Meet Carri Bugbee, aka @PeggyOlson.

One of the many serendipities of social media is meeting up with like-minded tweeps you may never have encountered otherwise. This is the case of Carri Bugbee and me. Somehow, while tweeting, we discovered we were both journalism majors at the University of Oregon and that we’d been mentored by the same uber-motivating professor, Dr. Winter. (Funny. We’re both blonde, both wear trippy glasses. Hmm.) We’ve also had similar experiences in traditional ad agencies.

What I didn’t know until the night of the Twitter Shorty Awards was that @CarriBugbee is also@peggy olson. I’d been tweeting up a storm, voting in a frenzy, and even connecting with @peggyolson on Linkedin (we both went to Miss Deaver’s School), all without guessing that savvy Carri was masquerading as the Mad Men copywriter. Since then Carri has gone on to even more fame-and-fortune via this week’s Ad Age and BusinessWeek.com covers.

So Social Media Slowbees, if you’re looking for a compelling reason to jump on board, re-read the above. Meeting someone who knew Dr. Winter when has been a joy. Even better, my Tweeting buddy has turned out to be a true social media innovator and all-around kick-ass ad-babe.

Read Carri Bugbee’s bio here:

“I am the proprietor of Big Deal PR (www.bigdealpr.com), a virtual agency that provides marketing and PR on demand for innovative businesses and organizations. I have 20 years experience in traditional advertising and PR, but I’ve embraced online marketing with a vengeance, including social networking, social media, search marketing, and all things Web 2.0. I am marketing agnostic and only recommend what is right for my clients. I don’t use new whiz-bang technologies just because they are available, nor do I espouse the tried and true if that’s not the right approach. Regardless of the tools available, I believe that astute strategies and compelling messages are still the foundation for helping clients get noticed and for propelling their businesses forward. I’ve always worked with entrepreneurs and businesses in creative services and technology, but have experience in many other categories as well. ”

Follow this Portland luminary on Twitter: @carribugbee.

Guru’s Note: I just learned via her Ad Age video that I may also be inadvertently following Carri on her jazz ID as well. As many of you know, we’re a longtime Monterey Jazz Festival family and my daughter is part of the Vocal Jazz Collective at Berkeley — (next gig is at Anna’s Jazz Island on April 23rd.)  Definitely a smaller world these days!

Mad Men and Their Equally Mad Women

So tomorrow night, Maternal Instinct founder Kat Gordon and I are talking about “Marketing to Moms” at the annual Synergos Series sponsored by The Hayden Group in Palo Alto:

Our presentation just happens to jibe with the much-awaited opening of Season 2 of the hit AMC series “Mad Men“.  As a veteran of the ad business — albeit many moons after this TV series takes place — I am fascinated by this brilliantly detailed view of the ad agency world Kat and I were once so immersed in, and even more fascinated by the State of Women (and Moms) in 1960.   Mad Men highlights women in the workplace but also takes us home to suburbia, to the realm of the 5:31 commuter train, where Betty and her perpetually pregnant buddies blithely shun the local divorcee, reign over birthday parties, cocktails, straying hubbies and vibrating washing machines. All while balancing a Lucky Strike between their Fire and Ice’d red lips.

Nearly 50 years ago, women were sharply defined by their men, especially these Mad Men, who created the pop culture and the products that in many ways, enslaved both office wives and housewives.

Today with the sheer force of 82 million Moms (and growing, with a new boomlet showing up in census polls) plus the power and the preferences of our pocketbooks, we’ve managed to turn the ad world and everything else topsy-turvy.

In the year 2008, women are setting the trends and woe unto advertisers who don’t get The Triple AAA’s:

• Acknowledge
• Appreciate
• Authenticity

In this millennium, we’ve got spaces for moms that Betty Draper could not have imagined even after a pitcher of Daiquiris.  In London, private clubs like Maggie & Rose and Cupcake Mom, offer mothers a place to convene and relax, where they’re welcome to come and go as they please, 7 days a week.  Maggie & Rose, based in chi-chi Kensington, features play areas and offers children’s lessons in art, cooking, dance and more, as well as a weekend movie club and birthday party services. Parents are catered to with a comfortable and (importantly) quiet café (with wifi access, natch), as well as seminars and access to a a concierge-style service with well-researched info on nannies, tutors, schools, holidays, etc.

 Cupcake also aims to provide a grown-up but child-friendly environment but especially for pregnant women and new mothers. In addition to an organic café, Cupcake also offers personal trainers and a spa. The top floor of the club, where the spa is located, is a “baby-free zone” and features treatments tailor-made for pregnant women and new moms, from the “Cupcake in the Oven Massage” to the “Mermaid Wrap.” Cupcake also plans to install a sleep pod for much-needed powernaps, and will offer a concierge service to help busy moms complete their to-do lists.

In New York, there’s Citibabes, the club in Manhattan that offers high-quality services and activities both for children and for parents, all under one roof. The big A — acknowledgement — here is clearly stated by the founders:
We all know that having young children can do one of two things for new parents: it can make them feel isolated or it can bring them together. Our ultimate goal is to build a community for New York families that fosters a sense of identity and fellowship among its members. We also hope that families will appreciate the security and privacy of Citibabes, so that they may feel at ease while their children play freely inside the club—as if it’s a second home.

In the Mad Men era, not only would these special Mom-friendly places not exist, but the need for them would not be acknowledged, either by the Mom herself or by the business world.

Check back for more new Mom trends– and tune into Mad Men for a real education on how far we’ve come.