Too Easy Again

From time to time I call to your attention a story from the world of business that is just too easy – something that I could have a lot of fun mocking, pointing out the weakness of, or making suggestions about, but it’s just too easy. It’s days like this when I like to say that this blog practically writes itself, or at least it would if all I did was make snarky comments about business-related moves of dubious intelligence. But this time, at least, it seems MSNBC agrees with me…

In a story being reported by the MSNBC Technology page we find the curious new marketing site launched by Dell Computers. Called “Della” for reasons probably best left unexamined, this site is attempting to market a new class of notebook computers, called “netbooks” to a female audience. There’s nothing wrong with the idea, of course; women have disposable incomes, too, and they might like a highly-portable, extremely capable new computer as much as men would. It’s just that Della is marketing these units to women on the basis of the netbooks being “cute” and “fashionable” rather than powerful or capable – and they’re using ad copy right out of the 1950s…

I’d mock Dell for this, but there isn’t much left to say after the MSNBC article, and even if you didn’t follow that link, I’m not sure there’s much I can add to what Dell’s copywriters have come up with for the Della site. It’s not just that they’re marketing these lightweight computers in the same terms you would use for handbags and scarves, or even that they’re suggesting that grown women would be attracted to these machines because of how “cute” they (the computers, not the women) are. It’s the condescension in the add copy; the suggestion that their female customers have never considered that there might be some use for a personal computer beyond email and instant messenger functions…

Now, I understand that it’s usually too much to expect logic from the people who brought you microscopic women flying up your nose on jetpacks . But unless we are willing to believe that there were no women involved in the “Della” project – or that all of them have the mentality of housewives from a 1950s sitcom – then you would think somebody would have mentioned the inherent problem with this approach. I suppose we should acknowledge the possibility that the whole thing is some kind of self-referential joke – using the copy as an ironic commentary on what people from earlier times (and unenlightened ones from this time) would expect to see women doing with portable computers – but if so, I regret to say that the humor is too subtle for me…

Of course, it’s possible that this is yet another case of any publicity being good publicity; that the people at Dell knew this reaction would happen and that they are intentionally using the outrage, mockery and just plain amusement to generate a word-of-mouth buzz for their new site. Certainly, I wouldn’t have heard about it otherwise (I don’t buy Dell products anymore following my experiences with the “Doorstop 3200” notebook I purchased from Dell in 2001, and thus I’d have no reason to go to their website), and it could be argued that this approach has reached all of the people on MSNBC yesterday and all of the people like you who are reading blog posts about this site, all of whom are now thinking about Dell products. But even if that is the strategy being employed, I have to question whether this is really the best way to sell a consumer product…