Guru’s Take:  On average, my Mom-marketing partner, Kat Gordon of Maternal Instinct, and I hear about 5 new Mom sites a day. Some are built by pros; some are one-woman’s-passion, some are the offspring of women’s groups like Ladies Who Launch; some are non-profit or eco-Moms; some are online stores with Mom-centric products. Many are bootstrapping, searching for sponsors or Angel funding or trying to limp along on Google Adwords. Everyone is scrambling for alliances, partnerships and buzz. 

Despite the wellspring of Moms online, we can’t help but wonder how many of these sites will survive.  Lately, we’ve had so many come to us for our BrainFeed Brand Stategy Sessions that we’ve been too busy for even some very promising properties.   Obviously, we’re all for the trend toward Mom Power and MOM WOM, but in the absence of a compelling brand personality, niche, and strategy, even the highly connected, heavily funded sites are not necessarily shoe-ins.  And it only gets trickier as more major media players enter the fray.

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.