Sitting in front of our monitors and working away feverishly earlier in the week the conversation fell upon the subject of Gadgets for Girls, and how a lot of the new items we are stocking at the moment appear to be more geared towards girls. I then stumbled across this article discussing “What Real Women Want In Their Gadgets”.
This got me to thinking, and I generally don’t like pigeon holing people, but for the purposes of this post I would classify Gadget Girls into three categories:
1) The ‘Pretty In Pink’ Gadget Girl
The sort of girl who isn’t really into Gadgets at all, the ‘really’ girly-girl whose money is generally spent on shoes, handbags and other accessories as well as more traditional girl friendly fare. As gadgets and tech ingresses further into every day life with an MP3 player of some description, and Mobile phones especially being carried by just about anyone, these girls are the easiest targets for lazy companies. They know very little about the tech world, and will focus entirely on the external appearance of an item, purchasing only if it can be successfully accessorised. Taking the point down to it’s most basic level these are the types of consumers who would, for example, buy something because it is pink, and for no other reason.
2) The ‘Casual’ Gadget Girl
This category consists of consumers who know a little about the current Gadgets available, or at least what is ‘in’. This is the group that proves “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing”. These individuals covet Gadgets as status symbols, only purchasing brand names, not considering performance, specification, or suitability to their needs. These are the consumers who will blindly choose the iPod over a Zune (if they have even heard of one), or say a Dolce and Gabbana branded mobile phone over a standard one.
3) The ’Tech Fiend’ Gadget Girl
This final category consists of girls who know their stuff, and know what they like. Sure they might like those pink headphones, but they will only be purchased if they are also of a suitable quality.
As a couple of final notes, firstly I realise that you could also apply these categories to men. For example, substitute that generic gadget with a bubble gum pink shell for one with a black shell and let’s say a Ferrari logo and there would be a large proportion of men who would fall into the first group. Secondly I wouldn’t think that there are many individuals who could be classed by just one of these groups for every purchase they make. There are those who know a lot about mobile phones and will genuinely choose the phone that they really want, that does exactly what they need, but wouldn’t have the first clue about headphones for their MP3 Player. Who is to say that any of these approaches are the ‘wrong’ one either, surely at the end of the day as long as everyone gets a product they are happy with that’s all that matters?
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