Lady Geek

I saw this Panasonic ad in one of the Sunday mags. It’s not that it’s a bad ad (and actually the overall thought of Ideas for Life is a great one) ; it’s just that it misses an opportunity to tap into the female mindset and how women buy technology. It’s talking about one of the things that is going to appeal to women: a well designed, small high definition video camera. But the masculine and literal way it talks about ‘power’ and all the technical detail of advanced optical image stabalisation fails to appeal to me.

When I bought my camera after my first son was born; all I thought about was I wanted to capture his first steps. That was it. I had no brand or model, let alone spec in mind, which is according to our latest research, how half of UK women shop. I just wanted something that was going to be light so I could put it in my bag (yes I am sorry if that sounds naff but its true), easy to use (so I didn’t have to keep asking my husband to use it) but most importantly started to keep records of my son that I could embarrass him with when he was eighteen (yes I am wicked).

There are so many ways that technology companies could capture the imagination of women. Tech companies need to get women to dream about how technology enhances their family life. But so often tech brands just keep falling into the same old traps and stereotypes of talking about power and spec and forget who in 80% of households, controls the technology purse strings: Women.