Martin Agency and Walmart share tips for marketing to this evolving demographic
womenIf you're a brand advertiser with a pulse, you've seen at least one statistic about women: 80% of household spending is controlled by moms. But does your brand know how many of today's new moms are digital natives? Or how single women with children are feeling about the economy?
The nuanced answers to these questions kicked off Ad Week Monday during a panel called "Moms & the New Zeitgeist: The Complex World of the World's Most Important Audience." It's a heady title and a heady task to break down exactly what most appeals to today's chief household officers. But that's just what the session did.
Here are the four key insights that emerged from experts like The Martin Agency and Walmart on connecting with moms across digital, social media and content:
Tip #1: Keep growing your investments across digital
Today, seven out of ten births are to millennial moms. That means these women are digital natives who see the Internet as central to their lives and to their new roles as mothers. Thanks to their Web fluency, they are more open and willing to share opinions and advice than any other generation of mothers before them. Katherine Wintsch, VP of Group Planning at The Martin Agency, says that this digitally sophisticated generation of moms will make tight cross-platform marketing campaigns more critical than ever.
"Digital lives in the cracks of a mom's lives: She gets two minutes here, and five minutes there," says Wintsch, who founded the thinktank The Mom Complex to study modern moms and improve mom advertising. "Advertisers have to think about how she will consume content and think about super-short formats. And they need to remember that for moms, digital serves the purpose of making her life more efficient. So you have to think, what is the efficiency quotient of your ad or piece of content or offer?"
Another benefit of digital is that, unlike other media, it lives forever. There is real power in that longevity for creating trust and building engagement over time. Plus, brands can also use digital as a real-time litmus test for creative. A brand can now instantly take the temperature of how its audience reacts to a message and tweak it accordingly for print and TV.
Tip #2: Take the power of social media seriously
The increase in social media channels has spawned the most vocal brand advocate or brand detractor a marketer could have ever imagined: the mommy blogger. Experts say mommy bloggers are a very tightly knit community that remains as a trusted source of parenting and product information. Walmart is one of many brands that works with a stable of mommy bloggers as consultants, asking them for opinions on new products and campaigns.
"Social media allows you to continue the conversation; that's why Walmart also started heavily investing in Facebook about three years ago," says Tony Rogers, the retailer's SVP of Marketing. "The company now has 10 million fans. It's gone from a kind of hobby to becoming a real marketing vehicle. The advantage is being able to share product information with an audience that's open to it…and we can also have conversations with consumers and just listen to them."
Social media can also amplify the reach of great advertising campaigns. If the creative is good, it often gets shared among moms. The panelists cited Toyota's Swagger Wagon spots, featuring middle-aged moms rapping about their minivans, as a great example of a campaign that went viral because the humor appealed to digitally savvy moms.
Tip #3: Be authentic but not too real
The need to infuse authenticity into advertising isn't a new concept or one strictly reserved for the mom audience. But brands are finding that it's critical for connecting with women who just don't respond to the idealized Super Mom caricature anymore. In fact, a global study of moms by The Martin Agency revealed that the one common emotion moms around the world share is doubt.
"Moms say they doubt whether they're doing a good job, and they also doubt that they can say that out loud without being judged," says Wintsch. "One woman put it perfectly in a focus group in China: 'Being mother is swimming and learning how to swim at same time.' It's exactly how I feel most days."
Many beauty brands like Dove and Oil of Olay are taking this authenticity insight to heart, with campaigns focused on unmasking the truth behind the glossy images of yesteryear. However, Walmart's Rogers cautions against projecting too much "realness" in marketing, especially as it relates to the economy. Walmart has found that despite the struggle many families today are facing as they try to make ends meet, their research shows that Americans are surprisingly optimistic.
"It's instinctual to want to depict the struggle, but we want to be a part of the positivity in people's lives. Our approach is to go upbeat and focus on this sense of resiliency. I think as long as the underlying insight is real, the execution can be as inspirational as possible," says Rogers.
Tip #4: Remember that not all mothers are alike
Most marketers tend to lump moms into the same category. But as the demographics show, the mom category is changing dramatically. Babies born to Hispanic mothers now outnumber those born to other groups. Many women are now waiting longer to become mothers. Assuming one message will work across cultural groups or age groups is a mistake.
"In advertising, 'mom' typically equals a mother with a toddler or grade-school child," says Michal Clements, author of Tuning into Mom: Understanding America's Most Powerful Consumer. "But a mom is still a first-time mom at each stage of her child's life. Older moms say they would love to see advertising portray the relationship they have with their adult children."
Similarly, advertisers may need to rethink how they portray the nuclear family. After all, 41% of this year's babies now are born to unmarried women. Rogers again says that marketers don't need to focus on the struggles of the situation single parents face; just tweak the creative to reflect changing demographics.
"In the end, you are either a mom, or married to a mom, or have a mom. Talk to the moms in your life and get real insight on what their challenges are and what they like. No two mothers are alike, and getting to the core of women's attitudes and values is the key," says Wintsch.
For more on moms, check out the Yahoo! Connectonomics Study: What Women Want Online.
--- Dianne Molina
