Hot tech for digital divas
With women buying more than 50 per cent of consumer technology products, companies are styling up, Sheryl Steinberg reports 

Sheryl Steinberg
The Globe and Mail
December 6, 2008

It's gone way further than turning out a pink cell phone or two. Tech is getting seriously stylish, as manufacturers set their sights on women shoppers.

There are smart phones that look like makeup compacts, laptops that could be designer clutches and USB memory keys masquerading as jewellery.

Heather Spencer, a product manager with HP Canada, says women are now responsible for more than 50 per cent of all consumer technology purchases.

"Whereas people usually associate technology with being very masculine and male, we discovered that it's actually women who are driving the bus, especially in the home and in the consumer [market]," she says.

Canadian women's magazines are also leaping onto the technology runway. Last week, Canadian Living began pushing its Web content onto BlackBerrys and iPhones, with Elle Canada and Elle Quebec to follow in January.

The mobile devices make great shopping tools, Jacqueline Howe, group publisher of the magazines, says in reference to their increasingly larger touch-screen displays.

The free mobile subscriptions will give women on the go access to fashion tips and let them flip through designer collections with a simple touch to the screen.

With fashionista moms in mind, HP recently partnered with New York fashion designer Vivienne Tam to create what it calls a "China Chic" digital clutch - a special-edition red mini-notebook with a large peony blossom on top. (Available in January, it will come with co-ordinating wallpaper and screensaver software and matches one of the dresses in Tam's Spring 2009 collection.)

"We were looking for more of a feminine look," Spencer says, "not just colouring it pink and saying, 'This is for girls.' "

LG Electronics - which has increasingly linked itself to the fashion scene, most notably with a sponsorship at L'Oréal Fashion Week - is actively courting women with its latest phone, the Reveal, available through Bell Mobility.

Women take "a very pragmatic approach" to technology, says company spokesman Frank Lee. "It's got to be beautiful and it's got to be innovative, but it's got to make sense to [them]."

The purple floral flip phone has a full keyboard and is aimed at women who embrace social networking and fashion.

Of course, LG isn't putting all its eggs in one basket, Lee says, pointing to a number of its less ostensibly feminine phones. "There's no one solution, [just like] there's no one pair of jeans that does it all for all women."

The objective, he says, is to give women more choice with gadgets that reflect their personalities. Spencer agrees, saying we're just at the tip of the crystal-encrusted iceberg.

"As we go into 2010 and beyond, you're going to see manufacturers come to market with far more personalized products. [They're] not going to be your top sellers but [they're] going to delight a certain segment of the public."

Sheryl Steinberg's tech-inspired novel Opportunity Rings will be published in April by Key Porter Books.

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