Posts Tagged "Marketing to Moms"

According to a recent study by Ohio State University, women are more likely than men to follow the parenting practices of their mothers. As a result, “We really need to learn a lot more about how fathers learn to parent,” said study co-author Jonathan Vespa.

More than 1,000 young parents were chosen from a  group whose own parents had participated in a nationwide survey initiated in 1979. For the three behaviors researched — spanking children, giving physical affection/praise, and reading to children — women closely followed what their mother did, while men did not.

 The researchers also discovered significant changes in behaviors among this generation vs. the previous one, with parenting today involving much more reading and affection to children and less spanking.

What parenting approaches will today’s young boys pick up from their mothers — and what from their dads? And should companies be developing products and services that tie into these different choices?

So much for birthing babies into the lap of luxury. This morning’s New York Times points out that even high-income couples are now looking first to second-hand sources when buying for their kids. Craig’s List, hand-me-downs and other money-saving options have become the purchasing preference for many parents.

The reasons: Beyond the practical – in this recession, you never know if you’ll have a job tomorrow – there are both philosophical and perceptual. In the current economy, even couples who are OK financially don’t want to openly champion conspicuous consumption. No longer are moms and dads pointedly asking retailers for the most expensive item in the shop.

What the Times calls the “play and discover” market – a $343 million category for toys and goods marketed to parents of children under  a year old – has declined by more than a third in the past 18 months. According to the article, “New purchases have become more considered, less spontaneous.”

Moms – how have your shopping habits changed? Are you going second-hand for the first time? Marketers, are you experiencing this trend – and how are you responding?

For more, see the New York Times article here.

Full disclosure: Goddard Systems, the leading child care franchise in the U.S., is a client here at Child’s Play Communications. I thought I’d share some social media activities we’ve recently implemented for the company, as a way of offering suggestions to marketers on how to reach out to moms in the blogosphere and beyond.

In the last few months alone, we’ve launched Goddard’s corporate blog, initiated its Twitter account (@GoddardSchools), connected with mom bloggers to announce special events, provided helpful information to moms on how they can implement educational themes at home, devised ways that Goddard can connect with those moms in person, even sponsored a blogger to attend BlogHer, the leading blogging conference for women, taking place in Chicago later this month. We’ve also developed a social media policy for the company.

Moms, we welcome you to visit the Goddard blog or follow their director of education on Twitter, where you’ll find a broad variety of helpful child-raising tips as well as Goddard news. Marketers, if you want to reach moms, consider some of the activities above. If you need assistance strategizing a plan or taking the first steps, we’d be happy to help you.

Mom-stats worth repeating from this week’s Motherlode blog.

• Mothers make 73 cents to every dollar earned by an equally qualified man at the same job.
• Single mothers make about 60 cents compared to that dollar.
• Over a lifetime, mothers earn from $40,000 to $2 million less than men doing the same work, due to gender wage disparity.
• A full quarter of U.S. families with children less than six years old live in poverty.
• Motherhood does not come with Social Security or health benefits.

Happy Mother’s Day.

We are in the midst of organizing 40,000 children at Goddard Schools nationwide in support of World Wildlife Fund’s Earth Hour 2009. A global call to action on climate change, Earth Hour takes place on Saturday, March 28^th at 8:30 p.m., when hundreds of millions of people around the world will turn off their lights for one hour in a vote for action on the climate crisis.

So you can imagine the recent blog post from Wired.com Math Meets Meteorology: New TV Show for Kids on Climate Change sparked our interest. PBS Kids Go is set to debut an animated series that will teach children about climate issues. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) just launched a website, www.EarthHourKids.org, which provides content to schools and children. This site features lesson-plans, games and songs that children can download. Goddard has also developed tips parents can use to teach kids about the environment (email me @ sa@childsplaypr.com for a copy).

As parents, are you teaching your children about climate change? As marketers, how are you helping parents convey the message?