Maternal Journal: Marketing to Moms

Does your marketing suffer from O.L. Syndrome?

2009-06-01T16:17:00.000-07:00

The other day, a friend told me about a sign she'd seen posted in a lampshade store. It read: "Don't Bring Your Shade -- Bring Your Lamp!"

How frustrating for the salespeople to see customer after customer coming through the door, toting their dusty, broken, misshapen, faded lampshades -- all in search of something better. Yet without the lamp, a customer can't "try on" the hundreds of new lampshades lined up on the shelves, each auditioning to be "the one."

So to all of you chuckling out there, let me ask you this: how many of you send your "old lampshades" to your ad agency?

Anyone, anyone?

I can't count how many times Maternal Instinct receives requests like this:

"Here's last year's brochure. It's okay. We want to update it and maybe add a paragraph about our new service."

This is an old lampshade.

So is this:

"Here's some copy we wrote for our website. Can you just spend an hour and make it better?"

So is this:

"Here's our most recent Web promotion that isn't getting great response. Can you make it zippier?"

All of these requests are symptoms of O.L. (Old Lampshade) Syndrome.

The cure is simple.

Give your ad agency your lamp. Allow them full access to your products, services, testimonials, complaints, team members. Let them steep in your brand. Then allow them the freedom to create the light and heat you pay them for. The very best work comes when clients bring an agency a challenge and say "solve this."

Those are my favorite two words in the English language.

Wet Blanket Award #2: Mott's

2009-05-28T11:33:00.000-07:00

The recipient of this month's uncoveted "Wet Blanket" award goes to Mott's for their mystifying new campaign for apple juice.

Marcia Cross is their new pitchwoman. Oddly enough, this celebrity mom is pictured not with her own adorable twin daughters, but with someone else's redhead kids. So that leaves us to imagine Ms. Cross in her other public personna: that of the gun-toting, OCD-suffering Bree Hodge from Desperate Housewives, hardly the association Mott's was going for. In advertising, using a spokesperson is called "borrowed interest," yet Mott's has failed to borrow the right kind of interest.

What's more: the ad offers a Wake-Up Call from Marcia Cross to anyone who signs up at Motts.com. Doing so requires a rather lengthy registration, including supplying your full birthdate, a password, and identifying your gender. Call me pessimistic, but this smacks of mom list-building, cloaked behind the stated mission of donating $1 per call to feeding America. What's even stranger is that you get to choose the time of your wake-up call, from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., supply the name and phone number of the person you want called, yet this recorded message will never identify you as the sender. So, for the $1 donation, Mott's gets to call your Aunt Sue, your dog walker, or your old college roommate -- possibly rousing them from sleep -- yet never letting on that they've got you to thank for this intrusion.

Don't get me wrong. I'm all for ending hunger. But this campaign feels off on so many levels and I suspect that moms everywhere -- whose "authenticity" radars are honed daily by the crafy ways of their very own icecream-seeking kids -- will call this for what it is: a rotten apple.

Warm Blanket Award #2: Maghound

2009-05-17T12:54:00.000-07:00

I used to work in the magazine business. Back in my New York life, I was a promotional copywriter at Cosmopolitan magazine and then at Sports Illustrated. I still remember the delicious sound I would hear every Friday when the mail cart would come cruising down the hallway on the 29th floor of the Time Life Building, filled to the brim with every new issue of the company's many magazines. This all-you-can-read buffet spoiled me for life.

Today, my addiction has not ceased and my household subscribes to 18 magazines:

Fortune, Forbes, Vanity Fair, Time, Sports Illustrated, Sports Illustrated for Kids, Oprah, Real Simple, Bon Appetit, Gourmet, Food & Wine, Family Circle, Parenting, Cookie, Better Homes & Gardens, More, Metropolitan Home, and Sunset.

So I certainly qualify as a "Maghound" -- the name of a new service from Time Inc. which is the recipient of this month's Warm Blanket Award.

Maghound defines itself as "a magazine lover's best friend." Here's how it works:

You order your magazine subscriptions online from this one centralized website. There are 292 magazines to choose from, including 33 titles that fall into the "Kids, Family and Teen" category. You pay via credit card and can change your subscription choices at any time -- even every month if you wish -- with a quick visit to the site.

I predict this company -- if it executes successfully -- could be a mother's best friend, too. Just think of it: one service that single-handedly solves the biggest problems with magazines today:

- The end of the incessant renewal notices that begin arriving immediately upon starting a subscription. (I call this behavior "The Boy Who Cried 'Last Issue!'") For moms who have gazillions of balls in the air, we resent any company that needlessly tugs on our sleeves, begging for attention.

