SO SORRY Hope me please, obviously I meant more inside!!

They already pulled the special search box for women (the one that was simple, because, duh, women are stupid).

http://www.aa.com/AfricanAmerican Coming Soon!

Interesting blog entry about a conversation with the marketing chair...apparently we are not alone in having a response..

GAH GAH GAH. Yes, OF COURSE it should also help men, that's the POINT of inclusivity -- you address (or gather) a wide range of viewpoints and concerns and then EVERYONE gets a better experience.

Ghettoizing your underserved populations does the exact OPPOSITE of that. Rather than saying, "Here are a bunch of viewpoints we haven't looked at, and we're getting a lot of great information, so rather than assume our customers are a monolithic block and we're already doing all we can for them, let's incorporate all this new information and make the experience richer for everyone," ghetto sites like this say, "We already know exactly what men want, and now we know exactly what women want. They do not overlap, and must be kept separate."

It's listening to your marketing people rather than listening to your customers. Society should not strive for market segmentation.

Sigh. I'm *so* glad I'm leaving Marketing. It's a soul-sucking idiotic endeavor that almost by definition leads to this sort of idiocy. Sigh sigh sigh.

It was interesting to read about how basically, AA is just not all that web-savvy. That's at least part of the issue: that they've gone for the easy and obvious rather than paying attention to what their real market segments are.

I compared their home page to a bunch of other airline home pages, and they're all abysmal.

So when I wrote back to the director, I tried to relate the points occhiblu expressed about ghettoization vs. integration, but also suggested that what web users probably really could use is a site that breaks travel information like that down based on reason for travel. For instance, when I'm traveling for business, I identify much more closely in terms of needs and interests with other business travelers, be they male or female. On a family vacation, I'd be looking for a different set of information. I'm more likely to look at information packaged by the type of travel I do than by gender. I pointed out that, since I travel as much as possible but do it on a limited budget, I sometimes have more in common travelwise with a 20-year-old male backpacker than with a 40-year-old well-heeled first-class luxury-destination woman, even though I share her age and gender demographic. They're actually wasting their efforts trying to sell me and her the same things.

Yay, Miko.

It just seems completely idiotic to me that they're saying "Women use our site a lot! That means we have to create a brand new site for them and get them off the regular site!" I mean, Wah?

I'm miffed! My letter to them has not yet warranted a response!

And to no one's surprise, AA is part of the same industry that has generated a cumulative loss over its entire history. Quite an accomplishment.

Dang, Miko. Props to you.
How the hell did their marketing department think both men and women would benefit from "products and services" if the site is specifically targeted (albeit very badly so) toward women?

I'm really impressed that they wrote back and actually addressed your letter. Somewhat intelligently.

Miko, I think you should send them the links to the discussion threads here. If they really want a breadth of opinions, this is a good place to find them.

Good Lord. They're trying to communicate with you.

Maybe they really are serious about this whole women thing.

I'm a guy, but I did find the women's site patronizing. The concept of relationship marketing and marketing segmentation often goes overboard. On the flights with video screens you will see AA's "We know why you fly" ads showing vignettes of people going to visit mom or all the flights on a departure board changing to say "home" hints that AA does segment its customers and listens. They sometimes get me a little choked up. But they may not be hearing things as clearly as they could. Like Miko says, when it comes to travel, gender segmentation is not that important. I think regardless of who you are, you want your plane to leave on time, you don't want them to lose your luggage, you want a good price, and you want to be treated politely and with respect.

When I worked in hotels, research showed business travelers were pretty much the same between men and women, but women were significantly more likely to mention security as an important factor in the hotel the choose. Instead of having pink girly material for women saying how the hotel takes security seriously, it mentioned security as a selling point in all materials. A lot of men thought the safety and security of the room was important too, they just didn't mention it as often as women. Do men appreciate deadbolt locks, keycard access to the elevator and in-room safes too? Hell yes.

What AA.com is trying to do with the woman's sitelet is to get more people to fly with them. Sure, that's how they stay in business. And they'd love for you to book your car rental and hotel on their site. They want to be like Expedia but only offer their flights. They want you to come to aa.com for travel ideas rather than when you specifically are pricing flights or checking your frequent flyer balance.

I have a love/hate relationship with American. For the past 12 years I've worked for companies where it was the preferred airline. I've amassed a shitload of advantage miles. I have status so I can skip to the front of the line and always get a good seat. But over the years the quality of the service has declined. Some of the flight attendents are downright mean and bitter. They've managed to lose my luggage on both of the international trips I've taken this year. [the luggage turns up eventually, but there doesn't seem to have a sense of urgency to have me and my luggage on the same flight]. Regardless of gender, these are the important things.

Instead of having pink girly material for women saying how the hotel takes security seriously, it mentioned security as a selling point in all materials. A lot of men thought the safety and security of the room was important too, they just didn't mention it as often as women. Do men appreciate deadbolt locks, keycard access to the elevator and in-room safes too? Hell yes.

Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes! This is how this stuff should work! Not by reinforcing gender stereotypes ("Only women need X, so men don't need that; only men like Y, so women don't need that") but by expanding the options for everyone without anyone needing to announce the state of their genitalia in order to see what options are available to them.

without anyone needing to announce the state of their genitalia




Ah, never mind.

Heh.

Those are great observations, birdherder.

right on, Meeks.