11.08.2006

“HartBeat” is The Hartman Group's FREE online newsletter, providing insight, analysis, information and strategy to give business leaders the knowledge and vision to build sustainable brands.

For more Hartman Group articles on ORGANIC, click here...

05.11.2006 "Marketing to Today's Mom"

04.05.2006 "Brand Trust and Children's Wellness"

02.09.2006 "At Home with the American Consumer"

10.13.2005 "(Food) Pyramid Schemes & the Myth of Following Nutritional Guidelines"

04.14.2005 "Emerging Trends in Parenting the Healthy Eater"

11.11.2004 "What's for Dinner?: Understanding Meal Fragmentation as a Cultural Phenomenon"

>09.23.2004 "Asian Dinner Mixes & the Family Meal: Evolving Food Culture"

10.25.2002 "Children's Wellness: Making Decisions & Negotiating"

10.18.2002 "Children's Wellness: Who's Leading the Charge?"

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Marketing To Unique Households

When accompanying consumers to their grocery stores, we constantly hear expressions of alienation regarding products, store space and marketing communication. We hear this from consumers who either feel that they are personally unaddressed or who feel that they are members of forgotten or misunderstood households."I don't know who this is for.""I never go down that aisle...none of this is really my bag.""We're not your typical family, I guess."

Who among us hasn't felt "under addressed" by marketing messages, retail spaces, and merchandise? Think of the times we have walked into a clothing store or nightlife venue and suddenly thought: "whoops...this is way too young/too old for me." If that doesn't hit home, think of how often we are faced with the stereotype of our own gender in marketing messages: vibrant, slender, shiny-haired single women, always out-on-the-town. Middle-aged moms that are beaming time management queens. Perpetually 30-ish, wolf-smirked men for whom the promise of status or power is a single car purchase away.

We can all identify with alienation in the dimensions of generation and gender - products too old or too young, retail spaces that simply do not feel comfortable for me. Others of us know this sensation from life experience in an economic class, culture, sexual orientation, or even a set of personal/professional interests that sets us apart. A sense of not-belonging is ever present in our consumer research, especially with respect to messaging and retail space. It generates emotions spanning the spectrum from ambivalence, on to apprehension, disengagement, and outright resentment. Ultimately, a population that feels alienated is a population that slowly refuses to participate.

Social research has conventionally attempted to understand society (and its markets) through the use of what many perceive to be hard-and-fast demographic distinctions - race, class, ethnicity or geographic region. And there will always be a role for this sort of analysis. But at The Hartman Group, we have determined that there are other lenses that operate in a more meaningful way to fully explain and understand people. It has to do with the ways in which people explain themselves. For example, we find that it is the membership in a particular community built around participation in a lifestyle that offers us more reliable insights. A lifestyle constituted of practices, choices and beliefs that shape a person's worldview and continue to evolve over time is certainly built upon the raw materials of what a person is born with (such as race or class), but emerges, in the end, from the choices and the circumstances one makes and takes after birth.

We feel that the household can function as a kind of analytic nexus between the hard-and-fast factors of birth and the unique ways in which we build our lives. Of course, the household is an operating concept in much marketing strategy. We all know full well the picture of the white middle class nuclear family household currently addressed en masse, but we don't often see the picture of other families or households - the variation on this theme - addressed much at all. That is, empty nest households of all ethnicities and socio-economic levels may have more philosophical and practical needs and interests in common than any one particular ethnic or socio-economic group. And those who live in extended family households may share more in common with others in the same arrangement than they do with any one ethnicity or age group.

Why?

Because we find that lifestyles and communities are built around how people understand their options, the framework of their daily time demands, the inclinations people have to change their habits or values, and in the end, their shared aspirations. Fundamentally, it is how people define themselves, not how they are defined. This is not to say that real economic differences do not exist and do not matter, but we find that it is the household structure itself - the members, the relationships between them, and the power dynamic it generates - that forms a particular ethos that shapes a lifestyle orientation or idio-culture. The key point here is that people feel most comfortable in settings that resonate with this ethos, and seek products, brands, settings, venues and activities that help to further create and affirm that resonance - to help create who they are.

