The Three Categories of Moms

The power of mom as an influential shopper is undeniable. Not only does she dress the family, she buys food and household goods that range in price from a few cents to thousands of dollars. If mom likes a product, she'll tell her entire neighborhood about it. If a company or a product upsets her, she can hurt its reputation by telling her friends -- word travels fast.

In her latest book, Trillion Dollar Moms (co-authored with Bonnie Ulman), Maria Bailey offers insight into this market. Bailey is CEO of marketing firm BSM Media and advises companies such as Gap (GPS ), Office Depot (ODP ), Disney (DIS ), and Microsoft (MSFT ) on how they should market to moms.

A mother of four, Bailey is also the founder and CEO of BlueSuitMom.com, a Web site that offers information and tools to help moms balance family responsibilities while maintaining a career. She recently spoke with BusinessWeek Online reporter Pallavi Gogoi. Here are edited excerpts of the conversation:

Q: Who are these trillion-dollar moms that your book talks about?
A: There's three distinct groups -- the boomer moms, who get the most attention because they're the largest group of moms; the Generation X moms aged 25 to 39, who are in their child-bearing years; and the emerging Y-moms, the smallest group of the three, just entering mommyhood. A fourth, barely a sliver, is made up of grand parents who are parenting their children's children.

Q: What are the characteristics of these segments?
A: Boomer moms did it all. They developed the "it takes a village to raise children" approach. They were the soccer moms who developed a support system, car pooled, and made it work. They're rich, and powerful and are credited with voting Bill Clinton into the White House in 1996.

Gen Xers are the latchkey generation, who came home from school and stayed by themselves, and watched their families fall apart and go through divorce as their moms tried to do it all. For them, happiness and stability of the family outweighs the desire to leave their children to go to work. They utilize technology to work from home or start their own businesses and are better at balancing work and family.

The emerging Y-moms, between the ages of 16 to 25, is a group that's starting to exhibit a return to the traditional. As teenagers, they're philanthropic, they volunteer, and religion impacts their thinking. You can see it in the popularity of gospel hip hop, the fastest-growing music segment. Studies are showing they will likely have more children at a younger age and will be very family-minded. They will likely be the first generation that will be best able to integrate technology into their lives in a way that work and life can be seamless.

Q: Is that kind of like the "mompreneurs"?
A: Yes. The 2000 census report showed that fewer mothers are going back to the workplace after their children are born. But that doesn't mean they aren't working. The women are running some kind of home-based business that integrates work into family life. Our research shows that many of these women aren't working for the money -- rather for the social interaction, personal enrichment, and to keep their brains fresh.

Q: The census bureau has it wrong?
A: It's a gray area. In our research, when we asked women "Are you stay at home or working?" most of them say they're stay-at-home moms even if they ran businesses from their homes. Younger moms are proud of their mommy label and put greater emphasis on their personal identity as a mother rather than their working status.

Q: What kind of businesses do they run?
A: Party-planning companies, direct sales...moms are inventing all sorts of toys, educational or not. The fastest-growing business segments in the economy are fueled by women.

Q: How do you suggest companies tap this trillion-dollar market?
A: You certainly don't do that according to the age of the mom, because a boomer mom could be an empty nester or even the mother of a newborn. We found that moms as shoppers behave more like the other moms whose children are peers.

Q: What do moms spend their money on?
A: Convenience is key. Companies that help them with solutions for everyday challenges are booming, whether it's Rubbermaid's (NWL ) storage solutions that help organize homes or Procter & Gamble's (PG ) many Swiffer variations that made cleaning easier.

Products that enrich the lives of children are hot. Not only educational toys are doing well -- so are toys that make children laugh, that boost their self confidence, and even encourage philanthropy. Some toys come with a starter kit for donating to Unicef.

Q: But how do you market to mom? Don't you reach her if you're already marketing to women in general?
A: It has amazed me for the last 10 years that companies mostly think like that and continually ignore moms as a segment to market to. Moms are purchasing for families, their own businesses, their extended families. And they're loyal.

Q: Your findings are quite different from Judith Warner's Perfect Madness, where moms seemingly have surrendered their sanity in their quest to be the perfect mom.
A: Judith Warner focused on women over 30. If her sample would have included those under 30, I'm sure she would have had a different perspective of women who feel more in control of their lives.

A lot of women in the set she focused on were trailblazers in a way, and yes, they were harried, because they tried to achieve so much. Our research shows that the younger Gen Xers and Gen Yers know how to make life easier while accomplishing the same goals.

Q: Can you give an example of how a marketer would target mom?
A: They can focus on the personal aspects of a woman. A deodorant company can go a level deeper than just a regular message that their product keeps you fresh.

For instance: We know you're sweating when tomorrow's math quiz collides with today's basketball pick-up. It's saying to mother that we get you, we understand that you are a woman and a mom. Moms wear multiple hats -- that of wife, sister, employee, and daughter. But her identity as mom is the strongest heart chord, and if marketers aren't touching that, they're missing the boat.