- Flexibility to "grow" with your family's changing needs. Kids cycle in and out of magazine sweet spots quickly. Sports Illustrated for Kids learned that lesson and smartly launched Sports Illustrated for Teens. Likewise, moms can seamlessly segue from Pregnancy magazine to Parents to Family Fun.

- Pay one time via the Web. Need I say more?

- Accommodates seasonal reading. It's a well-known fact that cooking magazines see an enormous spike in newsstand sales in the Thanksgiving through New Year period. Moms can cycle in Bon Appetit in November, perhaps the only time of year when they're motivated to break out the good china and don an apron. When June rolls around and the kids are out of school, say hello to People, In Style, and other mind-candy beach reads. (This customization feature is also a brilliant maneuveur for the publishers, introducing new readers to new titles, without the commitment of a one-year subscription.)

My only hesitation about the service is that a true Maghound like myself can't use it yet. Because it can't "port" current magazine subscriptions over to Maghound, I have to wait until each of my subscriptions ends, ignoring the flurry of paper notices, and then adding that subscription to my Maghound rotation. But once every last issue of our 18 magazines has run out and been renewed via Maghound, I'm home free. I can't wait -- my tail is wagging already.

Good Housekeeping Goes Green

2009-05-07T15:44:00.000-07:00

1909. That was the year that Good Housekeeping launched its famous Seal of Approval, a telegraphically reassuring mark for mothers everywhere. Hard to imagine how many irons, vacuums, and coffeemakers have been purchased with confidence thanks to the promise of replacement or refund if the product proves defective.

Fast forward a century. Good Housekeeping just unveiled a new seal of approval to join its much older sister: the "Green" Seal of Approval. I credit the magazine for acknowledging the vast number of eco-conscious consumers desperate for some kind of standard to guide their pocketbooks. Yet my initial suspicion (and greatest hope) is that its usefulness won't endure as long as its predecessor. Here's why:

To be eligible for the green seal, a product must meet the criteria for the original seal of approval, plus another set of standards. The second "filter" measures product composition, manufacturing and packaging. It sounds like they will be scrutinizing not only how a product performs once you get it home, but how far it traveled from its manufacturing source to your doorstep, and how long its packaging will survive in a landfill. All good.

My hope is that standards like these, as well as government incentives, will raise the bar for all companies. In the short-term, I imagine the mark might give certain products an advantage in the marketplace, as well as motivate others to get on board. Yet 10, 20, 50 years from now, will there still be great gulfs dividing "green" products from non-green ones? Not like today, I predict.

Even now, many clients come to Maternal Instinct looking to reach "Green Moms." While there are certainly many online communities that fit the bill, I think more apt terminology would be to divide moms into two groups: green moms and uber-green moms. I have yet to meet a woman with an offspring who hopes to reside on this planet for the next 80 years or so, who didn't care deeply about the environment. Plus, this mother/child "green" connection goes both ways. Kids are being raised to be such aware eco-citizens that they regularly lobby at home for greener standards (I still get dirty looks from my 11-year old if my shower lasts more than a few minutes).

In closing, I hope that the Good Housekeeping Green Seal of Approval helps to put itself out of business. Reminds me a bit of an ad campaign that ran about 15 years ago. I can't remember which phone company sponsored it, but the headline is still crisp in my mind. "Someday you won't refer to it as your cell phone. It will just be your phone." This predictive line panned out. Hopefully one day products will just be "products" -- assumed to be green to even stay in the game --and Moms will once again just be "moms."

"Why, yes, I did cook this!"

2009-05-01T11:58:00.000-07:00

Trend spotting is not my forte. Yet there is one trend peaking now that I called a number of years ago. I distinctly remember speaking the following words to a colleague:

"Something big is coming. I'm not sure what it's going to be called, or who's going to own it, but it's all about shortcuts for mothers. Combining pre-made things with homemade things."

What it turns out to be called is Semi-Homemade and the person who coined it -- and owns it -- is Sandra Lee.

Just a few weeks ago, Sandra Lee launched her Semi-Homemade Magazine, the final jewel in the crown of her media empire which now includes a Food Network TV show, website, and a fleet of cookbooks.

Her value proposition to moms is spot-on and well-scripted:
"Everything follows my 70/30 rule. 70% store-bought, ready-made ingredients and 30% fresh ingredients which allow you to take 100% of the credit."

What mother wouldn't warm up to this promise? Remember the famous opening to the book I Don't Know How She Does It where the overwrought mom is molesting her perfect store-bought cake to make it appear fresh from her own kitchen for the school bake sale?

