Greg Livingston Q&A: Mom Plus Kid Equals Superconsumer

In their new book, “Marketing to the New Super Consumer: Mom and Kid,” the principals of marketing agency WonderGroup — Tim Coffey, Dave Siegel, and Greg Livingston — discuss the influence children have on buying decisions and how marketers should rethink their strategies as a result. CHIEF MARKETER Web editor Tim Parry recently spoke with Livingston, the executive vice president of Cincinnati-based WonderGroup, about how the role of mother as consumer has changed and why you should market even “adult” products such as autos to youngsters.

CHIEF MARKETER: Why did you and your partners write the book?

Livingston: The book was written following extensive research and observation regarding how today’s moms are making purchase decisions and how much involvement their children have in these decisions, across a wide spectrum of purchases. In our work over the past few years, we discovered that a fundamental shift has taken place. The perception of most marketers is that moms either make purchase decisions on their own or are a barrier or gatekeeper for most decisions. That is the way it used to be. But today, with the emergence of the Gen X mom, we see a very different paradigm, one in which most moms and kids work together in a mutually beneficial structure for decision-making.

Mom asks kids for information, kids provide Mom with their desires, likes, dislikes, etc. Kids ask their Mom for information, and Mom helps guide her kids in good decisions. We call this the new superconsumer or, more specifically, the 4-Eyed, 4-Legged consumer, or 4i4l.

We felt that most marketers are aware that a change is taking place but are fuzzy on the specifics and the implications. Our book was written with senior marketers in mind, and any marketer who wants to be forward-thinking about the marketplace. The book talks about what led up to this market change and how this new consumer thinks, behaves, and acts. And what some savvy marketers are doing to address this new super consumer.

CHIEF MARKETER: When doing research for the book, when did you get your biggest “aha”?

Livingston: There were two big “ahas.” The first was how much influence moms said their kids had in categories not usually associated with kids’ influence. We fielded a custom research study with more than 1,000 moms and their kids and were surprised with how engaged the 4-Eyed, 4-Legged consumer was in a wide variety of business categories. For example, 46% of moms say their kids have very strong or strong influence on vacations, 66% for DVD movie purchases, 50% for toothpaste, 32% for the family car, and 29% for the family computer, just to name a few. Just think of the implications: almost one-third of moms say their kids weigh in heavily on car purchase decisions.

The second biggest “aha” was how much the 4-Eyed, 4-Legged consumer spends: $1.248 trillion.

CHIEF MARKETER: How has the mother-child marketing relationship changed since you guys published “The Great Tween Buying Machine”? [Written in 2001, the book was updated last year.]

Livingston: “The Great Tween Buying Machine” is all about the recognition that indeed there is a group of kids, 8- to 12-year-olds, who are a real market. With defined size, needs, desires, and spending power, tweens are like no other market. If your products are used or influence by them, you need to know who they are, what they like, and how to reach them.

The overriding orientation within the youth-marketing world to the mother-child relationship when we wrote “The Great Tween Buying Machine” was one of Mom as gatekeeper and kids “nagging” their parents for what they want. The majority of moms were still from the baby-boomer generation. We saw the beginning of change in the way moms were talking about how they were shopping for groceries–asking their kids what they wanted for dinner on many occasions, thus saving time and making for easier mealtimes. Early on we didn’t hear moms talking about exchanges of information in many other categories. That has changed dramatically as the Gen X mom, the life balancer, has taken the stage. The Gen X mom is not content just making mealtime a happier occasion; she wants all aspects of her family life to be balanced and positive, and to her that means involvement of the whole family, including the kids, in all phases of family decisions.

A mom of a three-year-old, from our WonderGroup Kid Influence Study, summarized the new mom perfectly: “I was raised that adults make decisions and children comply without question or discussion. I disagree and raise my children completely different. Children need opportunities to make decisions in youth in order to be able to make good decisions as adults. My children decide on a great deal in their lives, and I value their good sense in helping me make household decisions as well.”

CHIEF MARKETER: From a marketing point of view, how has the Internet helped bridge the gap between moms and their kids?

Livingston: The Internet allows both Mom and her kids faster and more comprehensive access to information and choice. As we approach the holidays, most parents are asking their kids what gifts they would like to receive. We project that many kids will be handing their parents not only a list of their requests typed out in Word on their home computer but also pictures and product descriptions, price and retailer availability, and other details, all generated from Internet information sources. Kids are providing their parents with URLs leading to cars they like, if parents are car shopping, and parents are listening. Parents are accessing the Internet for everything from vacation options, which they then talk over with their kids, to information on how to talk to their kids about not smoking.

CHIEF MARKETER: Marketers are still talking about “pester power” driving sales. Does such a term still exist, or has the Internet made the phrase outdated?

Livingston: The terms “pester power,” “nag factor,” and others are no longer relevant when talking about today’s 4i4l consumer. Not to say that kids don’t ask their parents for lots of things, but fewer parents see this as nagging, and more often they see these exchanges as dialogues and even teaching moments. We have even heard parents say they rely on their kids for product requests and information. Therefore, in many cases, since it is less expensive to market to youth segments, you can provide this awareness of your product through the kids in the family, which then fosters the 4i4l consumer dialogue.

CHIEF MARKETER: What have marketers and advertisers done in 2005 to rethink their strategies to appeal to what you call the new superconsumer?

Livingston: We are just now starting to see traditional “mom marketers” see the importance of the kids, and traditional “kid marketers” see the importance of Mom. You are starting to see promotions that have prizing scaled so that there are prizes for the kids – lots of prizes preferably–and an overarching grand prize for the whole family that appeals to Mom. TV commercials are showing Mom and kids interacting; in some cases moms are actually part of their kids’ world and shown being very comfortable in that world of imagination and fun. Marketers are realizing that they can’t retrofit mom benefits for kids but need to understand how each component of the 4-Eyed, 4-Legged consumer motivation affects their product or service.

Some marketers now have campaigns directed individually to kids and moms because the product benefits are unique to each market—for instance, a “more nutritious” message to Mom, an “available in new fun shapes” message to kids. And some marketers are talking to moms and kids at the same time: “Here’s a place where everyone will have a great time on vacation.”

CHIEF MARKETER: What do marketers and advertisers still need to do to adjust to this new relationship?

Livingston: First marketers must accept that their market has changed, really morphed into something new. They need to respect both parts of the 4-Eyed, 4-Legged consumer. Both moms and kids are smart consumers today; they need to know you exist (recognition), then they need to know what you are going to do for them (reward), then how they can interact and engage with your brand (relationship). Careful and thorough insight will lead to impactful, meaningful marketing solutions…. From our perspective, if you are not purposefully talking to the 4i4l consumer in the right way, you are wasting a good portion of your marketing dollar.