Smartphones Are Mother-Approved

By the time Sigmund Freud famously asked, “What does a woman want?” he’d deemed the question to be unanswerable. Market researchers, however, are proving far more persistent, and their 21st century reformulation of his query, “What does a woman – shopping with a smartphone – want?” is yielding an avalanche of answers.Well, an avalanche of data, at least. While there’s a lot of research claiming high mobile shopping usage by women, the context is not always clear. By “shopping” do we mean being in a store aisle and pushing a cart, or do we mean ordering shoes from home with the Zappos app? Was the smartphone helping her work through a decision tree to purchase, or just providing directions to the mall?The good news for CPG marketers is that once researchers focus on a specific type of woman – mothers – the data becomes more actionable. One survey by the pregnancy and parenting website BabyCenter found that 59% of its “mom” respondents had smartphones, surpassing general smartphone penetration by a significant margin. BabyCenter’s survey, called the “21st Century Mobile Mom Report,” found that 51% of moms are “addicted” to their smartphones, relying on it for support throughout the day, and another 45% believe it even decreases stress.Smartphones are also a mother’s little helper: 75% of smartphone users let their child play with their phone to keep them occupied. According to research conducted through the BlogHer online community, 23% of moms give their phones to their toddlers as a toy or diversion, and 15% as a game device. “Mobile isn’t just a media channel. It’s a [mom’s] constant companion that makes juggling easier,” says Tina Sharkey, chairman and global president of BabyCenter.Both a Tool and a ToyThe big news from the BabyCenter study, which captured the opinions and behaviors of more than 5,000 moms, is that 68% of moms use their smartphones while shopping. This was confirmed by another 2011 study, based on data collected by the mobile ad network Greystripe that found that 66% of moms use mobile devices in the shopping process. Among other insights:45% of moms use smartphones to locate the nearest store;36% use them for price comparison;31% use them for new product research;42% use smartphones while grocery shopping, including list making (31%), looking up recipes (21%) and comparing prices (14%).33% of moms have used their smartphones to access family health and wellness information in the past month (much higher than average).Insights about moms’ use of smartphones as a research tool as well as an electronic playmate or babysitter help drive Kimberly-Clark’s program development. Most fundamentally, “You need to make sure that when [mom] is looking for information it’s readily available through her smartphone,” says Ken Johnson, senior brand manager, shopper marketing, baby/child care. “It sounds basic and trivial, but having a mobile website is the minimum” requirement, without which there’s a lost opportunity to make a connection and build trust.Kimberly-Clark’s Huggies Pull-Ups brand each year “sees new moms coming into the category as they potty-train their child,” Johnson says, and most are “very hungry for information.” It’s a stage that can cause anxiety for both mother and child, so Huggies Pull-Ups teamed with Target to recognize and reward children’s potty training achievements via Disney Character Calls. Parents sign up to schedule a time for a Disney character – either a princess or a cartoon vehicle from the popular “Cars” franchise – to call their mobile phone and congratulate the child at various stages of potty training.Kimberly-Clark also developed its iGo Potty app. “Not all of our brands and programs have apps,” Johnson says, “but this one does” because it lends itself to mobile technology and provides benefits for both mom and child, including potty training tips, a progress tracker, and rewards and games. Another key insight driving the app’s development is the understanding that rewards, such as stickers and merit badges, have been an integral part of potty training for generations. “Part of our program in the past may have been actual stickers or coloring books, so rewards have been a longstanding part of our program, built on years and years of research,” says Anne Jones, vice president of shopper marketing and business development at K-C. “We’re just evolving to keep up with technology.”There’s an App for That – But Who Cares?The Pull-Ups potty training app passes along useful – and welcome – information while fostering “sharing time” between parent and child, say Jason Rottier, Huggies brand manager, shopper marketing.But what role do apps in general play in a mom’s busy life? Will she take the time to download and use apps? What about scanning QR codes in-aisle and elsewhere? “Usage of mobile apps [among women] surprised us a little bit,” says Jennifer Mathissen, senior vice president, digital strategy, Ryan Partnership, Wilton, Conn. “My individual hypothesis going in was, ‘Forget it – a mom has screaming kids and is always on the run and just wants to get in and out of the store as quickly as possible. She doesn’t have time for apps.’ But we found that wasn’t necessarily the case,” says Mathissen. “Among women who have given them [shopping-related apps] a try, their perception is it made shopping faster and easier.”The percentage of respondents across all age ranges who had used apps to support shopping is 3.4%, according to Ryan’s 2010 survey of 5,161 shoppers. However, among females ages 18 to 34 who had used a mobile app to shop in the past (sample size of 56), 52% said it made shopping trips faster; 55% said it made shopping trips easier; 66% said it saved them money; and 71% said it made them feel like a smarter shopper. On top of that, 54% of women in this age group said using an app had induced them to purchase brands or items they had never bought before. “The upshot is, once moms try it, in general they have a pretty positive usage experience and are open to using it again to get an improved shopping experience,” says Mathissen, adding that the initial time and perceived “hassle” involved in downloading and getting familiar with an app is perhaps the biggest hurdle.The 2010 report “Women and the Digital Path to Purchase,” based on an online survey of some 1,500 women who test and review products for the online community SheSpeaks, found that 10% of women have downloaded a shopping-related app to their mobile device, but that 28% are interested in doing so. The majority of respondents (62%) are not even interested in trying mobile shopping apps, however.Yet the BabyCenter study found that motherhood may motivate app use, which respondents reprioritized after having children. Apps aren’t even on the average woman’s top-10 list of important mobile features before she becomes a mom, the study suggests. But once she has children, apps rank No. 3 after text messaging and her camera. More than half (52%) of respondents have 10 or more apps, and nearly 25% are for their kids’ use and enjoyment.QR Scanners Put to the TestCollective Bias, which connects “social media influencers” with brands and retailers to spark online buzz, reports that its community of more than 1,000 mommy bloggers routinely scans QR codes on “normal” as well as compensated shopping trips to gain access to product information, offers, recipes and sweepstakes. But when member blogger Amy Lowe (Dealusional.com) put six bar code and QR scanner apps to the test for Collective Bias, her experience was so disappointing that she hasn’t used a single scanner since writing her reviews in April 2011 even though she uses her smartphone “all the time” in stores, primarily to shop around for better deals.“A lot of times, the scanner wouldn’t take the code the first time,” Lowe says, and some that purportedly offer price comparisons came back with irrelevant results. (Scanning a bag of M&Ms at Walgreens, she was given bulk pricing for a 12-pack available at Amazon.com.) On the whole, “They didn’t have the functionality they claimed to have,” says Lowe, adding that there were “bits and pieces” like a food allergen alert that were useful but not worth the trouble.Conventional wisdom holds that QR codes perform better where high-consideration purchases are sold, but Johnson says Kimberly-Clark has had success with them in the diaper aisle. Huggies Pull-Ups partnered with Walmart to offer a Pull-Ups Potty Dance Kit with tips and rewards and a chance to win a $100 store gift card. Kimberly-Clark tallied a record number of scans for its child and baby care programs, with in-aisle dwell times exceeding one minute on average.In general, though, “We don’t use QR codes in-store so much because moms are so starved for time,” says Johnson, adding that the codes appear more frequently in-pack and in FSIs.The Role of Social MediaHow does social media come into play for smartphone-equipped female shoppers? “In general, as a shopping tool it’s not delivering,” says Brian Cohen, director of digital shopper marketing, Catapult Marketing. “It provides engagement opportunities, but from a shopper perspective, they’re not visiting Facebook or Twitter as part of the shopper journey.”Indeed, “Facebook and Twitter fall to the bottom of the list of top purchase influencers, with 19% [of women] saying that posts from friends and 11% saying that posts from brands are top influencers,” according to the SheSpeaks report, co-sponsored by iVillage.By comparison, consumer reviews on shopping sites are a top influence for 61% of female shoppers, and blogs are a top influence for 33%.Other key insights about smartphone moms and social media:Mobile social network usage is 55% female, according to the Nielsen Co.60% of moms use their wireless device to ask for purchasing advice from someone who’s not present with them at the store, according to research by BSM Media, a marketing firm targeting moms.Among all mobile device users, not just women, 40% have used the device at a retail location to relate a negative customer experience, and 46% have posted a positive experience, according to the mobile marketing firm Hipcricket.34% of mobile device users have received or seen a post describing the experience of someone at a retail location.

Smartphones Are Mother-Approved

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