What wins on the school run - style or practicality?

I think we can officially say that autumn is here. I’m pretty sure it is because I’ve got soaked on the school run every day for the last week. And as all our team are mums we’ve been sharing insight about what trends we’ve spotted in the playground. We also asked our MumPanel what they wear for the school run and whether style or practicality wins.

Lynne, our MD, was the first to spot that Hunter Wellies have made the transition from festival favourite to playground staple (check out this fab purple pair from Out of the City). Some of our mums told us that while their school run outfit needs to be practical they also don’t want to leave all sense of style behind.

But because MumPanel mums are so diverse we knew fashion wouldn’t be the whole story. Many of our mums our budget conscious, with them telling us fashion doesn’t come into the school run and they wouldn’t fork out for an expensive pair of wellies for themselves as they need to kit out their kids.  They also want value (and that doesn’t always mean the cheapest option ) – it’s worth remembering that mums will pay more for something if they know it will last.

What did become apparent from talking to our mums is that they want things that make their life easier – whether that’s wellies that fit around our less than slimline calves or boots that easily pull on so you don’t have to wrestle with shoes and kids. This is where opinion pods (our focus groups) can prove helpful when you are developing new products – we listen to what mums are saying and the tiniest insight can unlock a potentially life changing product.

If you’d like to know more about targeting and connecting with mums then contact us.

Car seats – combining safety with sales

If you want to sell more effectively to mums (and dads) then you need to identify what it is they want. And that’s not as simple as having the right products on the shelf, especially when those products are going to be used for transporting our precious children around.

A few weeks ago we got into a discussion with some mums about car seats. We were talking about the growing interest in rear-facing car seats. What we noticed is that there is some expert information available but there is also lots of mum opinion and experience out there. We love mum opinion, their honest reviews and insight can create product revolutions, help mums in similar situations and cut through marketing hype. But sometimes it’s important that mum opinion sits alongside expert opinion so that parents get the information they need to keep their children safe.

 











Car seats is one area where this is absolutely vital. Asking other mums what car seat they have got is great, but not if it’s the wrong seat for your car or you choose something and then have it fitted incorrectly by a retailer.  

There’s information that we need to get out to both retailers and parents before they make choices about car seats.  If you are a car seat manufacturer or retailer then giving this information puts you ahead of the pack, it means you care about more than the sale and that concern creates brand loyalty.

It’s also important we start to dispel some of the myths around car seats and create a culture where parents are informed and aren’t scared when they come across information on parenting websites or in the papers.

So how could you engage parents and find ways to communicate information about car seats that can help them buy the right seat, stay safe and become loyal customers?

Julie from Child Seat Safety wants to get some basic information across to parents before they buy:

1. 8 out of 10 car seats aren’t fitted correctly. It sounds like a scary statistic but it’s easily preventable if retailers are trained in fitting and communicate this service clearly to parents.
2. Not every car seat fits every car. Retailers and manufacturers could consider focussing less on the features of the seat and more on asking parents what car they have/whether they move it between cars.
3. Keeping children and passengers safe takes more than fastening straps. Do you think parents know that unrestrained car seats in a crash can cause catastrophic damage? Do you let them know how to operate the seat (in a clear and concise way) once the child isn’t in it?
4. Growing children. Are you letting potential customers know when it is appropriate to change car seats (age and weight)? Take it one step further – are you letting them know why you shouldn’t move children to a bigger car seat or booster when they are too young?  Are you asking parents the right questions and identifying gaps in their knowledge?
5. Long term care. What happens when a child is sick all over the car seat? Do parents know that some cleaning products can damage straps and reduce their effectiveness in a crash? Is this vital information tucked away in a 50 page instruction booklet? Could you offer initial or ongoing training to parents?

Buying a car seat (or car seats over a period of time) is often a process for parents, one where they are bombarded with information and one way to check whether your products and service is hitting the mark is to carry out online research. Start with parents at the beginning of the process – where do they go for information? Who are they asking about car seats? Are they getting the right information at that stage to make informed decisions? The next step would be to observe parents as they walk through the sales process – whether that be instore or online. What affects their purchasing decisions? Are they more concerned about price or safety?

