Jolie O’Dell sparked a fascinating thread on marketing to geek women – specifically, marketing cutesy pink stuff to them.
Okay, so maybe there is a long-tail market for Barbie’s Dream Server Farm. But my experience in shopping for consumer electronics says there’s plenty of room for folks who sell technology of all kinds to get a little more savvy on how gender relations have changed.
I can’t count the number of times I’ve walked into tech stores with Alex and had the salesman (I use that word advisedly) glom onto me… despite the fact that Alex is the household video, audio and telecommunications geek. Some get it after a few not-too-subtle hints (Alex: “Now is that true MEMC 240Hz, or just scanning backlight?” me: “TV’s hard! (giggle)”), but a surprising number of them can’t seem to resist directing their pitch exclusively to me.
I’d like to think times have changed from the days when cars were sold to women on the basis of how many cupholders they had. (The cars, not the women.) But I wonder.
