Mums. Bless them. We love them. And they love the web. Can’t get enough. And you thought it was all the young dudes who made the news. New research from eMarketer tells us 89% use it twice a day. Wow. Search is by far the biggest weapon of choice (Google being the goddess of choice in mother search world) with a HUGE 86% of respondents using search as their most efficient way of searching for info. The interwoven nature of offline and online is demonstrated by nearly two thirds using search to find more info after seeing an ad.
But although usage is high, their behaviour fits into their hectic worlds. We like to call this “snacking”, an apt description when nearly two thirds of visit duration are less than 30 mins. In an out. Onto the next thing.
Here’s a video I pulled together for a pitch last year trying to depict this in more visual impact terms than the graphs here which are from eMarketer in July & August 2007. What do you think (apart from the reduction in quality to make it web usable rather than you having to go to lunch during download time)?
Iconoculture tell us some more mum/mom stuff in the form of a new magazine called Hybrid Mom for multi-tasking (is there any other type?) mums/moms who are, as they describe:
Hybrid Mom (hy brid mom, n.): An adult female who has discarded outdated and unrealistic conceptions of motherhood. She is parent, wife, volunteer, and sometimes entrepreneur, all in one. Known for her strength, sense of humor, and flexibility, a hybrid mom is actually a fusion of roles that suit her own individuality.
I’m not particularly target audience but content wise it’s a little light to say the least (on the site), an example of which is the sparsely populated blog: three entries since December which makes you think that someone thought “hey, we need a blog cos like everyone does” and then failed at seeing it through. Hopefully the magazine has more exciting content – about half of mums/moms spend about an hour a day with the mags so maybe it has a better role there?
