• by Adrienne W. Fawcett , February 1, 2007

The marketing folks at DraftFCB are doing away with moms.

They're not actually killing off mothers or firing them. They've simply banished the word "mom" from the agency's vernacular.

"We've struck 'moms' from the brief. In this day and age, they are women with children first," says Gigi Carroll, DraftFCB creative concept director.

Voluminous research about what women like and dislike about advertising drew Carroll and her team to this conclusion. "They are 'moms,' but their life is larger than that and they seem to respond much more when you play back to them who they think they are," she says. "When we did our first round of research, we found that 35% of women are blatantly offended by the mom-centric way they are portrayed (in advertising)."

And that's not the only reason the agency decided to toss "mom" out with the recycling. Its research also found that marketers are prone to relying on tired stereotypes of motherhood, even when the expiration date on the image has long since passed.

For example, take the single mom--er, single woman with children.

DraftFCB's nationwide quantitative survey of 500 ad industry professionals in the U.S. found that the majority of this group considered single moms to be young, poorly educated minorities. The perception among ad industry professionals is off the mark, regardless of the marketer's gender, race, marital status, parenting status, geography or age.

"For a long time, marketers believed women really didn't want to see the truth. The single mother doesn't fit into the magazine-spread view of life," Carroll says.

DraftFCB's research found 35% of marketing professionals believe single women with children are 18 to 24 years old. But the reality is that only 12% of single moms are this young. In fact, the largest age group of single moms is 35 to 44. While 35% of single moms fall into this age bracket, only 22% of marketers understand that.

Carroll says today's single-woman-with-child has more in common with the Miranda Brady character on "Sex and The City" than marketers realize. And it's a growing market. The number of single moms doubled in the past 30 years to 28% in 2006.

"It takes guts for a marketer to talk to single women with children," she says. "But we know from psychographics that they are more daring, and more adventurous." They also tend to be more brand loyal, she says.

A few marketers are in stride with this group. Century 21 has a commercial where a mom who seems obviously single thanks her broker for showing her 34 homes. In one Ford Motor spot, a woman takes her daughter to the park for a treat and it turns out to be not the local playground, but a road trip to Yellowstone.

"You don't know if it's a single mom, but it is a single mom mentality," says Carroll. "She doesn't have to ask for permission, she's spontaneous, she's adventuresome."

The spot speaks truthfully to single women and offers a great fantasy for those who are married ... with children. Just don't call them moms.

The Skinny on Single Women With Children

When it comes to portraying single women with kids, marketing professionals are prone to relying on stereotypes:

Age bracket

What marketers believe:
35% of single moms are 18-24 years old

The truth is:
12% of single moms are 18-24 years old

Education:

What marketers believe:
31% of single moms did not finish high school

The truth is:
19% of single moms did not finish high school

Ethnicity:

What marketers believe:
24% of single moms are Caucasian

The truth is:
58% of single moms are Caucasian

Source: DraftFCB