I am a little "Miss Fix-It" myself, so I want a tool that does the job, not one that looks pretty - but if it looks pretty, does the job and is reasonably priced - that is probably the one I would go for.

But let me speak for my friend. She is clueless when it comes to tools - didnt even know what Phillips head is - and I do think that making them more visually appealing might help. She is the type of girl who has a nice and neat case of motor oil and other engine fluids in her trunk.

This weekend, she HAD to have a purple mini mag light - to match her boyfriends snowmobile. So yeah, I think the branding could work if they are right on the mark with marketing!!

And, HI all - I have been out of the "SpeakUp" zone for a while - I am getting a huge case of the holidays!!

Armin dreads the words "Home Depot " when coming from me. I am known for strolling the long isles for hours if possible after midnight, taking my time and looking at EVERYTHING. I don't really care for visualy appealing tools, but having small hands does make it harder to find the perfect size for me. Buying a hammer is no easy task, they are either to heavy, to wide or so light and small my cat should be the owner.

Taking into account female ergonomics is a great thing, and I hope they are not letting form overshadow function.

Sounds like she wants to be the Martha Stewart of home repair.

The company needs a lesson in marketingspeak, though. I doubt Barbara K. actually speaks like this. She's probably been handed a deck (that's a repeat of a powerpoint presentation) by an ad agency and told that it was her brand and to use it all the time. Two major violations in one sentence: solutions AND innovative. Whew. I can't wait for a company to come out offering to confuse through dilapidated and outdated products. That would be innovative.

Do any of the women out there feel talked down to by the idea of Barbara K.?

They definitely need to re-word that mission statement or whatever it was. That just does not say anything worthwhile...sounds like a bunch of marketing dweebs got together and realized there's a market for this. Aside from that, its a great effort. Women have smaller hands than men. It makes sense. So if you're targeting women, why not make em look pretty. Smart move, smart product, bad identity.

As far as branding, the website says, "Barbara K is a comprehensive lifestyle brand whose mission is to provide solutions for women through innovative products that help eliminate the fear factor in areas where women may lack confidence or knowledge."

That's not branding. It's some kind of mission statement. But you're right - BK is hardly a lifestyle brand let alone comprehensive by any measure. It smacks of hoping that the brand might take the company further than the lack of satisfying a real customer need will.

This is from their discussion board:

I am so disappointed with the tape measure that I wonder how good the other tools can be. A good metal tape measure has a way to freeze the extended tape. This one does not. A good metal tape measure lists the length of the base unit to make it easier to measure inside cabinets. The "BarabaK" products are nothing more than cheap products with a pretty blue cover stuck on them. I will tell all my friends to avoid these products.

i>strolling the long isles for hours if possible after midnight,

I love HomeDespot at night. It's so quiet and peaceful. Just you and the tools with the humming of those giant fans somewhere overhead.

Do any of the women out there feel talked down to by the idea of Barbara K.?

Yes. I hate the logo, I hate the colours, it would have to be one incredibly good tool for me to get beyond that to buy it. But I'm not most women.

Also, I would make the assumption that they're not as well made as Stanley, Makita, Dewalt, Husky, etc. Like women's clothes, the fact is in many cases they cost more and they fall apart quicker than men's clothes (I'm talkin' jeans, t-shirts ... obviously the men's dresses are just a shoddy as the women's).

In theory the "smaller size"/ergonomics issue sounds like a good one, but when I think about it, I've used hundreds of tools over the past 3 years, and I've seldom had a problem with ergonomics. The two areas where things have been too big or too heavy for me are a) larger power tools, and the powerful ones are big because they have big motors inside them, and b) gloves, if ya can believe it.

I cannot find a decent chainsaw that I feel I can handle without endangering myself. I might consider a Barbara chainsaw.

I wonder though. Manly girls will buy the manly tools, but will girly girls buy tools at all or will their manly boyfriends buy them tools? And would a manly boyfriend sensibly choose a manly tool (or perhaps because he's too embarrassed to take it to the checkout) or will the manly boyfriend condescendingly buy the girly tool?

