.KEYWORD brave
.FLYINGHEAD FROM THE MANAGING EDITOR
.TITLE Brave new world or same old crap?
.DEPT
.SUMMARY As technology users, we get jazzed by new hardware and software. So when PalmPower Managing Editor Denise Amrich got the new Brave Palm catalog from New World Technologies, she was ready to dig in and find some cool new goodies. Her enthusiasm lasted mere seconds, when it was replaced by a weary feeling of deja vu. The world of the PalmPilot organizer had seemed so enlightened, so empowering. But there, on the cover of Brave Palm, was a minimally clad woman floating in the water, so pale, she almost looked like a drowning victim. Inside were other pictures, few showing women as capable professionals. The cheap tactic of using sex to sell had reached the PalmPilot. In this important article, Denise looks at where Brave went wrong and provides suggestions that will help companies learn how to get it right.
.AUTHOR Denise Amrich
When I got the new issue of Brave Palm "magazine" and saw the eerie cover picture of a woman in a swimsuit, as shown in Figure A, I got pretty excited. I figured I’d be reading all about the Palm III’s underwater capabilities. I wondered why 3Com didn’t make the underwater PalmPilot with one of those yellow rubbery kinda cases like those Kodak underwater cameras have.
.FIGPAIR A Can the PalmPilot swim?
After diving into the catalog a bit and not finding any mention of the wireless underwater wonder, I realized that BravePalm’s creators at New World Technologies, Inc. probably figured I was a guy and were trying to excite me in a different way. Apparently this was just a transparent excuse to feature a bathing beauty on the cover. I’m sure glad I didn’t try to submerge my device before I figured out the facts!
.BEGIN_KEEP
A little further into the catalog I found another example of this marketing approach. Next to an article about the Delorme Map Pack and GPS Receiver, there’s a picture of an oil-covered woman on a bike, in an outfit that would be very impractical for bicycling, as shown in Figure B. There’s no PalmPilot bike holster, (let alone a place for these other products) and I’d hate to even try to touch my device while slathered with all that goo.
.FIGPAIR B Would all this goo work for you?
Is there an undocumented bug that allows men to use their PalmPilots with their clothes on but requires women to disrobe before using their connected organizers? If so, I’ve never noticed it.
Actually, I had strong reservations about redisplaying these pictures here. I guess it’s a dilemma the press often faces. Do you exacerbate an already ugly situation by repeating it? I decided to follow the example of Ms. Magazine’s "No Comment" feature, in which pictures of exploitative ads are shown for what they really are–great examples of what NOT to do when advertising.
.END_KEEP
.H1 What’s really going on?
As a woman, I’m (unfortunately) used to this kind of advertising. Using women’s bodies to sell stuff is not a new or particularly brave marketing technique. Most of the time I just shrug it off, but not this time.
I’m apparently not the only one who has a problem with this. Visit http://www.wired.com/news/news/email/tip/culture/story/14585.html for an interesting article on the topic. The article quotes the CEO of New World Technologies, Jonathan Glaser, as saying that there’s a "category of people who find it inappropriate."
One wonders what this "category of people" is. Is it the women who are tired of being dissed that find it inappropriate? From discussions I’ve had with some of our authors (male and female), I also know there was a big uproar about this on the PalmPilot listserv. I’d give you the URL to go check it out, but it appears that references to this topic didn’t make into the archive.
I’m aware that Brave Palm is positioned as a "lifestyle" type publication and that the Palm organizers are applicable to a wonderful array of activities outside the business world. But I also happen to know that according to numbers we brought home from the Palm Developer Conference last year, 61% of PalmPilot users are professional people. A lot of those people are women. I know I speak for a number of them when I say we don’t want to be sold to in this way.
In an essay about sexual harassment in her book, Miss Manners Rescues Civilization, Judith Martin says, "Gestures that call attention to the gender of some workers
