Have you ever seen an ad from a mobile company geared towards women which was not stereotypical? I doubt it.

There are over a billion youth female smart phone owners. Now that is a huge, and important number. With new research suggesting that more women buy tech and play mobile games than men, its safe to say that women’s role has changed from passive “end consumers” to key change agents in mobile behavior. Unfortunately, most phone makers are still caught in a trap that encourages either marketing “female products” (like the dreaded pink phone syndrome) or selling the brand story to females.

There are 3 main change agents credited with shaping the youth mobile phone industry. Though they are 10% of mobile youth, they influence the remaining 90%, thereby defining the social currency value of products. The 3 Key Change Agents are Teenage Pirates, Cashless Innovators and Disruptive Divas. Disruptive Divas use material based tools to seek Social Currency and are identified by their refusal to stick to gender roles as defined by parents. DD’s (hmmm) optimize social tools, stamp their own identities and claim brands that were hitherto male ( Burberry, BlackBerry) and show they have arrived!

Diva’s have taken BBM to a whole new level, what with making BBM groups a workable feature, influencing and encouraging family and friends to buy into the idea. I don’t know if there’s any Country where BBM groups has been taken over by small business owners, mainly sellers and retailers of clothes, home and household accessories or different school alumni/work groups, family groups, etc. Despite all this, RIM and its counterparts still get the main thrust of their ads wrong. While Divas may not be the most affluent, the indirect service they create for the brand via innovation, education and influence is unrivaled.

Recently, inneractive released researched showing some of the differences in mobile devices and applications among men and women. Women do prefer BlackBerry. Men, or droids :D, gravitate towards androids.

Android / 39% women, 61% men

Blackberry / 59% women, 41% men

Apple / 49% women, 51% men

In the world of Apps, there is a significant difference in what types of apps are favored by each sex, with men preferring the pricier categories. TOP APPS FOR WOMEN Entertainment Social and IM Brain and Puzzles TOP APPS FOR MEN Sports Arcade and Action Cards & Casino What is RIM waiting for then? They need to get over the male hegemony prevalent in the mobile world. Women are often labelled as “geeks” or “tech obsessed” when they rival males in tech ownership. When brands involve design agencies, they invariably come up with pink or jeweled phones, or worse still, research about how women want phones to take pictures of babies. If this wasn’t annoying, it would be decidedly laughable. In my house, my husband tends to take more pictures of the kids with his phone than I do.

RIM would do well to have us firmly in mind in their creative processes. We, after all, are keeping them in business in this part of the world.