I'm with Matt and Bryony. I'd pay a premium for smaller, lighter tools that do the job as well as the big heavy ones—but they should be tools first and fashion accessories second. Although a Barbara chainsaw would make quite a statement at the holiday party.

Taking into account female ergonomics is a great thing, and I hope they are not letting form overshadow function.

i'm with you on that one bryony. as far as designing tools to solve an existing problem with the tool itself, no one does it better than oxo.

i just wonder how much of a need was there for tools for women.

i have a question for the women in this discussion. is it a slap in the face to suggest that women can't use tools that are currently available or is a relief that the problem with existing tools (too heavy, too big, etc.) has bee solved.

not to say that the hammer brenda k. designed won’t drive a nail into a block of wood, but traditional hammers are heavy because they help drive the nail.

�and i think the logo was an after-thought too.

I cannot find a decent chainsaw that I feel I can handle without endangering myself. I might consider a Barbara chainsaw.

I do love a woman with power tools!

Women have smaller hands than men. It makes sense.

I agree that ergonomics is a smart marketing angle. But I can't help thinking that playing so overtly to the "we're weak, fragile, and insecure" mindset is really not playing to the market's best attributes. Perhaps some easy-to-decipher guides to using the traditional tools (with lots of pictures, natch) would be a better product than daintier tools.

Women have smaller hands than men. It makes sense.

My hands are smaller than my wife's hands. Needless to say, my dreams at guitar-god stardom were shot down at an early age...

Aren't hand tools pretty much a comodity? I imagine this is just yet-another-tool-company looking for a niche market to squeeze into. If I were to release a new line of cheap tools, I'd probably go after the less saturated market as well.

Perhaps some easy-to-decipher guides to using the traditional tools (with lots of pictures, natch) would be a better product than daintier tools.

I think the problem they're trying to solve is less that women don't know how to use tools than that tools are generally designed with men's hand size and upper-body-strength in mind. Not that women aren't strong, but a fair number of us are just plain smaller.

What I really wish is that video game console designers would consider smaller hand sizes when designing controllers. That X-Box controller is a monster. I wonder if it's any coincidence that the Playstation—designed in Japan, where lots of women play video games—ships with a small controller, while the American X-Box ships with a gargantuan one.

my dreams at guitar-god stardom were shot down at an early age...

That's why I won't sell my '72 Rickenbacker. It's the only guitar I can play -- and it ain't baby blue, and it doesn't have a goofy Barbie logo with a frickin' exclamation mark.

I wonder though. Manly girls will buy the manly tools, but will girly girls buy tools at all or will their manly boyfriends buy them tools? And would a manly boyfriend sensibly choose a manly tool (or perhaps because he's too embarrassed to take it to the checkout) or will the manly boyfriend condescendingly buy the girly tool?

My boyfriend, for one, thinks it attractive that I know where everything is in Home Depot/Lowes - and he would probably only consider buying me some "manly tools" - not to push the "manliness" of it on me, but because in fact he would probably think it would work better.

I do bet he would be turned off by a baby blue or pink handled saw - big, shiny, dark, black = POWER!! And thats all he would be after (for himself or I).

I think that the smaller, more usable tools should be the angle they focus this marketing with. Not fear to use the tool or do the project - for one, I would be turned off if someone said "Are you afraid to fix that pipe? - Well, with Barbara K tools - you can too be empowered!!"

Aren't hand tools pretty much a comodity? I imagine this is just yet-another-tool-company looking for a niche market to squeeze into.

Isn't it way too obvious that this is what they're doing? If you don't fit into the market, you don't really have any room to criticize unless you feel its detrimental in some way. In this case, I don't see how it could be. Its simply taking into account that there are lots of women out there (who don't have boyfriends or husbands to do it for them) that may take something like this up. Its a sensitive and thoughtful idea. As far as the execution of the brand image? Well...it seems as if this is a pretty new company and naturally it could use some refinement.

