Little Girl to her friend: "I'm never having kids. I hear they take nine months to download."
In my book, there is nothing more annoying than those washing detergent commercials. They always show a confused woman whose biggest life problem is a stain on her white shirt. Even worse, some of them feature a MAN. The MAN isn’t there to wash the laundry; he is there to explain to that poor woman which product is the best for her household (sort of like a theoretical support to the practitioner in the trenches).
In cases like this, the practice is mostly left to women. There is still a wide belief that most men do not posses the much needed talent when it comes to things like personal hygiene, cooking, or childcare. So, marketers and PR people target the women when promoting the related products. And to some extent, this does make some sense, I must admit.
But nowadays, thanks to progress and technology, women do not listen to the almighty MAN from the commercial. They listen to each other, or more specifically the more influential among them, the Mom-fluentials. They are the new opinion leaders women turn to when they want to discuss extremely important stuff like nappies or shampoos. (For those of you who resent my sarcasm, let me just remind you that there are millions of children dying of hunger each year).
At Burson-Marsteller they claim they have managed to identify 502 of women with children under 17 who are using the latest online and offline technologies to share their opinions about products and services, and influence the purchase habits of their friends and family. Nine out of ten of those women are often approached by people for advice about brands, products and services.
Burson-Marsteller offers clients help in communicating with this “Mom community”. Reading about this was kind of a wow moment for me personally! There is a Mom community out there? Apparently by giving birth you are initiated into this community and you gain valuable knowledge and respect through which you can potentially exert the influence no childless woman can dare dream of.
To sum things up – we have Dads who are divided into numerous groups by age, income, education, cultural background, etc., and we have Moms. Moms either have two full time jobs and very little time for MySpace (or MyTime in general, for that mater), or they have only one job and plenty of time to read retailer e-mails and forward coupons. In the old days the second group was called housewives; nowadays they are called Mom-fluentials.
Even though I have no idea how they've managed to determine those 502 Mom-fluentials or what motherhood has to do with the influence, if I ever have kids I’m not going to be just a regular booger wiper, I’m going to be a Mom-fluential. With the nappy in one hand and keyboard in the other. And even if I don’t influence my own kid in a positive way, I will influence strangers online and all those PR and marketing people will bow to my Motherhood.
As for Burson-Marsteller, by coining this catchy new word they have secured extensive media coverage and some new clients, no doubt.
To learn about Mom-fluentials look at this slideshow by Idil Cakim, Director of Knowledge Development at Burson-Marsteller:
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2 comments:
Jelena
It is a very interesting topic!!! I believe that some time in the future i will be in their position. After reading your post i searched into the internet to find more information about Mom-fluentials. "Mom-fluentials," is a targeted group of women with children who use the latest technologies to share feedback about a product, brand or service have powerful influences over the purchases their families, friends and colleagues.
In general they use a number of online and offline channels to express their opinion about products they purchase.
Blogs and podcasts have enormous potential to reach and influence these moms about products and services according to a survey conducted by Burson-Marsteller in partnership with Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates.Most Mom-fluentials (94 percent) believe the information they read on blogs is credible. Nearly half (49 percent) of Mom-fluentials have listened to a podcast, and seven in 10 (68 percent) are interested in creating their own podcast for personal interest topics. More significant to marketers, Mom-fluentials continue the conversation offline. Nearly 93 percent report they have in-person discussions about products, brands and services they use with friends and family members.
You can find more information in this URL:http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/507352/new_survey_reveals_momfluentials_have_significant_retail_purchase_power/
As Giota stated, this is a very interesting topic especially coming from a female perspective. I have always known how the women’s voice was a powerful tool, but I never thought that other people would take this notion and sell it. I shouldn’t be surprised, once something becomes a commodity it turns into $$. It seems that these ‘Mom-fluentials’ could be quite the public in the right PR sphere. I wonder if these publics are a source that professionals are tapping into. After discussions on Thursday’s class regarding how PR professionals seems to ignore the influence of forums, it seems that with a public like ‘Mom-fluentials’ how could they not. Giota reveals an interesting point, while women might use the Internet to learn and express their views it is the ‘offline’ conversations that have great influence. This makes a lot of sense for me. We cannot escape the fact that women like to talk and when there is something interesting to discuss that is exactly what we will do. The 'Mom-fluential', a great resource for the PR environment to explore.
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