INSIGHTS / INSPIRED BY WOMEN / INNOVATION

WHY WOMEN DON’T BUY HEADSETS – AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT

Bluetooth headsets for mobile communication are an essential part of Jabra’s global business, but mainly bought by male professionals. design-people’s Female Interaction know-how showed a way out.

At Jabra, marketing and product development had trouble to reach the female consumers. A first attempt – the launch of a pink headset – had not been a successful. So Jabra decided to join design-people’s Female Interaction research project to increase their knowledge about women – 50% of their potential market.

For a starter, design-people’s insights team conducted contextual observations and – interviews with both female users and “not-yet users” of Bluetooth headsets. It showed that the basic value proposition – hands free mobile communication – was indeed very attractive to women. But the current ways of executing this promise came wrong. Likewise, a major challenge in women’s perception of good, social behavior became visible: how to balance availability on the phone with presence in a social situation. The user exploration, combined with the innovation guidelines from the Female Interaction project, led to two new concepts – one for the young, urban single and one for the working mom.

The Female Interaction project proves that a user-driven approach is not in collision with a market driven logic. Female Interaction frames how women generally differ from men in terms of technical preferences. It clearly shows that there is a huge, female costumer potential and why it is not sufficient to ”pink” your products. Three years of data-based research makes these points very convincing.