I spend alot of time working construction and some of the best carpenters I know are little guys. I presume they have small hands [I honestly never looked]. Kev has it right about hammers; the larger ones drive the nail better. You should use the largest hammer you can reasonably handle because little hammers bend nails. Most tools already come in a variety of sizes and the smaller ones are usually cheaper [ 12 volt cordless drill v. 14 or 18 volt for example]. A tape measure that doesn't lock is crap plain and simple. I have never seen any tape measure that was too big for a woman to use. What a load of hooey ! Wear a cute hat or cute overalls and use real tools.

::unrelated interjection::

my '72 Rickenbacker

drool

I met Barbara K about a year ago. We pitched the business to design the packaging for the tool kit, but we were too expensive for them. A firm out in SF did the original logo design, for the life of me I can't remember who it was--maybe it was Addis? or Enterprise? Sorry, I just can't remember. We urged Barbara to reconsider the logo, but she really liked the exclamation mark and didn't want to change it at all.

Barbara and her team seemed pretty sincere--she was really trying to address the needs of women in terms of size of tool (is it just me, or does that sound smarmy?) and the weight in a woman's hand, etc. I find it unfortunate that the tools looks so "feminine"--as if they are fashion accessories, but that was the original strategy.

One of the cool things that comes with the kit (at least it did when we pitched the business) is a "easy-to-decipher guide" to explain all the tools, the various uses, and so on. That was the best part of the kit, in my opinion.

Years and years ago, I did a small film project for Isaac Mizrahi when he won the CDFA Fashion Award. (This was way, way before his relationship with Target). He was fantasizing about where the Mizrahi brand could go and wanted to do a parody of himself, home movie style. So we designed Isaac Mizrahi air fresheners and Isaac Mizrahi power tools. I used my own tools and painted them freaky colors and silkscreened his logo on them. After the project, I brought my newly freakish tools back home, and I still use them. The paint has flaked off and the logo is nearly gone, and they look like they are going to fall apart, but they still make me smile and they still work perfectly.

it seems not only smarmy but also a bit patronizing.

I understand the tool size issue, but making them perty and putting them in fashionable cases seems so, oh I don't know - valleygirlish.

My pa the Electrician would scoff at the whole thing. When i dressed up like him for career day in grade two I did not have a pastel tool kit , I had a plaid worker shirt and real tools hanging off my bell bottom pants. Granted it was kinda heavy running around at recess, but i was the REAL DEAL.

This is by far one of the most entertaingly educational threads we have had in a long time. Very cool.

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned the web site's design. It looks like a silly ’90s dot-com start-up — and that's no compliment.

This whole product line is an excellent example of branding gone bad.

And yes, I tremble when Bryony mentions Home Depot. It's scary, you have no idea. But it's gotten better as I deny her going there after 10:00 pm.

Armin, why deny her? She can do all the household fix-ups, I wouldnt complain! :)

I am headed to the mall tonight - I am going to try to find these so called tools, and see how they fit in my hands!!

my '72 Rickenbacker

drool

'cept you know it's not unrelated. The point is that objects typically designed for men -- or bigger hands -- and guitars are one of them, can be smaller (or in the case of my guitar, have a smaller neck and really fast action -- doesn't that sound great? fast action) without being dumbed-down. That guitar is bitchin'. When I go to find a hammer or a screwdriver, I pick it up, I feel it, and like I say, I've had no problem finding most tools that fit my undeniably small hands. And I tend to gravitate towards ones with black or flourescent colours. (Flourescent are great becasue you can find them on the job site.) As for hammers ... balance people, balance.

I have this exact same beef with the marketing of so-called eco-cars. Why do they have to look all cute and bubbly? What if the fuel-celled car looked like an Aston Martin, or even a Viper? I think it would sell way more. but there's this misguided (IMHO) perception that things for women and things for the environment have to have a "friendly" brightly coloured, rounded aesthetic.

Debbie, I love your Isaac Mizrahi story! My thoughts about the rest of this discussion are as follows: what Marian said.

