Reaching Moms: Consider Lifestage, Not Just Media

When marketing to moms, there is a lot of research that talks about how they want to be marketed to. However, there is little talk on when to market to them. We know from the media planning process that general stages in life largely influence media habits and consumption. Age, sex, employment and household income are just some factors that have bearing on how much television a person watches or how often they are online. The other factor that heavily impacts media consumption is the presence of children in the household.

According to Media Audit, married respondents with no children in the home spend 36% of their media day with television. In comparison, those with children in the home spent only 31%. The same scenario holds true with newspaper – those with no children at home spent 8% of their media day with a printed piece as opposed to those with children were only able to carve out 5%.

We can take it one step further and analyze how the age of children in the home affect the parent’s time. The time it takes to parent a toddler is much different than that of a teenager. According to the latest data released from the Milwaukee Media Audit, those with children under the age of 6 spend 20% of their media time with radio (which is 20% less than the average person in the market). Amazingly, those with children between the ages of 6 and 12 spend 26% of their time with radio (now 13% more than the average mom in the market). As children get older and become more social, it requires mom to spend a lot more time in the car driving to soccer practice and birthday parties.

Painting a picture of a day in a life of a mom can make these numbers come to life. Have you ever tried to read a newspaper with a two year old in the room? Enough said.

(Source: The Media Audit Milwaukee-Racine; Aug-Sep 2011/Feb-Mar 2012)