Thursday, July 29, 2010

Color, color what color do you choose?

Thank you very much, Sony Vaio, for coming up with such a brilliant concept. It makes me feel special every morning I turn on the television and experience the ‘vivid’ness that is me, in the myriad colors of green and red (or is it pink?). And, may I add that you would have done a great disservice to mankind had you not roped in the symbol of femininity, the size zero queen, Her Highness Kareena Kapoor herself to endorse the series.

Now that we are done with the pleasantries, can we please get down to brass tacks?

I want to bring to your kind attention the simple fact that it does not exactly sound very cool to walk into a workshop or a meeting armed with a pink laptop. And, this holds true for all populace, gender disparities notwithstanding.

In layman terms, what it translates into is this. We women do like our pink dresses, the occasional pink footwear, and the pink umbrella on a nice, bright, sunny day. Pink is a pleasant color, it definitely goes well in a bedroom setting. So, we also like our pink curtains and pink bed sheets. Some of us even like our pink teddy bears in our bedrooms. (Although I do know of some women who hate pink, at the risk of sounding stereotypical and, more importantly, to appease the male of the species, I am considering them outliers). However, that does not mean that we love parading the roads like pink fairies (ugh! sounds repulsive), with pinked gadgets.

I remember the time when my Manager was gifted a pink mobile phone by her husband of 7 years. The phone became the butt of all office jokes instantly. She is a strong woman, stood it for a full 2 days; and, then, had the panel changed to blue.

The other day, I saw a Beetle on the road, in a shocking yellow color. My colleague was most certain that it would be a woman driving it. Unfortunately for him and fortunately for me, it was a guy.

There! Now you are getting the point, perhaps? That women may not actually like weird colored gadgets but are assumed to like them because of the whole gender thingy.

I hereby humbly request the product development and marketing teams at Sony, Apple, and other geeky companies to spare us of the vividness please. We already have enough trouble trying to decide between types of gadgets, not to be burdened with the extra load of having to run an elimination algorithm based on colors.

18 comments:

ஜித்தன் said...

my friend owns a pink sony cybershot camera which she loves just for the color and not for the specs.... And also there is this guy in my office who wears a pink shirt very often but his walk is also a bit different so I am going to give the benefit of doubt to him...

satbir said...

also, who takes personal laptop to meetings, everybody has an official laptop...and i am sure no office is gonna buy pink color laptops for its employees !

Archana said...

how mean of u to stereotype :(
I don't like Pink...does that mean I am an outlier trying to appease the male of the species????

but y is that in every blog of urs, u or somebody hits upon this stereotyping thingy....

Unknown said...

Ok Kavi this time, you've seriously rubbed on the wrong side of almost everyone.
1.Those who hate pink have so many other reasons and least of which is to appease the men.
2. Coolness is subjective and extremely fluctuating. nowadays it is cool if u act black (race), are bald, have torn clothes or unkempt hair which was once considered not cool to put it mildly. So my point is if you can walk the walk and talk the talk, even a gawdy fluorescent laptop can be cool (err..may be not )
3. also, prod. teams wudnt come up with ideas to bring in weird colors unless they see a target population who wants it, which in this case cud be women and im just saying it is OKAY.

So if pink is ur thing
feel proud to wear your bling
Always sport it,
Like you own it :)

Baishakhi said...

aww.. i love my fluoro red dell laptop.. yeah it's my personal laptop, so i dont take it to meetings - but actually, i wouldn't mind. My colleagues/ clients can comment on my work as much as they want - not the colour of my laptop!! And if they do, I couldn't care less.. I'd change the colour of my cell phone panel if I want a change, not cos of what the rest of the office thinks of it :D

Kavity said...

@Vignesh: As long as the guy can carry off the pink shirt, one should not stereotype. I know of many men who can carry of pink very well!

@Satbir: Yeah, I am just trying to crib. Logic takes a back seat at such times :P

@Archana: Oh no no, I think that line was misunderstood. I was trying to say, the male of the species feels appeased to know that they were right in thinking that women like pink. Did not mean it any other way.
Yeah, the stereotyping is becoming too much of staple food these days. Should stop before it becomes this blog's identity :(

@Denzil:
1. Tried explaining this in the reply above. I am saying that men think that women like pink and feel appeased to know that they are right in thinking so. My English seems to be getting bad :(
2. Maybe yes, it's all about pulling it off, I agree.
3. I hope they do their market research well. However, a pink laptop sounds quite repulsive to me! And, the repulsion is getting accentuated by the presence of Kareena Kapoor in the ad. So, quite a subjective view this is.

Poetry and all :D Too much! Write a blog.

@GodM: You are quite a courageoues woman, can stand your own amidst adversity. I am ashamed to accept that I am not. I would not like it too much if am the focus of attention for all the wrong reasons, so will change things just so that the mess is avoided. It might not be the best of attitudes, but still..

Rainmusings said...

Hahaha, good one.
I hate the shocking pink mobile- it is disgusting annd same for all that glossy glossy bags in red, pink,yellow

Shreya said...

I like the way Kareena Kapoor looks, but she does look horrendous in the ad as do her clothes.
But why is the focus only on Pink? They have colors like Green and Blue also? No?

Kavity said...

@Varsha: Thanks :)

@Shreya: I just got the focus onto pink to stress on the stereotyping. However, if you notice the green and the blue, they are not normal, but very flashy and fluorescenty, something people assume all women love in general.

Unknown said...

http://manofwords.wordpress.com/2010/07/24/ad-review_sony-viao-vivid/

a completely polar view of what you had said..

Kavity said...

@Hari:
Good one.. yes, brand recall level pe scores really very high.. I would have written a very different post if I had written it on Tinker I think :)

Yogesh said...

You don't like pink? You are a girl, come-on!

PS: Bring it on :D

Kinshuk said...

hey even i would pick up the blue or green vaio, pink thoda zyada ho jayega

Kavity said...

@Yogesh: I like pink, not on gadgets though!

@Kinshuk: Ok, I resign. Maybe I am the only one whom those colors have bothered too much. Or, perhaps, their 'flashiness' is getting accentuated because of Kareena's presence in the ad.

Anonymous said...

Tell it to this female

Kavity said...

@anonymous:
I hope this is an outlier. By the way, who is this?

Anonymous said...

Red is the Color. Shockingly nice red :)

Kavity said...

@Vinay: Of course :)