Taking stock of Mumstock 2015

Always wanting to put best advice forward, Clarion keeps its eyes and ears open for the latest insight and trends when it comes to integrated marketing, comms and targeting tricky/specific sectors.  So it will come as no surprise that we were all signed-up and ready to take notes at this year’s Mumstock marketing conference, hosted by the leading parenting network Mumsnet.

Aimed at demystifying the generic ‘target mums’ instruction that so often appears on PR briefs, this full day conference brought together a bunch of the great and the good from senior UK marketeers to inform and enlighten us eager delegates.





Opening with proprietary research; we were instructed that ‘mum’ is a woman and not a role and that motherhood is not a job.  Taking a look back at historic PR and ad campaigns which have targeted mum it becomes quite clear how they’ve potentially missed the sweet-spot by making it seem hard-work.  Not a great thing, when you are trying to get those all-important 18 million UK mummy consumers to buy-in to the brand.
The research showed that being a mum (the person) meant cherishing the relationships that she adopts with her children and, this falls into eight emotional roles that she seeks out to achieve this. These are; Carer, Coach, Hero, Safehouse, Fan, Friend, Rule Breaker and Partner in Crime, the first four of these are the expected and serious states, whilst the others are often underestimated by brands.



What followed were a series of discussions and case studies that highlighted key campaigns that have started to embrace this model, from the likes of; Lego, McDonalds, Tesco, O2, British Gas, Matalan, Mama&Papas, Ella’s Kitchen, Co-Op and Kerry Foods.  Graeme Pitkethly, executive chairman at Unilever also spoke passionately about understanding the brand audience before briefing a campaign and stressed the importance of this insight.  As a case in point, the recent Dove Legacy video was hailed as a great example of demonstrating the ‘hero’ emotional role identified earlier, which now gives Dove the right to play in this space:



Overall there was a lot to be learnt, with some really interesting stats and some considered strategic insight from the top marketeers appearing on the day.  Now, all we have to do is take these learnings and weave them into future campaigns and help us keep an edge on what’s connecting with our ‘target mum’.

For more details visit Mumstock.

By John Mayne, Associate Director

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