Dell Tries New Recipe for Gender-Based Marketing, Gets Burned

President Harry Truman once famously said, “If you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen.” Truman, whose term lasted from the late 1940s to the early ’50s, would have likely appreciated Dell’s latest attempt to appeal to the female laptop-user.

The traditional gender roles of the early part of the 1900s seemed alive and well with Dell’s new website that featured tech tips that originally recommended calorie counting, finding recipes, and watching cooking videos. The purpose here was to market this line of laptops specifically to women by showing them “appealing” ways to get the most out of the laptops. However, judging by the online backlash to Dell’s approach, a more appropriate summary of public opinion would be “If you want to market to women, stay out of the 1950s!”

The new website, recently launched by Dell and targeted toward women is called Della, and it advertises Dell’s line of Inspiron Mini 10 netbooks. It was greeted by comments on Dell’s Facebook page such as “lamest move ever!” Some other comments accused Dell of being condescending toward women and several asked if Dell was joking.

Dell probably wishes everyone would just laugh it off.

The backlash from the Della debacle prompted modifications to the website, along with a note that stated, “Some of you have read this article over the last several days & will notice a few modifications. You spoke, we listened. Thank you for your ongoing feedback.”

Marketing experts like Andrea Learned say that finding the right approach for gender-specific marketing can be a risky business, with some brands going too far with the “girlie stuff,” where they start running into problems.

She said that women may perceive Della to be condescending with its heavy emphasis on colors, computer accessories, dieting tips and even the inclusion of a short video about vintage shopping.

Alternatively, Ms. Learned suggested that Dell should have instead emphasized features and specifications and marketed the netbooks without heavy use of gender stereotypes. Such a reliance on gender-based marketing with color schemes, cases and dieting tips, does not offer much otherwise that would convince the female consumer that these particular laptops would be best suited for her.

“Della’s marketing strategy sounds like it’s advertising a purse,” Ms. Learned said. “There’s a level of consumer sophistication they’re missing.”

She concludes, “If the netbook is great for using the Internet and has a long memory, that would really be about helping netbook buyers get stuff done while they waited at the airport — not because they want to check diet sites,” she said.

The moral of the story, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned…or who gets told by a laptop company how to lose some fat off her lap.