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Recently in Salon Mothers Who Think

Shrinks and con men
An unholy alliance of psychologists and advertisers targets kiddie consumers.
By Arthur Allen
[02/28/00]

The series: An introduction
We ponder the family as a marketing bonanza.
By Jennifer Foote Sweeney
[02/28/00]

The swimsuit issue is here!
Wimpy, artsy, dishonest porn delivered to your door -- now in 3D!
By Lee Quarnstrom
[02/25/00]

A ghetto mom talks back
The New York Times says inner-city youth need "middle-class" parenting. But it's poverty, not bad child-rearing, that holds poor kids back.
By Caroline Ruhle
[02/25/00]

Damaged goods
The parents of a murderer sue adoption workers, claiming they should have been told about the boy's mentally ill birth mother.
By Beth Broeker
[02/24/00]

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Fedewa: There's the '80s supermom, "She can do it all." It's waned a little in recent years, but if you look closely, you'll still see some of that. Another one is the whole super exaggeration of some tiny little problem in people's lives, making it seem like mothers are just obsessed with this thing. Another one is like, "Just serve our food and you will have family harmony!"

What are the new ways you're targeting moms now?

Fedewa: So often the target is only defined as moms aged 18 to 49. Sometimes the company will want working moms and non-working moms, but that's usually about as refined as it gets. So what we really try to do is to present moms 18 to 49 as a really diverse group of people with some really interesting challenges and needs and insights into their lives. Let's break that down and start to understand what's really in there and let's start to address the different kinds of mothers that there are.

How do you do your research?

Fedewa: One of the things we often do on our projects is what we call a pop culture audit: How are moms being portrayed in the media? What are the movie images of women? What's happening on the talk shows? How are they being portrayed in magazines? We also looked at all the ads and frankly [ads that target mothers] is a very dismal category in advertising.

We don't do focus groups. We don't believe in them because we think when we put a bunch of people in a room, they're going to lie. They're going to tell you what's socially responsible to say, like, "Of course I only let my child eat apples after school."

We do what we call "girlfriend groups." We ask a woman to invite four or five other women to her home -- their environment. We've just found that people are a lot more honest and they keep each other honest. If someone tries to tell that apple story, their friend will go, "Oh I've seen your snack cupboard. Give me a break!" We feel we get much better information this way.

You mentioned that advertising to women has been dismal. How and why did that happen?

Fedewa: How and why it happened is probably due to two big things: On the one hand it's probably a little bit of laziness and complacency. People in the industry get it in their head "Oh yeah, I've done moms before, this is what they're like, this is my picture." They don't bother to update when that picture might have changed.

The second one is a trend that I find a little disturbing: In some respects, people have become too scientific about it [advertising] and too dependent on research to make all their decisions. If you depend on research to vote on what's the best idea, often what happens is the safest, most generic [approaches] are going to win because they're safe and comfortable for consumers to deal with. I think you end up with a product that's sort of general and sterilized so as to appeal to the widest branch of people.

If you don't stop and rethink those images, it follows that eventually people -- the intended audience -- will stop buying the product.

Fedewa: Yes. The more your brand gets distanced from making itself relevant to real people's lives, the less acceptable it's going to be, absolutely.

Jeanie Caggiano: The product has to be seen to solve a problem. People want answers to their problems and, hopefully, these products can help them solve problems.

But it's always about getting people to buy something.

Fedewa: Absolutely. It makes dollars and sense.

What are the four different kinds of moms you've defined?

Fedewa: Well, we found there were four distinct groups, roughly equal in size, all around 24, 25 percent.

We start with the most traditional group, which is "June Cleaver: The Sequel." These women have the most traditional gender roles in terms of their jobs in the family and so on. But we say "The Sequel" because, well, you see so much about people wanting to go back to the '50s lifestyle and you just can't do it, you know? It's not the '50s. It's 2000 and the circumstances are very different.

How does it look different?

Fedewa: Well, these are women who very much believe that mothers of young children should not work; but about 50 percent of these women are working -- a lot part time. That's the whole sequel thing: It's different times and now mothers are working, even the ones who believe you shouldn't work if you have small children.

They also feel that their need for self-actualization is fulfilled in motherhood. They feel that the fathers of their children are very involved but in an interesting way: He comes home from work and he plays with the kids, he does activities with the kids on the weekends. But this is not a father who's staying home with a sick child, running the car pool, that kind of thing. And she's OK with that because in her mind, that's her job. His job is to make money; her job is to do all that kid stuff.

These are women who tend to skew to be Caucasian and pretty high income. They're very highly educated. Almost all of them are college educated.

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