• Boston Globe, Monday, February 10, 2014 10:26 AM

Part of the summit’s agenda? Developing a better understanding of the many groups that make up the Dad demographic.

“Effective marketing to Dad is more than slapping an NFL team on a laundry detergent bottle or putting a logo on a NASCAR car,” Porzio noted in an e-mail. “GenX and GenY dads have distinct values, priorities, and concerns.”

At Forge, Porzio is the executive director of digital marketing. The agency, he said, has developed a practice area specifically focusing on the dad demographic.

In many cases, today’s ads still perceive dads in the same way that Don Draper might have in the AMC television series “Mad Men.”

These outdated perceptions fail to take into account that mothers and fathers are now more likely to have shared responsibilities and that it is often dad, as well as mom, who is going to the grocery store and making decisions on what household products to purchase.

In Porzio’s view, the ad that follows is too old-school, the way it portrays a father as “a bumbling, clueless guy.”

Read the whole story at Boston Globe »