Single Moms Misread by Marketers

According to Where Do Women Go Online (April 2006) by eMarketer:

Females have long embraced the Internet as a communications medium, having shown strong interests in online games, health content and music, but now adult women, who dominate consumer spending offline, are shifting more and more of their shopping online.

Advertising agencies, retailers and marketers as well as online news, entertainment, gaming, health care and travel sites are scrambling to find the right media mix that will bring women to their sites.

According to Lucid Marketing, a company that specializes in marketing to mothers, 22 percent of stay-at-home moms and 19 percent of those who work part time said they visit message boards or chat rooms daily. Lucid also found that 17 percent of moms that work part-time maintain their own blog.

So What Happened Here?

A study of 500 advertising and marketing professionals, conducted by the DraftFCB agency, exposed some outmoded thinking and highlighted lost chances for marketing. The majority of the professionals surveyed considered single moms to be young, poorly educated and mainly from minority groups. These perceptions are wrong.

Survey Said:

35 percent of marketing professionals believe single women with children are 18-24 years old.

Reality:

12 percent of single moms fall into that age group

35 percent of single moms are ages 35-44

Survey Said:

31 percent of single moms did not finish high school.

Reality:

91 percent of single moms finish high school.

Survey Said:

24 percent of single moms are Caucasian

Reality:

58 percent of single moms are Caucasian

Gigi Carroll of DraftFCB told MediaPost:

When we did our first round of research, we found that 35% of women are blatantly offended by the mom-centric way they are portrayed (in advertising)."

Tags: marketing to women, single mom myths, non-mom-centric, stereotyping women