Everything Sandra Lee does lives up to her Three-A Test: it has to be Attainable, Approachable, and Affordable. She wisely side-stepped the Fourth A which makes Martha Stewart so polarizing: Arrogant. I'll never forget watching Martha sign-off her TV program, proudly holding up her spray-painted holiday pine cones, while cluelessly insulting 99% of her viewers with these words: "Put a basket of these pine cones next to ALL the fireplaces in your home."

So finally, between being a Slacker Mom and a Martha Mom, there's a middle ground we all can wrap our arms around.

Warm Blanket Award #1: Minute Rice

2009-04-16T13:18:00.000-07:00

On the heels of last week's inaugural feature of Maternal Instinct's Wet Blanket Award, we now highlight a company that markets masterfully to moms, with our first-ever Warm Blanket Award.

And the winner is...

Minute Rice.

This campaign has been running for over a year now and no-wonder why: it's a big idea with a simple premise that can be adapted for seasonality.

The copy writes itself, lifted from the endless to-do lists of moms everywhere: makes kids' lunches, call plumber about garbage disposal, get a haircut, spend 20 minutes on treadmill and so on. During the holidays, I noticed they adapted the copy to include items like untangle Christmas tree lights and sew costumes for holiday pageant. The only shot of color on the page is the box, the URL and the simple promise: We can help.

One of the things I love about this campaign is that the ad agency behind it (Barkley U.S. based out of Kansas City) managed to fly it up the flagpole at all. After years spent sitting in hundreds of concept presentations, I can only imagine the litany of comments a concept like this might inspire:

"Why is the box so small?"

"No one will read all that type."

"But you haven't told them about all the recipes we have online!"

"Shouldn't we tell them we make brown rice, too?"

The Minute Rice people either don't suffer from this myopia (a.k.a. kitchen-sink marketing), or they have stellar account people at Barkley to diffuse such criticism. Possibly both.

The reason this campaign succeeds is that it shows that in the course of a hectic day, one product which can be made in 60 seconds answers a daily need on the list: feed the family. And it does so by showing a keen understanding of women's real, everyday lives, pet hair and all.

Kudos, Minute Rice.

Wet Blanket Award #1: T-Mobile

2009-04-09T11:06:00.000-07:00

Welcome to a new feature of Maternal Journal. Every month we'll highlight one company whose marketing misses the mark of connecting with moms (according to our What's Your Blanket? litmus test).

So, the first-ever Wet Blanket Award goes to... (drumroll, please)

T-Mobile.

The ad copy reads as follows:

I Take My Family Everywhere I Run.

I hear from them at least once a mile. Luckily T-Mobile proved my signal strength, street by street, before I signed up. Which is important, if I get a crisis call about a missing binkie. When it comes to my coverage, T-Mobile works great.

This ad is a perfect example of a message that got 90% of it right, but ruined the whole thing with one oversight. I can see the creative brief in my mind, stating correctly that moms need to feel reachable by their families, especially when they are going to attempt something as luxuriously "selfish" as exercising. Yet needing to feel reachable, and being tethered to the family's every last need, are two separate things.

"I hear from them at least once a mile" opens the ad copy. You mean to tell me that the caretaker for these children cannot operate without mom's help for seven to ten minutes at a stretch? Dads everywhere should be insulted by this ad (I'm sure the super-capable guys at DadLabs would be stewing about it right now if they weren't too busy single-handedly running the PTA, driving the carpool, and coaching soccer).

She wants to take her family everywhere she runs: YES. But she does not want to hear from them unless there is a real emergency. Do not call these pesky interruptions "crisis calls." This is her coveted "me" time. T-Mobile has taken what could be a huge support for her in this way -- good coverage so she can forget about her family -- and ruined it by suggesting that it will turn her into Mom 911, 24/7, forced into thinking of them every 20 city blocks.

That's it for today. And lest you think Maternal Instinct only scans for the negative, we will also highlight success via the Warm Blanket Award (stay tuned: Award #1 is coming next week).

"Mom -- get off Facebook so I can get on!"

2009-02-20T10:07:00.000-08:00

There's a wickedly funny article in this week's Time magazine titled Why Facebook is For Old Fogies. Number 7 of the Top 10 Reasons reads:

We have children. There is very little that old people enjoy more than forcing others to pay attention to pictures of their children. Facebook is the most efficient engine ever devised for this.

