"Yours is Keeping it Real: The Hottest Laptops that Match your Lifestyle"

[lakmiseiru]

I find this incredibly insulting. It's a new Dell division aimed at women, called Della. Here are some excerpts (well, really, the whole thing) from the "Tech Tips" page

Comments

[leahseraph]

When I talk to my mom about this, I get the impression that she (and probably a non-trivial number of women in her age/demographic) do actually respond to female-targeted marketing. (We got into this after I complained about getting six kinds of lip gloss at Grace Hopper.) I still think it's stupid, but an astounding number of people respond well to this kind of thing, so they still do it. I hope they learn better soon.

[perspicuity]

interesting

[truthspeaker]

I'm very cynical. I think marketing panders to the lowest common denominator, regardless of gender. I don't think you're in their target audience -- I think they want people who have never owned a laptop, not women as a whole.

I'm curious what their page originally looked like, since I think it could have been much worse in its previous form. It currently has no explicit mention of women or dieting, though it does mention "fitness" and "running" as reasons you might want a computer that can travel with you.

Also, I find technical specifications on their pages just fine once you click past the initial Products page.

Overall, I'd say it could have been much, much worse. Then again, I have low expectations of advertising in general. Ads really do insult a lot of different demographics. Look at ads directed at teenagers (of either gender).

[lakmiseiru]

Agree with you all. I've heard it was worse indeed (and gods, yes, it sure was!). I wouldn't say boycott Dell by any means (my only reason to boycott them is shitty hardware and support, actually), but it's something to think about.

And gods know I'm not the target audience, so I shouldn't bitch too much :^)

[rivenwanderer]

Yeah, I hate it when it feels like a marketing department has gone "OK, let's make sure we've covered all our target markets... we've got geeks, gamers, gadget fans, artists, businessy-types, bloggers, regular folks who like to organize their photos and... oh yeah, LADIEZ!"

If you haven't already, look up Sarah Haskins for hilarious skewering of female-targeting ads :)