Who do mums listen to? Mum insight

It’s Mothers Day this weekend and I’ll be spending mine with my mum and extended family. My mum is my first port of call when I have a child rearing question (after all she managed to raise 5 children quite successfully). We also share information on products and bargains we’ve spotted in shops but as we are at quite different life stages I tend to go elsewhere to source my information on products and services related to my children and lifestyle.

Along with 8 out 10 mums in this survey I regularly turn to the internet for parenting advice and to get daily jobs done such as grocery shopping. We’ve already seen a shift in the ways mum shop over the last few years and a recent study has shown that online reviews and experiences are becoming just as, if not more, important than personal recommendation. One of the insights to come out of a brand building in a digital world event held last week at P&G’s HQ in Cincinnati was that 70% of Pampers are now sold online. What this clearly means is that retailers are going to have think carefully about how they appeal to an increasingly digital mum market.

And on the note of appealing to mums, as I strolled around the shops this week I was a bit mystified to see an abundance of pink goods. Valentines is long gone. And I wasn’t in a shop for children. The items on the shelves were in fact presents designed to appeal to grown women for Mother’s Day. Retailers need to remember that women are about more than pink and flowers, you’d only need to look at the results of our surveys to realise how diverse our mums are and that they have very different wants and needs. Last week was International Women’s Day (not a hint of pink anywhere). This was a day to celebrate women’s achievements and inspire young women to be brilliant in what ever they choose to do in their life. It’s also a great opportunity for brands to connect with women (Google did so this year).

And on a final note this week is Yummy Mummy Week, a fundraising week for CLIC Sargent . We’ve worked with bloggers on a spreading the word campaign to raise awareness of the week and the great work this organisation does. So far 80 bloggers have contributed 152 posts – you can read more here. We're were thrilled to see CLIC Sargent and our spreading the word campaigns mentioned as excellent examples of blogger relations in econsultancy today.

Who do you think mums listen to? Their parents? The internet?

By Nicola

Mum insight - how is the way we shop changing?

My week kicked off with a quick dash around my local Morrisons store (mum insight – mums jam in food shopping when they can, so for me it’s just after I’ve done the school run). This store is having a bit of an upgrade at the moment and as I walked around, I noticed they had installed a Kiddicare ‘pod’. Morrisons bought Kiddicare last year to expand both their baby range and their internet retail offering. The great thing about this pod is that it allows you to price check and buy products when you do your weekly shop but you don’t have to drag them home with you. Last year we worked with Morrisons taking mums on accompanied shops to see whether they liked the in store experience when they were buying baby products. It's great to see the improvements Morrisons are making for mums.

This particular store is across the road from Mothercare so mums can pop into one store and then dash across the road to do a quick cost comparison. Price checking using my phone is something I do more and more. Recently a netmums survey revealed mums are more likely to use mobile phones than the average Brit. That’s no surprise to me; my phone is where I keep all my appointments, important dates such as school events and lists of things I need to buy. I’ve found myself using technology in new ways. At Christmas, I started using the bar code scanner that is part of Amazon’s iPhone app, it allows you to scan a code on a book (or other product) and it then shows you the price on Amazon. This means you can do a direct price comparison, make a buying decision then and there AND save money – all with a few clicks of your phone.

It’s often things that make a mum’s life easier that encourage us to buy. My girls are obsessed with fish fingers (this is no exaggeration). This week my other half purchased an enormous box to satisfy their cravings and it had a great new feature. You can now reclose the box by ripping off the top part and sliding it over the open end. One of the pain points of fish fingers is that you often spend a fair few minutes scrabbling around the bottom of the freezer to retrieve the ones that always escape the box. Birds Eye have solved this problem in a simple and elegant way and guess which brand of fish fingers I’ll be buying next time?

By Nicola

World Book Day

Down the rabbit hole we go...