So, despite the fact that Facebook was hatched with whipper-snappers in mind, it is the over 35 set growing like gangbusters (3.6 million and counting). Moms log in not only to showcase their latest Disneyland pics, but to look up old flames from high school, join alumni groups, connect with their book club, and so much more. This addictive tool turns your kitchen into the set of "This is Your Life."

Only problem is, once your kids reach 13, they want you off so they can get on. Then you've got a whole new host of worries, including whether or not your daughter will friend you -- or shun you. Not to worry, old fogies, Stanford University will come to your rescue with its new "Facebook for Parents" course.

And as if using Facebook weren't a big enough time-suck, try marketing on it. I'm convinced that advising my clients well about Facebook (and other social media) is a full-time job. The landscape is just changing so fast and there's so little in terms of proven best-practices. That's why I proudly admit that I can't keep up and that I rely on Maternal Instinct's secret weapon, the Guru of New (a.k.a. Sarah Browne) to direct us. After all, us old fogies need all the help we can get.

Amateur Hour.

2009-02-05T16:48:00.000-08:00

I just finished reading a fascinating business book titled "The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet Is Killing Our Culture."
Author Andrew Keen's premise is that the explosive user-generated content of Web 2.0 is taking an enormous toll on us. By leveling the playing field and allowing anyone to become an author/critic/reviewer, we lose the important distinction previously reserved for true experts. We don't know what information we can trust and we unwittingly starve journalists, musicians, and other artists of compensation for their work.

One industry Keen does not examine is childcare. Now that Craigslist and Mothers' Club postings allow moms and nannies to find one another, placement agencies like Stanford Park Nannies (a Maternal Instinct client) and others are struggling to stay afloat.

Somehow using the Internet "validates" the nanny search for moms. Yet, just as Keen explains, the technology doesn't authenticate the information it delivers (or in this case, the candidate it describes). Agencies like Stanford Park Nannies spend countless hours meeting face to face with nanny candidates, checking their references, and determining that elusive thing called chemistry between families and childcare providers. It's a tough gig. And it cannot be "outsourced" by a free online bulletin board without consequences. It might be something small like a less-than-perfect fit or a trend for tardiness. Or it might be something bigger like an undisclosed DUI.

When it comes to caring for kids, the cult of the amateur can have consequences far worse than a disappointing meal at a well-reviewed restaurant. This is one industry that must be left to the experts.

Say What?

2009-01-13T16:01:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I called the dermatologist to set-up an appointment for my 10-year old son to have his moles checked. My red-haired, blue-eyed California boy is a prime candidate for melanoma, especially since his grandfather and I have both survived one.

The receptionist kept offering me morning appointments that would require plucking him out of school. I persisted in my request for an afternoon appointment.

"Late afternoon appointments are reserved for patients coming in for laser and botox," she cooly replied.

"Excuse me?!" I asked incredulously.

She repeated the policy.

So the convenience of working folks in search of vanity treatments trumps those of freckle-faced fifth graders who don't want to miss spelling tests.

In this situation, I was a mom on the phone. Yet I'm always a marketer at heart. At my company, Maternal Instinct, we believe that how a company treats mothers -- and anticipates their needs -- is the single greatest determining factor in their success with this market. (We call it the "What's Your Blanket?" phenomenon.)

Dr. K's office either doesn't know, or doesn't care. They may be in the business of erasing lines from foreheads, but they sure put one on mine.

There go the hand-me downs.

2009-01-09T12:05:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, the Consumer Product Safety Commission issued a press release about a new law about to take effect. Mark your calendars, Moms: starting February 1, children's clothes and toys can't be sold if they contain lead in more than 600 ppm (parts per million). (Oddly enough, just two months later, the acceptable amount drops to 300 parts per million.)

At first glance, moms everywhere will high-five this legislation. The mere utterance of the word "lead" makes mothers recoil in skull-and-crossbone horror. Lead is such a household boogeyman that living rooms get repainted before they get furnished in homes with small kids.

But scroll down in the CPSC press release and this paragraph will stop any mom in her tracks:

...resellers cannot sell children's products that exceed the lead limit and
therefore should avoid products that are likely to have lead content, unless they have testing or other information to indicate the products being sold have less than the new limit. Those resellers that do sell products in violation of the new limits could face civil and/or criminal penalties.

What this means is that mothers' club postings, eBay sales, Zwaggle, consignment shops and countless other second-hand resources are now suspect. In short, little brother can't get used togs because Mom's being watched by Big Brother.

What will happen? How will the government enforce this? Can we envision a day when the unsuspecting "mom" who shows up to buy your 3T ski bibs flashes a badge and slaps you (and your leaden pants) with a fine?