When we have walked mums through this process this is often where tiny nuggets of insight pop up (I liked the colour, I don’t know whether I’m buying the right thing, I don’t know if it will fit my car). As we see more mums purchasing online the scope for making the wrong choice widens. Without expert advice parents may purchase based on price and then find themselves stuck with a car seat that doesn’t fit in their car. This is where retailers have an opportunity to step in an offer a comprehensive and fitting service or make their return guarantees explicit. We often work with companies to marry up messaging on their website with a mums’ experience (does the product description match what I received, could I easily see what I need to do if the product needs returning).  

It’s only by walking parents through each stage of the information gathering/purchase/returns/customer service process that we can start to identify how we could make it better.

Back to school - uniforms

It’s that not-so-joyful time of year for mums when we have to schlep around the shops looking for school uniform. It’s time to weigh up the pros and cons of costs versus quality, money back guarantees versus promises of kid-tested, whatever you can grab versus careful planning with compliant children.

 

We asked our mums what their back to school bugbears are and how brands could ease their shopping worries.

• Finding offers. We know M&S currently have £5 off when you spend £25 on kidswear (so you can get those tights, vests and socks you need for the start of school) and there are deals highlighted on Money Saving Expert. But mums don’t have the time to haul through site after site looking for information. A savvy brand or company would be putting all the back to school offers in one place (even as a competitior price comparision) so we can quickly see where to get the best deals.

• Mums want things that last. If your products fall apart in a week then we won’t come and buy from you again, and we’ll tell our mum friends not to buy from you. Most companies have gone some way to dealing with this by offering money back guarantees or saying products are independently tested. As a mum I’d like to know how this testing took place, was it with boys or girls? In a lab or in the playground?

• What we do know is when mums find something they like (and that could be either cost driven or quality driven – it depends on the mum) then they stick with it. One mum told us she choose Next because a friend had told her about it (the trusted inner circle) and the quality was good so she has now stuck with it. Another mum chooses Next because they offer slim fit trousers for her tall but slender son. One of our mums, Susan, told us she sticks with Clarks because they last the whole school year. It’s worth considering innovative ways to connect with mums on the ground because that’s where conversations about where to go for uniforms are happening.

• We’re seeing brands such as Tesco and M&S offer a ‘Your School Uniform’ – schools sign up, allowing parents to purchase school logo items and the school receives a cashback amount. It seems a very smart way to connect with parents and benefit the school. Is there a way you as a brand can push mums to purchase but still offer something additional in return?

• Some mums shop online and some shop instore. Free delivery and easy ordering are a must for online. Instore – the stress points for mums are trying to track down the right size when they are shopping last minute. As a brand how can you work on this? Last minute fast delivery?

• And finally to bags. We’ve identified a gap in the market for appropriately sized bags for primary school children – we’re hearing from mums that either they aren’t big enough to hold books or they are so large they threaten to topple over kids. Indepth research and testing would easily overcome this problem and would make those bags really stand out to mums.

Good luck to all our mums (and dads) as they start the new academic year! If you’d like to better connect with mums and understand what they want then drop us aline.

Finding and filling the gaps – mum insight

We’ve all had those moments in life when we’ve thought up outlandish inventions or wished for a product that didn’t exist. I found myself doing this more once I became a parent and scouring the internet for the solution to problems I didn’t know I had before my children arrived (do you need to carry a potty around once you start potty training, how do you carry an umbrella and push a pram, how do you sneak vegetables into your children’s diet?).

And if you are trying to sell to mums then how do you stay one step ahead of the competition? You find products that don’t exist that mums want. Spotting trends and understanding what products might appeal to mums is best done through a combination of research and insight techniques. We know from our insight work that new products and services can often develop from an offhand comment by a mum. We also know that developing products quickly through a streamlined research process is important, both to keep up with a fast changing market and to beat the competition to the store shelves.

Because we work with thousands on mums we’re constantly hearing about emerging trends and what they want – if you’d like to know more about how we can help you develop new products or services then drop us a line.