New report: The Big Mum Opinion

2013 was a significant year for MumPanel. We decided to undertake one of the biggest, indepth research projects into mums in the UK.

We set some tricky targets – speak to 3000 mums, gather a real understanding of where mums will be in 2014 – what they want, what they need, what brands are getting right and where companies need to work a little harder to make the right connections with families.  And finally ensure we spoke to all kinds of mums, not just online but in the community and at the school gate.

And the result of our work is The Big Mum Opinion – where you can find information on mums usage of social media, mums' trusted sources of influence, consumer engagement points, brand loyalty, and the impact of children on mums’ purchasing decisions, plus much more.

But most importantly it reveals how you can really connect with mums and capture that market. 

Here are our top five tips…

1. Give mums honesty, realness and transparency from product through to

communications. Know your values and be ready to evidence them.

        

2. Be genuine. Deliver products and services that really make a difference. That way you'll build trust and mums will genuinely recommend you through their own natural word of mouth channels.

3. Be there for mums as a trusted resource. But don't try to be a false best friend.

4. Offers. 88% of mums tell their friends and family about offers and 81% actively seek out offers. Why not get the mums to be the ones to share and hand out their offers with others.

5. Mums don't want to feel stereotyped.  33% felt labelled or patronised. Look at mums' real decision-making and purchasing journeys. Identify and map out key touchpoints, patterns and reasons for differing decisions. Focus on the mum

perspective and you will reach and connect with them better.

You can sign up for the full report (and find an info graphic) on the MumPanel website. 

Mum Insights for 2013

Mums in 2013

As we’re in the last few weeks of 2012 we know many of you will already be thinking about marketing and research projects for 2013. We thought we’d round up what we’ve learnt about mums in 2012 and let you know what we think brands should be thinking about when it comes to mums in 2013. 

2013 – The Year of the Mum

With a royal baby due this summer you can guarantee pregnancy and mums will be front and centre in the media.  It’s an opportunity for brands to connect with pregnant mums to be and new mums, bearing in mind that the average mum might be interested in the royal babe but is likely to be having a somewhat different experience!

Mums are all the same, and completely different

Which brings us to point two to consider for 2013. We all know mums have common experiences (in that we all have children – nope we don’t even all give birth, some adopt) but that’s often where the similarities begin and end. You can take two mums who appear similar on the surface but when you scratch the surface and start to ask the right questions you soon realise how different they are – from their parenting philosophies, to how and where they shop to how they interact with technology.  We’d like less identification of mums as ‘single’ or ‘ABC1’ and the judgements that go with those labels and more identification of common touch points and differences which uncover insights that can change brands for the better.

The way to do this is by asking the right questions and really listening to the replies (and reading between the lines a fair bit).  Which brings us to our next insight nugget…

Don’t forget about dads…and grandparents…

There was a fair bit of backlash against this year’s Asda Christmas advert, depicting an overwrought mum who does it all.  And while we know mums often bear much of the organisational work for the festive season we felt the Asda advert failed because it was a negative depiction. We could relate to some parts of it but most mums we spoke to said it wasn’t how they felt about things overall.  We know there was a considerable amount of research used to back up the advert but we wonder if the researchers were really listening to what mums were saying (and identifying trends as we would) or asking questions that provoked a negative response.  

The ad reinforced the stereotypical roles for both mum and dad of the 1970s rather than 2012, portraying mum as being washed out, running around doing everything, even relegated to the pouffe at the dinner table. And yes today’s mum is still running around today but is a heck of a lot more empowered and having fun while dads take on more hands on role with cooking and the kids. 

What we know for sure is that dads (and kids and grandparents and aunties and cousins and friends) all influence a mum’s decision-making process and so we shouldn’t forget that when we develop products, services and communications targeted at mums.  So if 2013 is the year you really want to connect with mums then what’s the best platform to do it on? 

The rise of technology

2013 has been the year of technology for mums – the use of smartphones for researching products, reading reviews, connecting with friends and social networking continues to grow. 

Recently more brands have started to introduce apps to making shopping on the go easier for mums (and if you want an easy win with mums then start by creating things that make their life easier). 

Smartphones and apps work for mums because they fit into our busy life – we can order our shopping while sitting at our child’s swimming class or keep our child occupied with a phonics app while waiting for food in a restaurant.  But there is a but. We’ve seen some statistics touted around this year that make it seem as if all mums on are facebook and own smartphones (or are using them in a way a brand could make use of) and in our experience of thousands of mums this just isn’t the case.  Yes in 2013 you should be making use of technology to connect with mums but don’t forget where they were last year (and will continue to be), the school playground, the workplace, the gym, playing in the park or sat in a coffee shop with friends. 

Here’s to a successful 2013 for all our mums and every brand that wants to help them!

