Lady Geek

I was spending an afternoon with a group of young girls this week getting under the skin of whats its like to be a ‘tween’ for a client. I met Hannah 9, Emily 10 and Grace 10 years old. They have been friends for ages.

I was asking them about how it feels to be a young girl, what’s important to them and how they feel about technology. I was expecting the whole pink think to be super appealing but i was shocked to find out that at this age, ‘pink’ anything, let alone pink gadgets are NOT cool:

Neither are dresses, particularly not pink dresses, nor are boys (the gender thing kicks in around now), nor is Barbie or Angelina Ballerina. This stuff is reminiscent of their earlier years and is for ‘young girly girls!’ I got them to do some drawings of what isn’t cool.

What’s also interesting is what is cool. All 3 cited their nintendo DS lite as super cool and when I mentioned the new silver version (sorry to their mums in advance) they got really excited.

The other interesting thing was I asked all their mums if I could get them a game for their DS as a thank you, and all the mums said ‘it would be better to get them a book voucher’ which was insightful in itself. Clearly their is still prejudice as to the value of games and many parents still see them as a ‘waste of time.’

As Kitt, the frag doll highlighted, there is so much ‘shovelware’ out there and over 450 titles for the DS lite launching between Oct and Dec, a lot of which are targeted at the young girl (My Pet Dolphin, Animal paradise, I Did It Mum, Fashion Designer to name just a few) that there is serious competition for manufacturers, not only for the girls but for the parents who are so often the gifters. Games publishers need to really understand what is it like to be a young girl and what is going to have enduring appeal and the potential to be a true Lovemark for this audience not just a fad.

My advice for mums and dads is don’t go for the pink. It seems silver is definitely the new pink.