Social Media: New Ways of Engaging With Consumers

As brands continue to experiment with Web 2.0 and its many facets, I find it increasingly fascinating to witness the manner in which they choose to communicate with consumers. I think you can tell a lot about how a brand perceives its target audience by the way in which they engage with them or whether they engage at all. This is especially true for gender-specific product categories although it actually applies to all consumer products.

Would Dell be marketing a customized laptop to women in their favorite OPI nail color if the tech industry had a better understanding of how women relate to technology? What does this say about how Dell perceives its female customers? Did they even think to ask women what they want from their laptops? (In case you're reading gentlemen, functionality and battery life are more important to us than color and yes, size does matter.)

Given the multitude of ways in which Web 2.0 allows brands to engage with customers, there really is no excuse for this kind of blunder. Going forward, I suspect brands who take the time to engage meaningfully with customers and to actually connect on a personal level will see the biggest returns. This brings me to the short film I've posted below. It is one of three that form part of a Web-based marketing campaign targeting women. I'm not at liberty to divulge the nature of the product or the name of the brand yet - this will be made public on March 8. I was persuaded to participate because of the brand's obvious effort to be inclusive (the films include older women, women of color, etc.) in a way that was neither condescending nor too blatant, frequent pitfalls in gender-specific marketing campaigns. Also, the campaign challenges you to complete an equation “Woman + ? = ?” by inserting your own words, making it participative. You can view all three films and complete the equation here).

Sincerely,

The Luxe Chronicles

Comments

[pulchra]

I don't think they have women in their R&D department...

[Make Do Style]

Seriously Dell made laptops in nail varnish or lipstick colours - that is pathetic!