Digital CPG Blog

A few predictions from MediaPost:

I completely concur with these predictions. What do you think? Is your relationship with mom bloggers changing?

If the brand creates the right experience around the product, it will have the beginnings of a great relationship with mom. Here’s the top 3 CPG brands that understand moms:

1. Johnson and Johnson

For 125 years, Johnson & Johnson has made products that moms trust. But how does it keep itself relevant with today’s mom? It understands that you don’t have to fill your brand messages with content about the brand in order to connect with today’s social mom. Providing a service as it has with these two tools will create a long-term relationship. Its free Text4baby mobile app delivers on-the-go health information for new mothers and the first year of baby’s life. The text messages are timed to the baby’s birth date so the information is always pertinent and right at her fingertips. And for the mom who is a blogger and wants to showcase her favorite charity, J&J has created a simple to use widget that allows her to show her support of multiple non-profit organizations.

2. Gerber

Aren’t we all Gerber babies? Since first launched in 1928, the Gerber baby has been an iconic symbol for healthy babies. To keep up with this generation of babies and their moms, the brand has created numerous mobile apps from the birth app to track sleep, feeding and even a mobile scrapbook to a pregnancy calendar app to track your weight and record appointments. Long known for care and nutrition, Gerber’s Start Healthy, Stay Healthy app is filled with tips, quizzes and information for keeping baby healthy. Gerber really understands moms hunger for content and information, especially when it comes to raising a healthy and happy baby.

3. Kraft Foods

Kraft Foods has so many wonderful applications and tools to offer moms. Who wouldn’t love the My Recipe Box, where the recipes you choose can be exported out into a shopping list and it’s organized by category? A fabulous companion piece to the recipes is its YouTube Cooking School for those who like a tutorial. Kraft is getting very creative by listening to the moms and the Twitter chatter to identify trends and ideas for new products and recently launched a social plug-in called Smiletagging for bookmarking sites that make you smile. It understands moms love a few smiles and a bit of humor to brighten the every day.

“From Procter & Gamble to AT&T and Pandora, firms are taking notice that mothers, newly armed with smartphones, are becoming a new kind of shopping force online,” reports The Washington Post. “A decade ago, these women were single and childless 18- to 34-year-olds who captured the hearts of Madison Avenue marketing executives with their voracious consumer appetites. Now, they are older and often in charge of the household wallet.”

Between business meetings, in carpool lines and at sports practices, moms are spending downtime on smartphones to update the family calendar, buy soccer cleats, research cheap flights and fit in a few rounds of Angry Birds.

Nielsen calls these women“power moms.” They represent one in five online users — a proportion that is growing quickly — and some research shows they are an even greater force on mobile devices.

The number of moms with smartphones is about equal to men of the same age, but they are adopting the technology at a faster pace. The number of moms who purchased iPhones grew 132?percent in the first quarter of 2011 compared with the same time last year — outpacing men, who rose by 121?percent, according to NPD. Overall, adult purchases of the smartphone grew 117?percent.

“Early adopters are no longer young people and men,” said Candace Corlett, president of marketing consulting group WSL Strategic Retail in New York. “What the smartphone does is allow women who are hungry for information to get what they want from the Internet instead of calling up a sister or friend for advice.”

I especially love the last point. Too often we think of technology being dominated by men. Well, moms are hip too! How is your marketing strategy reaching mobile wallets?

Photo Credit: Lululemon.

Online video continues to explode, and guess who has lit the fire? Women aged 25-44 are a major force behind the rapid adoption, according to Nielsen who worked with TODAYshow.com to “delve into the motivations and mindsets driving women’s video consumption.

Four key themes stood out:

• Streaming among women is governed in large part by life stage and daily to-do lists, rather than age or employment status.
• Digital mindsets change over the course of the day and vary according to time, mood, location and “available mindshare.”
• The value of video as “social currency” is on the rise, leading some women to largely favor links suggested by friends.
• Emotional triggers impact viewing, specifically the types of content consumed.

So if you’re looking for a cutting-edge campaign to connect with your target demographic of women, consider perhaps, creating online video content. It could be a relevant series to your brand, or even a commercial, since online advertising is often seen as entertainment itself.

Mom Central recently released the results on a fabulous study on how moms find, use and share coupons. Here’s what they found:

1. The Offer Matters Most. “Moms are most likely to purchase an item they generally wouldn’t if offered a coupon that saves them more than 50%. Moms find these discounts more valuable than other offers including “buy one, get one,” instant coupons attached to products, and bulk discounts (i.e., saving by purchasing more than three items at once).”

2. Moms Clip & Go Online. Though many still prefer clipping coupons (72%), marketers should diversify offers, as 70% of Moms find coupons online and 73% subscribe to couponing emails or newsletters.

3. Moms are Loyal. 82% of moms reported brand loyalty to certain items, citing the perceived quality (71%) and value (51%) of the brand for its price as their primary reasons, and wouldn’t switch to a couponed product in these cases.

4. Social Media Drives Conversion. “Influencer marketing drives awareness. 52% of Moms say they use social media to find discounts and 45% read couponing blogs. Tapping into these communities gives coupons added exposure to support long-term conversion and brand awareness.”