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Kristin Shoemaker blogs at OStatic and Linux Librarian. She likes to take things apart and see if she can put them back together again in new and better ways.

Della had a Lifestyle Change

Earlier this month, Brad kindly asked me what I thought about Dell’s “Della” site, a marketing campaign that was presumably designed to help women decide if a Dell Mini Netbook was right for them. For those disinclined to click back in time to read the ramblings of a woman who loves small keyboards but looks sickly in pink, here’s the abridged version:

Netbooks shouldn’t be a hard sell to this demographic. And just because your customer base might not be interested in what makes a netbook work, it doesn’t mean they are unable to figure out the ways they could personally use one — and please, don’t ever assume your customers are morons.

I wasn’t the only one who felt that way (by a long shot).  It wasn’t too long before Dell pulled down and revamped the “Della” site.  That’s a good thing, of course — listening to your customers (and potential customers) is always positive. There’s not a whole lot any company can do in two weeks to revise a major marketing effort, no matter how many copywriters and web designers it has chained within the razorwire covered walls of  its cubicle farms.

So here’s what happened.  “Della” disappeared in a puff of smoke (or with a deftly executed rm -rf /della command) and was replaced with an eerily similar Dell Lifestyle portal.  Yes, the copy is not so egregiously condescending (nor is it terribly enlightening).  The blatant overtones of  “Look, netbooks are good for womenfolk!” have been removed or at least been made more subtle.  And that just leaves me wondering why this campaign was launched at all.  Dell sells computers, and that’s what the Lifestyle-no-longer-Della site does — but so does the rest of the site. There’s just very little offered here. It’s not patronizing, but it’s not necessary in its current state, either.

[Via Andi Wang's post at Gizmodo, which mysteriously only shows in Google Reader,  and ultimately via RegHardware]