Today is World Book Day. It's a great way to celebrate and share the joy of reading. It's also an occasion that has mums chatting about their children's favourite books and characters. We've been watching the chatter over the last few days in the playground and on facebook, observing what mums have been saying about World Book Day. It's always fascinating to watch word of mouth networks in action and how information and knowledge is passed between mums.

At my daughter's school they have really got into the spirit of the day, allowing children to come into school dressed as their favourite characters (I'm wondering exactly how many Disney Princesses will turn up though!). I can't wait to see the photos of all the kids dressed up!

On facebook there have been some interesting discussions around where mums buy kids books from - our mums are telling us that although they do buy books online they still love mooching around bookshops. And they love a bargain, picking up books at car boot sales and charity shops.

And we've been picking up top reading tips from other mums and books to watch out for. My daughter who is 5 loves Winnie the Witch and is just getting into the Wombles. From the mums discussions I can see that Angelina Ballerina is a hot favourite, along with Alice in Wonderland and the usual suspects of Harry Potter and Where's Wally.

To mark the day, all school children are entitled to receive a World Book Day £1 Book Token. It can be exchanged for one of eight specially published World Book Day £1 Books – including The What The Ladybird Heard Song by Julia Donaldson, Roald Dahl’s Fantabulous Facts and Big Day Out by Jacqueline Wilson – or is redeemable against any book or audio book of their choice costing £2.99 or more at a participating bookshop or book club.

What will you be reading today with your kids?

Mum insight round up

So what’s been happening in the world of mums and marketing in the last week?

Today we’ve been hearing about the problems mums are having when they want to return to work because of the crippling cost of childcare in the UK. Although there are some regional variations, the average cost of a full time nursery place is around £11-15,000 a year. This has a significant impact on a mum’s decision to return to work, especially if she works in a low paid profession where her childcare costs could outweigh what she earns. Wondering what that has to do with marketing? Whether a mum works, or doesn’t, affects household income and buying decisions.

We also got an insight into the future a baby born in 2012 might face. Apart from the startling fact that they’ll probably need between £60,000 to £123,000 to get through university (financial services companies marketing to parents take note!) it reveals some insights that may help with product development – for example we’re moving towards a cashless society.

And Facebook made a bit of a boob when it removed photos of mothers breastfeeding.

Finally if you haven’t had a chance to catch Pregnant in Heels on Bio channel then we can highly recommend it. It’s all about New York maternity designer and concierge, Rosie Pope and her very demanding and very pregnant clients. As hilarious as it is to watch their insane demands (9 months pregnant – plan me a wedding! No godparent – I want Lord Wedgwood to be the godfather!) it does show you what a very busy mum has to juggle.

We’d love to hear any interesting mum related info you’ve found this week.

CLIC Sargent #dosomethingyummy

This month we're working with CLIC Sargent on a spreading the word campaign to raise awareness of Yummy Mummy Week.

This week will see the second link up of bloggers sharing their personal perspectives on children and family. The blogging campaign is supported by activity on twitter under the hashtag #dosomethingyummy in the run up to Yummy Mummy Week 10-18th March.

Will you get involved?

Soreen Lunchbox Loaves

Last month Soreen launched another delicious product, Lunchbox Loaves.

They are perfect for school lunches or just a snack at home and come in both malt and banana flavour.

The loaves meet the Government's food based nutritional standards, each bar is less than 100 calories and less than 0.3g saturated fat.

MumPanel played a part in developing the product with our mums testing different versions of the product and giving their feedback.

What can MumPanel do for your business?

Who does most of the shopping in your house? Who makes most of the buying decisions? Along with most households in the UK it's probably mum.

What that means is that organisations that want to sell to mums would benefit from the insight those mums could offer them - whether that's offering their opinion on a new product they are going to launch or telling a company what they think of a service aimed at mums.

Our recent projects have included accompanied shops for a large supermarket chain, product reviews and spreading the word campaigns for a leading baby retailer and interactive research for a television channel.

On each of these occasions the insight our mums provided information that allowed each organisation to move forward with a strategy that would be better aimed at their target audience.

You can find more information about what we do on our website.