Here's a quiz that might surprise even the most seasoned mom marketer.

How much likelier is it that a woman without a child works than a woman with a child over age 1?

20% likelier?

30% likelier?

50% likelier?

How about not at all likelier! I myself was shocked to learn from the US Census Bureau statistics that 72% of women with a child over the age of 1 work: the very same rate as women without children in the home.

Now I confess that the reason I was searching out these statistics was a nagging feeling that working moms were becoming more commonplace. I just hadn't realized how much things were changing. In 1976, only 39% of women with children over the age of 1 held a job outside the home.

What lead to my hunch that SAHM were becoming less common? A lot of different things, ranging from:

1). Websites sprouting up like HireMyMom.com and momcorps.com.

2). A flood of books garnering headlines, ranging from the provocative Get to Work: A Manifesto for Women of the World, to the hopeful Getting to 50/50, to the thought-provoking Mama PhD, to the insightful Mothers on the Fast Track.

3). A recent Talk of the Nation segment about the explosion of online education, perhaps the most family-friendly on-ramp for women seeking to brush up their skills and return to the workforce.

So women are juggling motherhood and career more than ever. Which means that the What's Your Blanket? philosophy of Maternal Instinct is more relevant than ever.

What are you doing to care for the caretaker? How might you alter your message or your product to make it even more appealing to a mom in the workforce? If you were to look at your company's depiction of moms -- in both photography and copy -- might it reflect an outdated notion? Really get granular in your assessment. Are you timing your email or twitter blasts to coincide with a working mom's rhythms? Are you putting mobile marketing to work?

If not, then by all means: get to work.

Labels: US Census Bureau, Working Mothers

Please leave your thoughts and opinions in the comments section below, even if -- no, especially if -- you don't agree with what I've written.

AYSO (American Youth Soccer Organization) is jokingly referred to by parents as "All Your Saturdays Occupied." You can't go anywhere around Palo Alto (my hometown) without seeing countless kids in neon jerseys and matching socks, either en route to a game or headed home.

The time demand on families is considerable. There's the official stuff like practices and games and volunteer refereeing and coaching. And the less official tasks of snack assignments, banner set-up, ball transport, locating two matching cleats on game day, etc., etc. But it's your kids. And it's soccer. So you cheer from the sidelines and you might even alter your family laundry day to work with the schedule.

Yet AYSO receives this month's uncoveted Wet Blanket Award for the dreaded Picture Day. Every year, one poor parent (last year it was yours truly) accepts the unhappy task of trying to schedule their team's slot for team pictures. Ideally you want it to be about an hour before a game when kids are already suited up in their uniforms, but not yet sweaty. Your likelihood for getting this time slot is about equal to finding those Publisher's Clearinghouse folks on your doorstep.

So you email your team, telling them of the highly inconvenient time slot you've been assigned, and every family groans and moans.

Then 12 players waste time getting into their uniform and 12 parents waste time (and gas!) driving to the Photo Day location. According to the AYSO website, there are 6,000,000 (yes, that's SIX MILLION) registered players. Imagine the mind-boggling time- and energy-suck every single one of them suffers, thanks to Picture Day.

Here's the clincher: all these families have phones with cameras and likely have digital cameras at home. A google search for "online photo sharing" yields 46 million results. We live in an age where getting a good shot of a team is monkey simple and can be done right before the game, right at the field, with everyone's photos available to them THAT VERY DAY.

Won't someone please blow the whistle on this insanity?

Labels: AYSO, Digital Photography, Family Time, Marketing to Moms

Please leave your thoughts and opinions in the comments section below, even if -- no, especially if -- you don't agree with what I've written.

Big news in the blogosphere. The Federal Trade Commission is considering adapting its guidelines to require bloggers to identify their sponsors. There's a worthwhile article arguing both sides of the issue in last week's U.S. News Weekly.

Essentially the folks in support of FTC watchdogs argue three things:

1). Social media creates new forms of public communication that didn't exist a decade ago and that, unlike other forms of advertising, let marketers advertise covertly.

2). Word-of-mouth advertising is only effective if it's authentic and that consumers deserve to know the motivation behind an endorsement.

3). Self-regulation and policing are not viable solutions.

On the other side of the fence, folks against FTC regulations argue:

1). The industry-standard guidelines provided since 2005 by the Word of Mouth Marketing Association for ethical online disclosure and transparency are adequate.

2). Bloggers who deceive online readers are already subject to the worst punishment of all: online vilification of their brands that spreads like wildfire.

3). Voluntary relationship disclosure will make legal restrictions unnecessary in the future.

Who is right?

Personally, I lean in favor of the new regulations. This is an unpopular position for someone in the ad business, I realize. Yet the personal nature of blogs insinuate an authenticity that doesn't always exist.

To put it another way, ads look like ads, by virtue of their placement in mainstream media, slick production, recognizable spokespeople, stated call-to-action, etc. Blogs are a different animal entirely, already dipping below the radar of consumers by their first-person voice and anecdotal style. Bloggers and copywriters both use words to describe products or services. Both get paid to do so (at least the bloggers relevant to this issue). Why should the blogger be able to pocket money for an endorsement without disclosing the arrangement?

Let me be clear about one final point.

I don't think these disclosures will kill the phenomenal WOM enjoyed by many brands via their relationships with bloggers.

Rather, I think the really talented bloggers -- those who earn the trust of their readers through well-crafted postings and a demonstration of care for one's followers -- will continue to help build brands they endorse.

That's my opinion. What's yours?

Labels: Blogging regulations, Email marketing to moms, FTC, Mom Bloggers, WOMA

Please leave your thoughts and opinions in the comments section below, even if -- no, especially if -- you don't agree with what I've written.

Proof positive that a product doesn’t need to be sexy and a concept doesn’t need to be wildly creative to be successful.

Hats off to the folks at Kellogg’s who appear to be responsible for their own new TV campaign for Nutrigrain Bars.



Things to love about this campaign:

1). It’s simple

2). It’s contextual

3). We don’t see the person so we become the person

4). It has a simple, believable takeaway

5). It has legs. If I had the Marketing Director's ear, here's what I'd tell her:

"Create another spot aimed at moms with the 'snack-cam' following a kid from the donuts at soccer practice to the video game on the couch to the chauffeured roundtrip to school. The 'after' segment will feature a bike commute to school, fruit and Nutrigrain bars after practice, a game of good old-fashioned basketball with Dad in the driveway, maybe even, dare I say it, flossing..."

Labels: Great TV spots, Kellogg's, Marketing to Moms, Nutrigrain

Please leave your thoughts and opinions in the comments section below, even if -- no, especially if -- you don't agree with what I've written.