The way to market tools and technology to women is by painting it pink. Honest. Here is one example:
Not so long ago, pink was a colour reserved for little girls. It was the colour of Barbie and bubblegum, of plastic tat that parents were pestered into buying, of pre-teen bedrooms and pocket-money accessories.
Then, suddenly, it was everywhere - and being targeted at grown women. Next month, for instance, sees the launch of Fly Pink, a "boutique airline designed especially for women" which plans to operate from Liverpool's John Lennon airport. The airline will offer flights to Paris for "shopping breaks" in customised pink planes, and, to complete the experience, will also provide pink champagne and complementary manicures before take-off.
Which just underlines the fact that it is now possible for women to experience their entire day in pink. You can work out with a pink yoga mat and weights; adorn your windscreen wipers with pink wiper wings; cook dinner on a pink George Foreman grill and style your hair with hot-pink hair straighteners. You can even see off would-be attackers with a powder-pink Taser gun.
I don't want a pink computer keyboard, say. I don't even like the color pink especially, and in any case I think of it as "light red". I'd like a keyboard that I could clean without spending twenty years in isolation with Q-tips and saliva as my only weapons. And no, you can't have a look at my keyboard. It's mostly not visible under the various fossils.
The article I link to above makes a very good point. When marketers focus on some group, such as businessmen, they try to improve the product based on what the members of that group say. But when marketers focus on women, all they can come up is PINK! Girls like pink! Yes, that's the ticket.