, Masserati blue or British Racing Green iPod? 😉

  3. I don’t think pink routers, firewalls or IDS systems would necessarily sell well.

  4. anna

    Dunno. Could be the same types as find it hard to believe that little old me could actually Build My Own PC. (How hard can it be? You unwrap the pieces, and you find holes that seem to match – not like you can actually get it that far wrong, can you? I mean if you can plug summat into a socket, you’ve already got all the skills you need.).

    I do remember being fairly discouraged as a teen girly from attempting to buy anything from places like Radio Shack etc – can’t remember the details but they weren’t exactly friendly and were verging on hostile.

    Don’t like pink myself, but am open to the idea that it’s a potential neat way of selling good stuff that boyish boys won’t nick from girly girls/boys? (Like licking your biscuits to make sure nobody else is tempted to nick them).

    Think the hardest idea is getting across that you know, some people actually buy gadgets to USE them, and want them to just WORK. Why this is a hard idea to understand is one of the mysteries of the universe.

  5. I have a novel idea, cut out all the fancy stuff buried deep in menus that no one ever uses and then make it simple to operate while walking down the street in heels, carrying a purse and walking a dog. If its matte black or stainless more than a few guys would buy it also.

  6. A bit OT, but: Is it just me, or even though they are supposed to spend their lives locked in lights-out datacentres, did the (frequently optimal) combination of kit in Extreme Networks purple and either Alteon turquoise (before the Nortel takeover made them go grey) or Cisco green contribute to the popularity of 19″ racks with heavily-tinted glass doors?

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