I wanted to point out that it's not just tools -- but the home improvement industry in general has been steadfastly changing their positioning to meet the needs of women customers.

Home Depot is the best example of this.

Home Depot purposely lowered their shelves, changed their aisle configurations, and grouped products into clusters that were more approachable to women unfamiliar with hardware supply stores. Take notice of other little things, like how nails and screws can be bought in small pre-packaged quantities, instead of just out of giant, bulk bins. It may not seem obvious, but the way something is displayed or sold is definitely a conscious retail design strategy for women.

HD realized that women are primary decision makers when it comes to home remodeling. And regardless of whoever did the work, the supplies and tools must all have a sense of ease and accessibility. The biggest evident change is in their paint department. What used to be a random collection of swatch shelves has now become a "Design Center" -- a virtual interior decorating workshop. To go even futher, Home Depot created a line of specialized retail stores called "EXPO" -- aimed directly at providing retail environments that would appeal to women.

Think it's all fluff? To compare, go to a traditional lumber yard, scrap metal supplier, or power tool rental house. Here's how hardware stores used to look. The shelves are HUGE, nothing is labeled, nails and screws are sold in gross quantities, and everything looks unfamiliar and dangerous -- like it could crush you. It's intimidating.

Now on the one hand, it was inevitable that a line of tools like these would be marketed. But on the other hand, I don't think the design of the line itself is anything special. I bet that any day now, Sears will find a way to market their own line of Craftsman tools that are designed for Handy-women� customers.

Good thread, David.

Great topic, David.

I haven't had time to sit with this today and go over it that much, but i didn't get the best first impression from it--maybe I'm off-base, I don't know. I think its because the interface design felt a bit clunky and the colors way too stereotypical.

But, upon further inspection, the tools and their cases are quite well designed and have a feminine but not a less-strong sense to them. They look functional, there's a good variety, and above all--they're "cute."

Now, the marketing-speak upfront was atrociously awful and completely devoid of meaning. WHAT innovative products? Hammers aren't new. I'd like to see some of the manuals and POP stuff to get better idea of what's going on here, but maybe that's where the innovation lies.

Still and all, as I'm logging off the site, it doesn't really say "tools" or "building" to me. Am I out to lunch on this?

Marian- I agree that it can be done right without being dumbed down. It seems to me that the attempt by BarbaraK to do such a thing just didn't bridge the gap by it's lack of quality. Plus, I'm a little confused how a lifestyle brand with only one kind of product can be deemed a lifestyle brand.

Since guitars got brought up, ever heard of Daisy Rock? They seem to be getting it right.

<voice type="homer">Mmmmm, Home Deeepot</voice>

Tan, thanks for that bit on Home Depot. I didn't realize that, but it makes sense. I definitely do notice a larger number of women there than I have seen in other home improvement / hardware stores. As a side note, I notice whenever I go to any Home Depot store, the products are always organized in the same layout. Nice.

Related to this, perhaps another reason why Home Depot seems to do well with women is they do not market themselves a hardware store, but a home improvement store. Similar products, different mindset.

Dewalt, and Makita offer smaller sized products for women. They may not look pretty, but they work and look great.

Not that Barbara K can't build quality tools, but they do look like those child toys in Target....

The shelves are HUGE, nothing is labeled, nails and screws are sold in gross quantities, and everything looks unfamiliar and dangerous -- like it could crush you. It's intimidating.

Oh man, does that bring back memories. I used to love going to the lumber yard with my Dad. The smell of sawdust, pine and cigars, the bins of nails you had to dig your hand into and measure out on the scale. Makes HD seem kinda wimpy by comparison...

Armin, why deny her? She can do all the household fix-ups, I wouldnt complain! :)

I think this is the most important aspect mentioned in this discussion! Why Armin, why?

