I am often asked if there is any real need to market technology to women as surely they just want the same things as men: quality, well-designed and simple products. Surely all we need to do is cut out the pink stuff and quit dumbing-down the technology.  End of story?  The short answer is no: There are some things that both men and women want, however it is far more complex and there are important differences. My latest research The Lady Geek Times Brand Survey 09 confirmed why.

Firstly, men see technology as something to be conquered whilst women see technology as something that can enhance their life.   Men are quite happy to tinker and conquer with a product for hours. Women just want things to work.   They want a clean interface, fewer frills and more substance than men.  An out of the box experience.

A few manufacturers understand this: Flip’s Mino and PURE’s Sensia are great demonstrations of perfect female design:  These products provide a clean, beautiful interface. They only do a few things but they do them very well.

Secondly, women buy technology completely different to men:

Most men research products extensively before buying. The male sales experience serves one of two purchases: Either a transactional purchase ( an exchange of money with little wanted interaction ). The other is that it is an opportunity to for bragging ( to ensure that they know more than the sales assistant ).

Women on the other hand, are often ‘reassurance addicts.’   62% of women said being reassured that they have bought the right product was really important to them.  And 40% of women do not have a brand or model in mind when shopping for tech compared to 20% of men. Women actually solicit advice from retailers (who are mostly unable to provide it).

Finally, when it comes to advertising, this is where tech companies make the worst mistakes. They only have three maladroit ways of positioning their products. The first is ‘tech porn‘ or ‘nerd jargon’ (spec, ram, gigabytes).  The second is ‘does not know what a phone is‘ (dumb technology down or disguise it) or lastly just ‘make it girly and pink” (bows, butterflies, princesses).

Women are different. Not better.  Not more intelligent.  Just different.

Vive la difference.

I am frustrated. I am bored. I feel patronised. PC World is telling me My World is Pink (it has not been pink since I was 7) and I need a new laptop to match my outfit (it would never even occur to me to match my outfit with my technology). Samsung is asking me “What Colour is my Life?” (hello?) and Dell is telling me that technology is like candy (do me a favour).

I am a 35 year-old professional woman with my own home. I am educated, fairly tech literate and, most importantly, I have cash to spend. Plenty of cash to spend, on technology that will make my life easier, more creative and fun.

Out of every ten gadgets bought in the UK, four are now bought by women. And, before you ask, we are not talking about fridges and washing machines. No, these are high-end items such as HD TV’s, games consoles and smart phones. And there are more games being played by women than men between the ages of 25-34.

I am not alone in feeling patronised or alienated by technology and consumer electronic brands.

I recently conducted some research for Forrester. This highlighted that one third of all British women do not feel connected to a single technology brand. Over half of all women walk out of shops because they cannot find what they are looking for.

This missed opportunity is calculated at £0.6 billion. The technology industry is where the automotive industry was 20 years ago- nervous boys at the school dance who do not quite know what to do or say to women. They end up leading with two left feet.

So why do technology companies think that pinking up and dumbing down their marketing is the way to get professional, well educated women to part with their cash? Why do they treat young girls and women alike – as an afterthought? Why are companies not researching “what women really want” and getting advice from expert consultants?

How can we help technology companies understand what women want?

Many technology brands believe that the way to a woman’s purse is to make her feel “special”, and have aimed to achieve this by giving women their “own” space, site or product. Dell’s disastrous Della website, which handed out technological advice alongside recipe tips and fashion articles, was shut down within weeks. Carphone Warehouse, Dixons and Comet (Comet Angels) have all had their share of “initiatives” and women’s only days, all with the aim of helping women turn the telly on. All, one assumes, with a glass of Prosecco held in their manicured, nail-varnished hands.

No woman wants to be a target with an overt “female friendly” message. Being singled out as different is as off-putting today as it was when you were singled out at school. Nor do women want to be stereotyped or bamboozled by obscure jargon.

It is ironic, given its widespread reputation for untarnished machismo, but the BBC’s Top Gear has democratised cars. It might be a legacy to make Jeremy Clarkson flinch, but he has helped to make cars accessible to women.

Once purely the domain of men, the programme now has nearly as many female viewers as male, thanks largely to being both playful and light-hearted. It stands for unadulterated honesty and entertainment looking at how people in the real world think and relate to their cars.

In September this year, the Harvard Business Review stated that women now represent a bigger market opportunity than India and China combined. Technology brands must put an end to these clumsy marketing strategies and put money and time behind understanding how real women in the real world engage with technology.

Women are no longer the second sex. We are the more profitable sex.

by Clara Gaggero

Older users, particularly older women, seem reluctant to use mobile technology on a daily basis. According to Ofcom, (The Consumer Experience 2008 Research Report) only 5% of people aged over 65 makes a phone call or sends a text on a daily basis.

Samsung commissioned a research project to the Helen Hamlyn Centre at the Royal College of Art to tackle this issue. Adrian Westaway and myself  conducted the yearlong project, aimed at enabling older users to use and enjoy mobile technology.
Existing “solutions”, often known as Silver Phones, are stigmatising and disrespectful. They dumb down information instead of enabling the users to access them. We believed that creating another mobile phone with bigger screen and bigger buttons would not solve the problem. We believe that older people would benefit from gps, and other applications that mobile technology can offer nowadays.

