What Women Want

Welcome to the great post-feminist age, where it’s OK to admit that men and women are different. In fact, they’re from separate planets. Here’s the problem: even if you buy into the whole Mars/Venus thing, nobody has explained how to get a Venusian into a Martian cave. (Or how to get her to approve buying a home theater system for the cave. Or for the cave’s living room.)

According to Hollywood’s market research, women are the primary decision makers for choosing which movies a couple sees. Similarly, women are the primary decision makers when renting home videos. On average, women spend more time per week watching prerecorded movies than men. And, while I don’t have poll numbers to back this up, I’ve found women to be extremely passionate about movies because I am a women – they bet in office Oscar pools, wear fashions set by movie stars, and memorize lines from The Princess Bride.

Women ought to be natural home theater fans. Right ?!?!?!

Obviously, something is keeping them back.

That "something" statistically is generally the following three (3) things:

1) Money :

There is no economic argument for a decent home theater. Do not try to make one. Even if you need to hire a babysitter, live 100 miles from the nearest SuperMegaPlex, and tickets there cost $10 each, it’s still less expensive to go out than to buy a surround sound system. Even if you go every week. For years.

However, just because a home theater is not a necessity does not make it difficult to justify. With the latest digital technology, your home can provide a better picture and superior sound to what you get at an average movie theater. But you don’t have to leave the house – or even put on shoes. You can pause the movie to go to the bathroom. There are no noisy teenagers ruining the experience (unless they happen to be yours). You can turn down the volume. You can turn UP the volume. You can watch material the SuperMegaPlex would never show.

2) Technology :

Whoa – hold on. When I said, “With the latest digital technology, your home can provide a better picture and superior sound to what you get at an average movie theater,” that’s it. That’s all the information most woman want about the technology. That the experience it will provide will likely be better than a typical movie theater. Women are not interested in technology per se, they’re interested in the benefits it provides.

3) Space :

The rule of thumb here is that women and men see space differently – women want a room to be either a living room OR a home theater – not both at the same time. Sure, a man may think that the most important function of the living room is to serve up generous portions of Spielberg, but women need the room to function as a living room. If you dedicate a separate room to A/V entertainment, those objections should be mitigated somewhat .........

In conclusion, stop talking about the technology, start talking about immersion. If you primarily want a big screen TV for football, consider how a woman might appreciate the larger screen size for watching movies.

Finally, don’t demo the technology! Most demo material used to show off home theater equipment alternates between explosions, car chases, explosions, science fiction, and explosions. Where's the Tom Cruise? Romantic comedies? It’s true that Tom Cruise saying "You complete me" while "Secret Garden" plays on the soundtrack (in Jerry Maguire) doesn't show off the subwoofer as well as meteors taking out Paris (in Armageddon) – but it is an impressive, immersive experience. The Titanic DVD isn’t enhanced for widescreen displays – but it’s a powerful, popular film.

So maybe..... by thinking about "what women want" ... you may actually get "what you want" ...

=)