Technology & Fashion: A match made in heaven or hell?

Last week Dell hosted an event intended to unite the worlds of fashion and technology bloggers. Their goal was to discuss how technology could be re-positioned as fashion in order to sell it to women.

With Microsoft's research highlighting that technology is as important to women as fashion, should tech brands be positioning their wares as fashion accessories? Does it correlate that women love fashion and therefore if you position technology as fashion, women will want to buy it? Is a netbook the latest fashion accessory? Would women rather have the new Dell Adamo XPS rather than a pair of Jimmy Choos?

It's not an original idea to try to sell technology as if it were a fashion accessory. LG's Prada phone was the first time a major fashion brand put it's label on a phone. Despite it's modest capabilities it sold well, proving the allure and reach of the Prada brand.

Few woman have a strong attachment to technology brands – in such a vaccum a strong brand like Prada can help shift products, even if it does seem out of place on the shelves of the Carphone Warehouse. I suspect that the Prada label puts off as many women as it attracts, since there is something frivolous about being seen to flaunt a label, especially on a something as conspicuous as a phone.

There's a big problem with the technology as fashion proposition: Firstly, fashion is by nature short term. After a single season your old fashion is out of fashion. That's perfectly fine for a £20 top from Top-Shop, however it's not so fine when you are locked into a two year contract on a fashion-phone which is no longer a-la-mode. If the networks are going to sell a phone on a 2 year contract they need to continue to offer value over this period or risk alienating the customer.

Secondly, the reasons I buy technology are very different to why I buy clothes. Technology enhances my life, builds real and intimate connections with people. It gives me a voice. And amplifies my voice to those closest to me. Fashion is transitory. I get immediate gratification but its fleeting. Its fun but not meaningful. Brands risk trivializing themselves by positioniong themselves as fashion.

Lastly, every tech brand seems to take this approach to women. Samsung's Genio talks about it's exciting colours but does not mention what value it can add. Dell's “my colour is pink” tv-spot looks like a mid-90s' shoe advert. This is clearly not a way to generate sustainable difference. As one Lady Geek said, “What my phone and shoes do for me are very different. One connects me with the world and is about relationships. The other is solely just for me” To truly understand women, tech brands must research and understand how women engage with technology. Fashion is about 'me,' technology is about 'we.'

Tech Retailers Add No Value

When was the last time you saw an actual mobile phone on display in a mobile phone store?

If you've had the misfortune to wander into one of these places recently you will notice that the walls and shelves of these places are usually covered with "dummy" phones, empty shells in which the screen has been replaced by a sticker. Who could possibly think that a dead lump of plastic riveted to the wall gives an impression of the real thing?



Carphone Warehouse is an unpleasant shop: It's the only technology vendor I know that borrows it's design aesthetic from the Job-Centre. At the Liverpool St. branch I asked the bored-looking man behind the minuscule desk if I could try out HTC's newish "Hero". I found his reply quite astonishing: He explained that he couldn't let me try one because they did not have a demo unit and that I ought to look on the company's website which had an "interactive demo".



At the nearby Orange shop on Bishopsgate I asked to try out the new Motorola Dext. This time my assistant was able to locate a working handset but unfortunately he brought it to me without a SIM card - that meant that I could not try out the phone's killer feature: Social networking. So how was I supposed to experience this new product? He pointed me to a fuzzy screen near the entrance to the shop: Oh goody! Another interactive demo.

The previous examples are typical rather than exceptional: Conventional wisdom is that shops have one big advantage over online vendors: They allow you to experience the product. But if shops cannot get this very basic trick right then what value are they adding?  And why, according to Jupiter, over half of all women walking out of stores because they cant find what they want?

We asked the Lady Geek panel about the kinds of retail experiences which they wanted: Virtually everybody said it was important to, touch, smell, engage with a product before buying.

Women are "reassurance addicts." Women feel at a relative disadvantage when shopping for technology.   They are much less likely to have done research about the product before they buy compared to men.   And they are much more likely to rely on the sales experience than men. Nearly half of all women have no idea what brand they are buying when they walk into a tech store.

The retail experience is akin to a "vending machine"- cold, unemotional and transactional.  Not only that but as a woman, you feel like a bit of bait ready to be snapped up by a pushy sales guy.

Our research indicates a clear prescription for selling more phones to women:

    * Find a way to put a few real products on display - and into customer's hands.
    * End the hard-sell tactics and let good products sell themselves.
    * Stock a smaller range of more interesting products. Vendors should be brave experts and trust their opinion about what customers should want.
    * Employ women to help make women feel more comfortable and make the environment a place where women want to be.

With Best Buy entering the UK market, tech retailers have no choice but to add real value or die.

Connections

I have tended not to go to conferences or events in the last year unless I am speaking at them. I used to go with high expectations- hoping to be provoked, dislocated in some way. The reality is that all too often, I was hearing the same old stuff (albeit with a new flickr image) said by the same old people (mostly 40 something men), done in the same old way (one way broadcast). And if I am going to sacrifice putting my children to bed, I want to feel a connection. Last night was a real exception.

It was The Next Women Funding and Pitching event. The first part of the night was inspiring female entrepreneurs such as Sarah McVittie (founder of Texperts) and Karin Loeffen (founder of Libersy) who told their story from the heart. The mistakes they made. The challenges they faced. The lessons they learnt. The hard way. And the sacrifices and trade offs they had to endure.

It was real. It was from the heart as well as the head. No 'commandments'. No '5 principles'. No 'long lists.' Real stories. From real women.

And just when I started to feel guilty about the bedtime story I should have told my children, things hotted up where 'Pitch-Preneurs' who did a 3 min pitch for funding in front of angel investors. I watched in awe at some of the great ideas presented.

I felt empowered.

I felt part of something.

I felt a connection.

Innovation is thriving. Its an exciting time to be in business.

Honest advice for women

I was chatting to a smart single twenty-something about dating. She wants a boyfriend but is too shy to go onto a dating site and feels uncomfortable touting her wares and telling everyone how beautiful she is (interestingly even the most unattractive men do not seem to suffer from this fear). She told me that she'd been using a site called datemyfriend.net: The idea is that your friends write your profile. Instead of having to blow your own trumpet, your friends showcase your talents and acts as your honest-broker. This is a much more comfortable way of approaching the dating scene because your friends can take care of the most frightening bits leaving you to focus on the pleasure. This aligns to how many women I meet have a fear of technology: There is an embarrassment and guilt that surrounds not knowing the difference between a megabyte and megabit. Between not knowing if you are connecting via a network, Wi Fi or 3G. The tech companies have been confusing and bamboozling us for decades. There is an opportunity to take the fear out of technology for those women who are not technology-literate and dread buying technology. What if you could go to a neutral broker and give her your requirements online? She could come back with a series of recommendations as to what most suits you. What if you could have a planning meeting once a year with someone who would come to your home and assess your current network and requirements, and make you a "technology roadmap"? This person would be like a "personal shopper" for technology. An ITA, sort of like an IFA but for technology. Whilst technology companies are realising the advantages of post-sales support such as the Apple Genius-bar and Carphone Warehouse's Geek Squad, no-one is taking the fear out of the pre-sales process, certainly nobody who can offer independent strategic advice. With women spending more on technology than ever before, it might be a good place to start.