Gender vendors

Pity the poor high-tech marketer. All those products to pitch and half the human race to alienate.

Look no further, perhaps, than the TiVo digital video recorder. Is that just what a woman needs so she can watch "Ally McBeal" at 2 a.m.?

"Not really," says Carol McGarry of Schwartz Communications, a public-relations firm in Waltham, Mass. She bought one for her husband. But for herself? "Something that allows me to multitask is much more important for me," she says: a flat TV that fits snugly between the fridge and the stove, for instance.

Or consider the new iPod, Apple's personal music system with enough memory for 1,000 songs? "I don't know a thousand songs," deadpans Pat Wiklund. She's an independent organizational consultant for high-tech companies in Mountain View, Calif.

Not everything is a misfire. A new "high-tech" handbag, outfitted with a light that turns on when the bag is opened, elicits coos of delight from many women.

It's no surprise that marketers of the latest electronic gizmos, paid princely sums to figure out what women want, may not always get it right. Their approach has long been to use what worked for men. But that's a bit like getting only the British perspective on American Colonial history. Great male minds have been stumped, after all, including Freud, who famously said that what a woman wants is "the great question which I have not been able to answer."

But it's a question marketers are keen to answer. Women make up half the potential market for most new electronic products. They're less likely than ever

to wait for men to tell them what to buy. And perhaps most important, a lot of women are just as eager as men to get their hands on the latest electronic toy.

Charles Joujoute, a clerk at the Cingular Wireless kiosk in Boston's Prudential Center, explains the differences between men and women this way: "Men are more technical: 'What frequency does that work on?' he says. "Women are like, 'That phone's cute.' "

The greatest difference between men and women when it comes to technology is not what they buy, according to a survey done for the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA). The survey found that women and men favor a lot of the same products such as DVDs, cellphones, computers, and digital cameras. Rather, it's the do-I-really-want-this brooding before the credit card comes out of the wallet that really distinguishes the sexes.

Female indecisiveness is amply documented. When Rhett was ready to marry Scarlett, Scarlett was still unsure. In our own day, Bridget Jones has just as much difficulty making up her mind. But behind such waffling, a rational thought process is at work - at least when it comes to technology.

Women distinguish between appliance technology and accessory technology, says Angela Gunn, a columnist for Yahoo Internet Life. When buying the former, most put function before form.

Take Arlene Vernon, a parent and human-resource consultant in Eden Prairie, Minn. She recently bought several high-tech appliances, and with matriarchal authority, delegated research to family members according to their expertise, visited different retailers, and ultimately - for her son's first stereo - devised a complex spreadsheet comparing sounds and prices.

Her style may not be typical of most women. But her practical sensibility and concern about efficiency are characteristic of female consumers of functional electronics. Change the product to something that's a potential fashion statement, though, and the dialog shifts dramatically, When they're buying the kind of electronic accessories they carry at all times, they're more likely to shell out extra dollars for just the right thing. The no-frills Ms. Vernon is no exception: For Christmas, she asked for a red - not forest green or navy blue - cellphone cover.

That's not to say a woman won't develop an emotional attachment to a computer - especially, if it's, say, a new lollipop orange iMac. Men constitute the majority of early adopters: They think, "It's new, I want it," Ms. Gunn says. But while a woman may be more likely to ponder the purchase, once the appliance is in her home or office, she might catch herself pausing to admire its "creamy silk" color or its aerodynamic curves.

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