We looked at the bigger picture, analysing the whole user journey. We worked closely with users of all ages and we soon discovered something staggering. After purchasing or receiving the phone, when opening the box, digitally savvy younger users approach immediately the phone and learn how to use it by trial and error; older people instead look for help inside the box. Help isn’t always there, manuals are merely legal requirements printed on flimsy paper and the packaging is a glorified egg carton. We noticed that the enthusiasm of having a new phone vanishes at this stage and many people feel frustrated and excluded.

But older people are not alone, 85% of all users report frustration in setting up a new phone. This shows how, by focusing on a defined user group and conducting a people centred design process, we can discover a big commercial opportunity.

We created three solutions, three analogical answer to digital problems. People are waiting six months or more to meet their daughters, sons or nieces, the “translators” that will explain them the phone or the digital camera’s features. We created three objects that act as interpreters between technology and the users.

The Book:
Most phones come with flimsy manuals with complicated language and jargon. These books, which can live on a bookshelf, actually contain the phone. Each page reveals the elements of the phone in the right order, helping the user to set up the sim card, the battery and even slide the case onto the phone.
The second book is the main manual – the phone actually slots into this and becomes the center of attention. Arrows point to the exact locations the user should press, avoiding confusion and eliminating the feeling of being lost in a menu.

The Cards:
Phones have become over complicated and many users are afraid to break them or get lost in menus – so they don’t explore and learn all the things they can do. A set of cards represents every function inside the phone which users can flick through and discover. The phone is supplied empty, and users add the functions they want by tapping a card onto the screen. Cards can be carried in your wallet so functions can be accessed on the move. To encourage learning, the back of the card explains what the function does, and how to reach it using the menus.

The Map:
Last but not least. To encourage users to explore and familiarize themselves with their phones a map was created, which guides users through the meandering labyrinth of menus. Users tests showed that people were quickly discovering and getting interested in new areas of their phone previously buried under layers of menus.

Samsung was very pleased with the results of the research and is now developing internally the solutions to bring them to market. The company is looking for applying this direction not only to mobile phones but to a whole range of digital tools on the market – cameras, video recorder, mp3 players… -
Samsung will talk to its older customer in a way that will distinguish them to the competitors who dump down information and whose design is focused on disabilities rather than being inspired by abilities.

For more information please contact: info@claragaggero.com

I’ll be speaking at Heroes of the Mobile Screen on Dec 7th at the BFI SouthBank which is taking an in-depth look at what’s really going on in the world of mobile.

Its going to be a fantastic event with speakers and panelists from across the globe including Doug Richard, serial entrepreneur, from the TV series Dragon’s Den.

Uniquely the event also has secondary school pupils, college students and other members of the same generation, to tell the industry what they want from their mobile, what they expect from their network operators and what’s most important to them in terms of their mobile life.

The event is run by the same team (which includes the inspiring and charming Helen Keegan) that brings you Mobile Monday London, Swedish Beers, Future of Mobile, Over The Air, Mobile 2.0 and Tech Media Invest.

Tickets are available online now for £99 (ex VAT and booking fee).

You can register your interest in Heroes of the Mobile Screen by:

Checking out the website: http://mobileheroes.net/

Become a fan on Facebook

Following on Twitter: @hotms

I would love to see you there.

Last week Dell hosted an event intended to unite the worlds of fashion and technology bloggers. Their goal was to discuss how technology could be re-positioned as fashion in order to sell it to women.

With Microsoft’s research highlighting that technology is as important to women as fashion, should tech brands be positioning their wares as fashion accessories? Does it correlate that women love fashion and therefore if you position technology as fashion, women will want to buy it? Is a netbook the latest fashion accessory? Would women rather have the new Dell Adamo XPS rather than a pair of Jimmy Choos?

It’s not an original idea to try to sell technology as if it were a fashion accessory. LG’s Prada phone was the first time a major fashion brand put it’s label on a phone. Despite it’s modest capabilities it sold well, proving the allure and reach of the Prada brand.

Few woman have a strong attachment to technology brands – in such a vacuum a strong brand like Prada can help shift products, even if it does seem out of place on the shelves of the Carphone Warehouse. I suspect that the Prada label puts off as many women as it attracts, since there is something frivolous about being seen to flaunt a label, especially on a something as conspicuous as a phone.

There’s a big problem with the technology as fashion proposition:

Firstly, fashion is by nature short term. After a single season your old fashion is out of fashion. That’s perfectly fine for a £20 top from Top-Shop, however it’s not so fine when you are locked into a two year contract on a fashion-phone which is no longer a-la-mode.

If the networks are going to sell a phone on a 2 year contract they need to continue to offer value over this period or risk alienating the customer.

Secondly, the reasons I buy technology are very different to why I buy clothes. Technology enhances my life, builds real and intimate connections with people. It gives me a voice. And amplifies my voice to those closest to me. Fashion is transitory. I get immediate gratification but its fleeting. Its fun but not meaningful. Brands risk trivializing themselves by positioning themselves as fashion.

Lastly, every tech brand seems to take this approach to women. Samsung’s Genio talks about it’s exciting colours but does not mention what value it can add. Dell’s “my colour is pink” tv-spot looks like a mid-90s’ shoe advert. This is clearly not a way to generate sustainable difference.

As one Lady Geek said,

“What my phone and shoes do for me are very different. One connects me with the world and is about relationships. The other is solely just for me”

To truly understand women, tech brands must research and understand how women engage with technology in the real world.  They would understand that Fashion is about ‘me,’ technology is about ‘we.’  Two very different propositions in my world.