The Big Mum Opinion sneak peek – the changing shape of shopping

After weeks of gathering information we’ve now closed The Big Mum Opinion. 3000 mums gave us their opinions on shopping, spending, social media use and how brands can best communicate with them. We also did in-depth research with hundreds of mums in their own communities to give us a balanced view of the world of mums in 2013.

We’re now analysing the data which confirms some of what we already know from talking to thousands of mums over the last three years. There were also a few surprises in there and we know this insight will be vital as brands try and find ways to connect effectively with mums.

We thought we’d offer you a peek into the kind of issues that mums discussed and some of the hard facts that came out of the study.

Do you think price promises and loyalty cards make mums shop in one place?

Despite the best efforts of the supermarkets mums are still shopping around.

 

• 78% of mums use more than one shop (including online shops) to buy their grocery shopping in a typical week.
• 28% of mums use three or more shops for their grocery shopping in a typical week
• 51% of mums do one big grocery shop and go to shops for other items (usually something specific like meat at a butchers or vegetables from one particular place).

Two main reasons emerged – 78% mums said they did this because of offers and 39% said it was because of better quality fresh food. And these two things aren’t mutually exclusive – many mums mentioned Aldi’s fruit and veg as being both of better quality and cheaper.

It doesn’t follow that mums who like offers and low priced products are willing to compromise on quality. They want both.

We have also seen confirmation of a pattern that we identified about two years ago. Mums are loyal – but not to one store or brand. They’ll own loyalty cards but often for several supermarkets. They’ll be loyal to a brand, but only buy when it’s on offer.

Here’s what one mum said:

“I go to Sainsbury’s for some of the brands I can’t get in Morrisons (and their own brands) and also to get the price promise voucher for next week. I shop in Morrisons for location, fresh produce quality and build up their weekly offer voucher scheme too. And then I go to Aldi for fresh fruit and veg when I am in the village. Sometimes use bargain stores for cleaning products and kids sweets.”

If you’d like to know more about what mums think and a copy of the full report (due out July) email nicola@mumpanel.co.uk (cost £495). 

First-ever major UK mum study goes back to the school gates

This week has been a very exciting one for MumPanel as we launch The Big Mum Opinion. You can find out more about the study in the press release below.

Specialist family insight and marketing consultancy MumPanel, has launched the first in-depth study of UK mums and their views on the products and services that brands offer them.

“The Big Mum Opinion will be the first large-scale qualitative and quantitative investigation of mothers’ purchasing attitudes and preferences in Britain,” said Lynne Barcoe, Founder of MumPanel. “This study goes way beyond number crunching and categorising mum types according to their household spend. We are going back to the school gates and the children’s groups to hear mums’ thoughts first-hand, and find out the real complexities of being a mum. Particularly, what that means when it comes to buying goods for themselves and their families,” she said.

The consultancy, which has so far helped many family brands to understand and connect with their mum customers, from Organix to Soreen, believes there is a huge opportunity for brands to really connect with mums out in their worlds, improving communication, products and services and giving them what they want.

Barcoe, who has more than 10 years’ senior marketing experience, said: “While brands now have more data at their fingertips and more touchpoints to connect with mums, it is not as helpful as it may seem on the face of it. Mums are telling us that brands are not always getting it right; we want to look at why this is and what they should be doing. The Big Mum Opinion is all about understanding the real face of mums and removing the risk of misinterpreting them by providing quality workable evidence and insight that brands can pick up and run with.”

Mums like Charlotte from London: “We’re not just mothers, we are friends, daughters, workers, partners. We have hobbies and pastimes, likes and dislikes. I feel like no-one quite gets me and that I’m still represented by the mum stereotypes of old,” she said.

MumPanel’s Head of Marketing, Nicola Cooper-Abbs, added: “Lately there is too great a reliance on online data but we know most mums don’t spend their lives online. This is creating a red herring for brands, as the opinions of mums are narrowed down to a small minority who are always online. We also see research that is much too biased on quantitative data and missing supportive in-depth qualitative data. So mums are labelled up and filed according to the box they ticked online.”

MumPanel’s Big Mum Opinion, which launched this week, will focus on getting the real views of mums out in the field, in their natural environment, from the school gates to the toddler and children’s clubs, as well as online – in fact the Big Mum Opinion promises to take in most mum touchpoints. The team will speak to around 4,000 mums in a variety of settings, including their Opinion Pods, and will track mums’ journeys from start to end.

Cooper-Abbs, said: “Where MumPanel really adds value is in our marketing skills and knowledge. We are not a parenting forum we are mum marketing specialists who gather quality research and insight from our mum panelists and combine it with authoritative analysis and commentary. This gives brands a real understanding of their customers and concrete evidence to work with at the end of it all.”

She concluded: “If brands want to attract their slice of the parent pound they need to understand the opinions of all their customers, not just a select few, and how to feed those opinions back into the products they are developing, campaigns they are planning and the services they’re delivering. The Big Mum Opinion, which will be published 22 May 2013, is a must read for brands who count mums as a primary customer.”

For more information on the Big Mum Opinion, visit: http://www.mumpanel.co.uk/projects-surveys.php

For more information you can contact Rachael Tilling at The PR Station: m 078 1111 9430 rtilling@theprstation.co.uk

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.