I have sat in numerous meetings where clients and agency people alike have spent hours talking about what the rational unique selling point (USP) is of a product.  Very rarely have any of the products I have sold had a truly unique feature or benefit.  And in technology, any unique feature is quickly copied and therefore unsustainable as a long term strategy.

Whats much more unique is the emotional features of selling a technology product.  How it feels to the user.  The retail environment in which it is presented.  The feeling it creates in others who see you with your gadget.  And ultimately the meaningful human interaction and creativity it brings.

So why then do we insist on spending hours debating the rational USP of a product?  Comparing every tiny feature of a product with like for like competitor comparisons?  And talking about one specific rational feature as if it is going to solve every problem you have ever had in your life?

I propose we are asking the wrong answers and therefore coming up with the wrong solutions.  Take my previous article about Nokia’s N97.  Imagine the engineers and the marketing team’s conversation.

“The n97 has so many USPs.  Its sure to be an i-phone killer.”

“For a start it has a 5 megapixel camera.  The i-Phone only has 2.”

“Not to mention the FM transmitter…”

“And the fold out keyboard.”

The list goes on.  Nokia got so hung up on rational USP’s; they forgot about how people use the phone and the feelings it creates in the heart not the head.  A great product is more then the sum of its features. The tragedy of most products is that despite the brilliance of their specification, these features are not how women engage with technology.

One woman told me last week;

I love my i-Phone.  It somehow manages to capture the human expression of technology; whether its flicking the screen like i would with paper or browsing through my photos.  It just feels more human that other tech gadgets”

Pretty Little Head talk about how most marketing focuses on the Achievement Impulse- a male strategy which delivers competitive claims framed through a product advantage (largely based on Baron-Cohen’s work).  Most advertising claims talk about how technology helps men succeed.   In advertising we use ‘male’ language- military language of targets, strategies, campaigns, deployment and so on.

With the missed financial opportunity being at 0.6billion according to Jupiter, as a consequence of failing to connect with women, technology brands need to build marketing programmes around a female mindset and agenda.

Forgetting about USP’s is a good place to start.

Historically women were often seen as the reserve army of labour who take men’s jobs in factories and offices while men were at war. In a crisis women’s labour power was deemed important.

A similar thing seems to happen in regards to women’s purchasing power. Often ignored in good times, The Economist claims that marketers realize the importance of women as customers during the recession.   In the article entitled ‘Hello, girls’ echoing the iconic ‘Hello, boys’ Wonderbra adverts of the 1990s, it is mentioned that women buy 90% of food and 55% of consumer electronics and in fact most new cars. Women are thus a major force when it comes to purchasing power.

Marti Barletta, who authored ‘Marketing to Women’ points to three reasons why women are the new target market. First, brand loyalty which is apparently higher with women. Second, women are good at spreading the message about products they like. And third, most of the job losses in the States were in male-dominated areas.

The examples of recent campaigns quoted in the article includes Frito-Lay. Frito-Lay is enticing female customers with the slogan ‘Only in a Woman’s World’ to get away from the masculine image that crisps apparently have. McDonalds’ is sponsoring the New York Fashion Week to promote new hot drinks for women.

However the article also mentioned that changing the brand image through associating it with women can have negative effects: when Porsche designed a car for women, this increased sales with women temporarily but many male customers were lost – on the basis that the brand was too feminine.

 

 

In relation to technology, Dell seems to get the message. They launched a website called Della, where they sell amongst other devices the Inspiron Mini 10 Netbook explicitly to women. The exterior seems to be a far cry away from the appearance of the Dell laptop I used to have from work. It is available in many colours and patterns. Many of those are designed by artists. Della laptops allow customization and while your netbook might look more artistic, once you open it, it looks as dull as many other Dell computers. Maybe companies need to be a bit more creative in marketing to women – particularly in a recession.