Going back to Barbara K., it looks like we are pretty much on the same page: good idea, bad marketing strategy and branding. This looks like the opening of a broader discussion, the one where we talk about clients choosing price over proposal. I am sure that the Sterling team had great ideas and strategy options that would enable a different outcome to this conversation, but Barbara K. decided to choose based on price, nor realizing that what she saved could mean less profit down the road. What does this mean? And what can we do to educate those who come (or could potentially come) to us in search of wonderful and successful cheap solutions?

> I think this is the most important aspect mentioned in this discussion! Why Armin, why?

We'll discuss over dinner.

> I am sure that the Sterling team had great ideas and strategy options that would enable a different outcome to this conversation, but Barbara K. decided to choose based on price, nor realizing that what she saved could mean less profit down the road. What does this mean?

It can mean way too many things. 1) Barbara K is a cheapskate 2) Barbara K was in a bad mood that day and didn't appreciate Debbie's eyeglasses 3) Barbara K didn't know what she wanted at that point 4) Sterling (you didn't think you would get out of this one did you debbie?) missed the mark on the proposal 5) Sterling's quote was, maybe, indeed too high 6) Sterling was not properly cleaned the day of the meeting.

My point is — and I am not implying any of my points are accurate — that there are many, many variables that can lead a company into making, what we think, is a bad decision. We talk a lot about "educating" the clients but I don't think they (clients) see our selling points as getting an education.

But, as I said before, this whole BK thing is poorly executed, I doubt the POPs and guides make up for it.

PS Sarah B., we did miss you in your absence.

We'll discuss over dinner.

Looks like you will be cooking for yourself tonight! ...my dear.

My point is — and I am not implying any of my points are accurate — that there are many, many variables that can lead a company into making, what we think, is a bad decision. We talk a lot about "educating" the clients but I don't think they (clients) see our selling points as getting an education.

It is my belief that our clients should be educated as a group, not so much individually, by explaining, proving, showcasing, explaining again, reaffirming and understanding design (each will find a way in which to do this). Design should be taught as a lifestyle, a way of living in the business world. In the same way that we all understand that the architect would be the one in charge of designing and creating a structure, by "educating" society as a group one day we shall reach such respect and status as designers.

That is what I mean by educating our clients, my dearest, by informing them, by giving them all the tools they need in order to make decisions based on their needs, expectations, budgets,etc. Then an educated decision will be made, and we will all be oh so happy happy.

You would think I would know better by now.

I want a BK chainsaw for Christmas. Just cuz.

And Bryony, I'll run away to Home Depot for you. Let Armin nuke leftovers.

Sure, take her side.

looks like Barbara is not the only one (I am not sure which one is worse)

As soon as I opened the webpage I can barely withstand the "perkyness". I think the exclamation in the logo can be blamed as well as the design of the website. My first reaction is to hurry and click the x. Although I understand the whole premise of designing towards an audience...I think this is a little much.

I have taken Metalsmithing and when it came to tools its not the color of it that matters it's the functionality and quality of it. Not to say her products are not.

I'm not sure of the "solutions for women". To me as a woman is kind of demeaning. I didn't know that tools had a gender. The whole idea seems stereotypical "making tools for women". What next? Pastel colored fishing poles with matching purses.

Heh heh heh. A friend just showed me these. Which I find far more appealing that Barbara!

Marian, I think I found you a chainsaw. ;-)

See what I mean? Designs for kids are more dignified than designs for women. The kids aren't fed dolled up sub-brands, why should we be?

They may look cute - but how do you think the quality of these tools are?

If I was going shopping for tools - maybe I would look at them and then buy the ones on the right that have no design at all.

must we add color and design to everything? even our tools?

Anybody catch the TV commercials yet? Not as pathetic as I would have expected. It still has that condescending tone. And it features Barbara K in a tight leather vest (she has a whole attire, not just the vest), it's kinda weird.

In talking with a group of girls that work with me about this subject, they felt that a tool designed for women was more of an insult than a comfort. They also believed that if there was something they feared doing, the tool would be the last to help ease their mind. The mission statement is a bunch of mumbo jumbo, I agree with Matt Wright it is just a bunch of marketing dweebs who are probably scared to hammer in a nail themselves.