Case Study: Single-Parent Families and Empty-Nesters

Single-Parent Families

Single parents we meet inevitably identify themselves as misunderstood, exceptional, odd. And the reality of single-parent families far outweighs their representation in marketing communication. The actual number (or percentage) of parents raising kids on their own is much higher than many of us realize: As of 2000, an estimated 13.5 million single parents had custody of 21.7 million children. And among all American households, single-parent households (single moms and single dads) increased from 9% in 1990 to 16% of all American households in 2000. Among households with children, the proportion of single-mother families grew to 26% and single-father families grew to 5% by 2000. And most telling overall, about 26.2% of all children under 21 are living in families have one parent not living at home. (Source: ParentsWithoutPartners.org) Clearly this large, untapped group presents a meaningful opportunity.

Current messaging features frequent and abundant imagery of nuclear two-parent family "ideals," filled even today with stereotypes of gender roles in two-parent families: moms as home-based, ever-industrious nurturers; dads as playful, bumbling and peripheral. Messaging heavily focuses on the needs of kids, but rarely on the wellness needs of parents: a desire for more energy, time and peace-of-mind. Message content also often fails to acknowledge the time management and logistical needs of single parents, and the desire for these parents to provide value-rich experiences for their kids within this strained framework.

The neglect resonates at retail as well. There is a lack of healthier, relatively inexpensive easy-prep or to-go options to help save time and money, which would reduce the guilt of defaulting to pizza or fried chicken. Further, there is a lack of meaningful venues that might add value or strengthen the experience of a single parent/child relationship: for example, interactive, kid-friendly experiences that cater to fun for kids and dimensions of convenience and discovery for adults. Retail space can appeal to this population by explicitly connecting parents to wellness goals of gaining time, energy, perspective and access to sensory rewards that enhance quality of life.

What opportunities exist?

• Reinforce the good that single parents are doing in a way that feels authentic.
• Reinforce the value of choices they make (i.e., it's OK to compromise dinner for a swimming lesson).
• Promote platforms of vitality, convenience, stress reduction/relaxation
• Connect parents to rich experiences: i.e., sensory, discovery, relationship-strengthening with their kids
• Look for ways to include children in achievement of parental wellness goals
• Support the creation of a positive identity for single parents by affirming membership in a notable way.

Empty-Nesters

In contrast to the under-addressed single parent, the "empty nest" household is unaddressed altogether. The enormous Baby Boomer generation of those aged 42-60 has been watching their children grow up and leave home for some time. Although estimates of the precise numbers vary, this large population shares the experience of significant transitions to their households as children leave, marriages shift or end, and jobs change. Urban developers note, for example, a trend in Empty-Nesters moving back to the cities. After the children leave, the household shifts its purpose, its character and its location by moving downtown and upstairs into urban condos and apartments. Again, who can recall the last time they witnessed messaging toward this life stage? Marketing archetypes tend to see the lifespan progressing as such: kid, teen, single young adult, parent and senior, respectively

Where do Empty-Nesters fit in?

Although the research is still meager, Empty-Nesters are known to undergo a sometimes difficult period of transition marked by an interest in renewal and personal growth. They seek chances to build community, to embrace new identities, develop new hobbies and indulge themselves with long-deferred opportunities. They are (for better or for worse) re-discovering their spouse, or if single, may be dating a little more freely. They may be focusing a little more on their own body and health, undoing the damage of what might have been a previously time-famished lifestyle. In this respect, many Empty-Nesters start a process of knowledge-seeking and accumulation furthering wellness goals that they were previously too time-constrained to pursue. They may pursue activities and products that help find new meaning in life and one's relationship to the world (i.e., tea with a spiritual bent, specialty food stores, hiking clubs, supplements).

What opportunities exist for engaging Empty-Nesters?

• Connect them to knowledge-seeking on relevant health and wellness concerns
• Market toward lifestyle changes that add meaning and purpose to life (i.e., follow trends in activities and hobbies in this age group)
• Promote platforms of maximizing vitality, longevity
• Promote platforms of sensory fulfillment, indulgence, fun

These households are not only prime sites for discovering innovative product and branding ideas but also recapturing what may be a lost or significantly decreased segment. Clarify the links between economic dynamics of "home" and the meaningful identities, communities and idio-cultures that are shaped by them through applying richer demographic filters, segmentation solutions and research protocols. Most importantly, understand how these more neglected household types might be better addressed and supported through more relevant communications and experience. They may make up a smaller percentage of the population, but are perhaps the most eager to experiment and engage.

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