If you want to know more about how we identify insights and trends with mums then drop us a line. 

Food labelling and checkout sweeties – our mums have their say

The Government has announced it is going to introduce a voluntary traffic light labelling system for foods in supermarkets to help people make healthier food choices.  An Asda representative was interviewed on Radio 4 about the scheme and was taken to task over their 'guilty' checkouts (filled with sweet and treats).

We wanted to know from our MumPanel how much notice they take of food labelling and whether a traffic light system would help them make healthier food choices for their family? And we wanted to know their views on sweets and treats at the checkout…

Food labelling…

Insight snippets

•  Mums like the idea because it might save them time instead of having to scan the back of packets.

• Food labelling doesn’t stop them purchasing if they have already planned to buy a particular product.

• Mums would like to see more nutritional information for babies and children on packaging, parents often refer to back of packs when buying for children.

• A standardised system would be best – mums don’t have time to stop and figure things out in a supermarket.

"I like the traffic light system on foods as they help me make a healthier choice. I think they're especially helpful on ready meals which I ate a lot of when OH went back to work from paternity leave as they were easier when baby would be crying, which always seemed to be when I started to make food. I try to eat healthy more for my baby breastfeeding than for myself."

"A standardised traffic light system is a great idea. Quite a few foods do have them already however like a lot of people have been saying it can be confusing as different brands and different supermarkets present their sytems in different ways. Sometimes per portion, half portion, pack, 100g. Who really has time in the supermarket shop to try and work out each individual items nutritional value? I know i don't with my two kids! Standardising it will make everyone’s life easier and clearer, especially for people lacking in time and those who struggle with English too. I believe it'll also be a great incentive to get kids more involved with healthy choices, seeing if they can pick out the 'green' items etc"

Sweets at checkouts…

Insight snippets

• Most mums would prefer not to see sweets at checkouts – too tempting for adults and children.

• Most parents see that it’s their responsibility to say no but it can be hard, especially if your child gets upset (and no one wants to deal with that in the supermarket!) – this is just one reason mums are turning to online shopping.

"I hate sweets at checkouts, I'm happy for my children to have a balanced diet including sweets but having them at the checkout makes them too prominent and tempting for children and puts you in a position where it is hard to say no!"

"It doesn't bother me if there are sweets next to the checkout. I just say no to my daughter, sometimes she has a paddy about it but I would rather she did that than end up overweight and with rotten teeth."

If you'd like to pose a question to the 6,000 mums on our MumPanel then drop us a line for more information. 

                                                      

You only know what you know

If you want to target mums, you need to understand what they want. To understand what they want you need to ask questions. Sounds obvious doesn’t it? But getting to the RIGHT questions can be a trickier process.  If you don’t ask the right questions then you never get the answers you need to truly connect with mums.

When we’re developing questions and doing insight work at MumPanel we use the mantra ‘you only know what you know’. We know questions are just as important as responses and the best insights come from the questions you might not have asked or didn’t think you should ask.  As mums we have a bit of a shortcut – there are things we understand because we have experienced them. Recently Asda trialled a new shopping trolley. Their existing trolleys (along with most supermarkets) were difficult to see over and control once you put a car seat on the top. This might seem an insignificant issue but the small changes they have made can boost brand loyalty (I’ll choose that supermarket because they accommodate my needs) and increase sales (I can see what I want and I’m less stressed so I’ll spend longer in the supermarket). What is important is that someone in their research team asked the right question – they thought to ask about trolleys and then to dig deeper and understand what the real issue was.

One of our big bugbears as mums is cordial fruit juice. Most of the products on the market are sugar free. We know at some point brands must have asked mums what they wanted and of course, they don’t want drinks full of sugar that rot their children’s teeth. So that market has become all about ‘NO ADDED SUGAR’ drinks. But what we’re hearing from mums is that they’d rather have natural sugar fruit juices or other alternatives over aspartame-filled drinks.  There’s been a missed opportunity to take the research full circle instead of using a linear approach that stopped at the first response.

Last week we were chatting with Julie from Child Seat Safety, they train retailers to fit car seats correctly, accrediting them to a scheme endorsed by Which? What came out of our conversation was that stores often focus on the quality of the product and forget to ask questions that really matter – is that car seat right for their car, their needs, and their child. This is partly because retailers haven’t been trained to ask the right kind of questions. Because safety is such a hot topic, it’s vital we identify the questions that NEED to be asked so that brands and retailers get it right.

Questions are ignored, we all so busy rushing to the response and it’s about time we put the brakes on. If you want to really start to understand mums then it’s time to start digging deeper, get involved in their day to day journey and have your ears open for when they drop those little nuggets of insight that can revolutise your brand. 

If you’d like more information on asking mums the right questions then drop us a line.