back to article Women love phone cams, for snapping pics of cute babies

The précis of a recent survey for AdAge by JWT Intelligence, titled "Always On Women: A Survey of how women are using technology today" will have many women spitting blood. The advertising industry is not known for being an engine of social progression, but this survey comes across as more than a little patronising. Let's go …

COMMENTS

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    what a load of crap

    Growing up, it was always my dad that took the photos.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Yep, if you saw the pictures my mother used to take you'd realise she'd be better off documenting life with a pen and paper. Similar thing with the missus - shots are all downward looking rapid snaps.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Fail so hard...

      Of course it was, but you you have somewhat missed the point of the story...

      When you were growing up photos required complicated mechanical gadgetry that 'only a man would dare to operate'.. hence your experience. However this article is referring to now, and this very morning a proud grandma was passing her mobile around our office! This article is bang on for how technology and complex gadgets are now mainstream and as such the average user has changed, else there would be no point in a story if everything was as it was.

      Men will always be dominant in the dslr 'proper' photography field but women will, now they use tech, be dominant in the baby snap field.

      1. Nixon

        Wow, really?

        "Men will always be dominant in the dslr 'proper' photography field"?

        Oh they will, will they?

        How truly archaic of you.

        I think I just threw up a little bit.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Oh ffs. I said nothing about ability. Just men like power tools/toys that's a well known metric. women are more likely to use the tool at hand for the job, ie any camera, a man will use the biggest because it has to be done 'properly'.

          Now go back under your rock.

  2. tony72
    Alert

    Easy now

    Don't get your knickers in a twist, doll. It's a survey; those were the results. You seem to have gone out of your way to make the most non-PC interpretation possible of what was said, just so you can get your hackles up. Seems to me that existing marketing strategies in the sector often are a bit patronising towards women (do I need to go into the marketing of the typical targeted-at-women handsets?), and those comments are actually suggesting that that should change, and more attention should be paid to how women actually use their phones.

  3. b166er

    'women are capturing not only the big but the small: a son’s scowl on a car ride' also making the assumption that the lady in question is (hopefully) not driving. Perhaps she's playing the role of nagivator!

    I for one welcome our non-stereotypical snapping Sheek (she-geek) overladies.

  4. Scott 2

    I don't see the problem

    Ok, apart from possibly the grouping of types of women perhaps.

    This was a study, of women using mobile phones. Not men. Or dogs. Or even fluffy sheep. No, it clearly stated women as the subject of the study. So naturally, one assumes they will research and extrapolate the data found, and present this data is such a way that is is understandable my market researchers.

    I daresay if the study titles 'Always On Men - a survey of how men are using technology today' would label men as either 'Nerdy types with no girlfriend' or ' Business Blackberry Picker'.

    Honestly, just because something is to do with women doesn't make it an attack on your independence or equality - as we all know of course, women are at least as equal to men.

    Get off your sexism high horse. People like you are responsible for the increase in PC shite that is infecting the western world.

    1. Francis Boyle Silver badge

      whoosh

      There is no study of "how men are using technology today" - even the not very bright marketing types can see the pointlessness of that.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    As the great Bill Hicks said....

    "By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself.

    No, no, no it's just a little thought. I'm just trying to plant seeds. Maybe one day, they'll take root - I don't know. You try, you do what you can. Kill yourself.

    Seriously though, if you are, do. "

  6. Lamont Cranston
    Coat

    You're only upset because it's true!

    That said, I'm a man, but the profile of female mobile users seemed to sum me up fairly well.

    1. heyrick Silver badge

      Me too!

      Maybe I'm a woman trapped in... actually, that's kinda ridiculous...

  7. Ian Ferguson
    Paris Hilton

    God forbid they commission a report on tablet use by women. "Women like the iPad as it allows them to display recipes in the kitchen, and there are plenty of toddler-friendly apps"

  8. The registree

    Right on Sister... er wait a minute...

    Read this and was immediately angered by the usual banality of marketing surveys. At least there were no spurious percentages. Then I remembered a conversation with the better half re new phone choice... Do you want to use the Internet? No. Not even Facebook? Not really. Do you want to take pictures? Yes, and videos. Hhmmm ok but I bet the report is still patronising and as bad as the contributor said. Then I looked at said report... It's actually pretty credible and the text content in context isn't really patronising. But who cares, it killed a few minutes while I ate my "national chain sub roll provider". Top Journalism!

