A friend of GF just Bcc’d me on this email, which was sent to the CEOs of Motorola and Verizon along with a number of other senior executives of those companies.
To: “greg.brown” <greg.brown@motorola.com>,
“jonathan.ruff” <jonathan.ruff@motorola.com>,
“Juli.Burda” <Juli.Burda@motorola.com>,
“jennifer.erickson” <jennifer.erickson@motorola.com>,
“william.kula” <william.kula@verizon.com>,
“Thomas.Pica” <Thomas.Pica@verizonwireless.com>,
“anthony.melone” <anthony.melone@verizonwireless.com>,
“ajay.waghray” <ajay.waghray@verizonwireless.com>,
“peter.thonis” <peter.thonis@verizon.com>,
“ivan.seidenberg” <ivan.seidenberg@verizon.com>Dear Sirs and Mesdames,
Two weeks ago I researched, then bought four Motorola/Verizon Droids for my family. Without my research and influence, we’d probably have bought two Blackberries for the adults and dumbphones for the children.
Today I learned that Motorola is running ads, “Pretty”, explaining that Droids aren’t for “princesses”, trade “hair-do for can-do”, and by implication are not for women. (Yes, I do occasionally call my daughter “princess”. She’s currently attending an Ivy League institution.) My daughter and I are currently discussing buying ornamental skins for our Droids; I do hope this won’t crash the Android operating system.
I make over $100,000 a year. I work in high tech. And I control major purchasing decisions. Why are you running advertisements suggesting that your product is primarily for men?
The addresses are all there for you if you should feel the urge to write a letter yourself. The email’s author tells me she guessed them based on the standard address format used by the companies in question, and says that none of them bounced. (Some guesses that did bounce have been removed from the list above.)
And here’s the ad in question:
Another blog post on the subject, which I came across yesterday via the geekfeminism tag on delicious is Girls are still icky, over at Coyle’s InFormation. I’m sure there are more out there, so feel free to link them in comments.