  9. Alex Rose

    I think you've wasted your time Anna

    "4) Women like phones with cameras so they can take pictures of babies because all women have babies and that's what they like to use technology for."

    I don't think you needed to bother to point out the problems with an article that claims that "all women have babies"

    Clearly written by idiots, I wouldn't bother worrying about them!

    P.S. My wife loves taking pictures of our daughter with her iPhone. Me, I prefer to use a camera, so I think it's fair to say that women don't own cameras.

  10. Assimilated
    Meh

    Yawn

    This is exactly what my wife uses her camera phone for. And she likes gadgets. Guess what, both things can be true!

  11. Semaj
    Trollface

    Jeez, it must be someone's time of the month. Get back in the kitchen and cool off dear ;)

    Seriously though, advertisement is crap for both genders. Look at something aimed at women - their main technique these days seems to be "make a man look stupid" * where as anything targeting a man is aimed at lager swilling bloke blokes. Either way it's patronising and irritating.

    Still, not worth getting too annoyed about - just don't buy their stuff.

    *Such as the Maltesers ad where the girls put their boyfriends into a compromising position - imagine the outrage from feminists if that were the other way around

  12. Marvin O'Gravel Balloon Face

    We've just been shopping for a new phone for Mrs. O'Gravel Balloon Face. Top priority was a decent camera so she could take pics. of the kids / nephews and nieces etc.

    However, she's since discovered angry birds and tetris so things might have changed.

  13. Robert Carnegie Silver badge

    Have you seen Facebook? I haven't.

    Does Darth Vader work at Dixons or did he just drop in for batteries for his swooshy stick? Either way, offputting. Likewise for Comet taking everything out of the box and playing with it before you get it, and all your worst nightmares working at Phones 4 U. I thought that ghosty kid in the underground car park was the one that the driver lady had run over and killed years ago, like in the other recent advert where the sad small figure is there everywhere that you go, but no, she's pushing long term contracts and pay as you go... to... HELL! Mu-ha-ha-ha-hah!

    Or is it just me? By the way, I assume the zombie in the Harry Hill sponsorship was heavily toned down, such as, when it drops the coffee mug, I assume originally its hand fell off as well, or something. Also, does it imply that you have to go outside to get a phone signal?

  14. DragonLord
    FAIL

    Did you actually read the report?

    Or just look at the short and the blurb. There wasn't that much text in the pdf after all.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Is there an

    iSandwich app?

  16. Graham Marsden
    Trollface

    Calm down dear...

    ... it's only a survey...!

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Pink? I don't want anything pink!

    Being one of the more geeky women, I generally want to know about the features on a smartphone but the big ones are will it actually make/receive calls/texts, will it sync with my email/contacts/calendar and will web surfing really work. Don't really use most of the other features to be honest apart from games and the camera occasionally as its a work tool.

    For some reason in the UK, any mobile advertising aimed at women tends to be about the colour (usually a horrible pink), social networking, camera and various other useless stuff. They seem to be marketing to the teenage crowd not anyone over the age of 20.

    I'm with the article author on one thing - not all women go all gooey eyed at the mention of children. If that's how they market a product its an instant turn off for me and I'm not alone.

    The survey was based on responses from 515 women in the US. Not a great sample size and they haven't published what the 486 men surveyed said which would be an interesting comparison.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Welcome to the real world

    It's where advertisers lump great swathes of the population together under ridiculous groupings.

    Also, author of introduction is a woman and the sponsor of the research is a womens network and the female vice presidents name is on it. So any women who are spitting blood can spit it at them.

  19. Goat Jam
    Paris Hilton

    How Come

    you ladies don't mind it when men are all categorized as philandering layabouts who meet every Thursday at their secret boys clubs to plan the next phase in their ongoing oppression of women eh?

  20. AndyS
    Thumb Up

    Anna, stop this nonsense and get back to looking after the kids! Honestly, clogging up our tech site...

  21. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

    I'm with Anna on this

    It's a fine rant. I did skim the original report, and most of it ranges from banal to stupid. The methodology is lousy (I don't think much of their sample size, particularly when they drill down into sub-categories; the problem domain isn't well defined; and the questions are poorly formulated), and a number of the conclusions are essentialist rubbish ("Women aren’t interested in the gee-whiz-look-what-it-can-do abilities of technology" is another example).

    Some of the statistics from the survey are mildly interesting, but what they mostly show is that there's nothing surprising in the data: lots of women using lots of devices for lots of purposes.

    As several of the comments here show, though, there's always a market for gender-essentialist nonsense.

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