April 20, 2009

ALL Mine....not yours


Do you watch the Celebrity Apprentice? I'm a bit addicted to any and all reality shows so that's what I do on Sunday night after putting daughter to bed for the night - in fact, that's really what I do just about every night after getting DD to sleep. Anyway, a couple weeks ago on the Celebrity Apprentice the teams were tasked to create a viral video for ALL detergent.

When one of the teams (don't remember which one) met with the executives from ALL (a man and woman in their late thirties/early forties) they were told that the target audience for the video is "women with kids" not "moms". I believe the team asked whether the audience was moms and they were corrected that it's not moms - it's women with kids. WHAT????????

This distinction was offensive to me. Is there something wrong with being a mom? Is the marketing world trying to make a distinction preferring "women with kids" (like an appendage on the woman's hip) as opposed to moms?
There are times that I love being able to distinguish myself from DD's mommy, but I'll make that distinction. It's such a personal decision based on a variety of factors that I don't think marketers will be able to make that distinction for me.

Furthermore, as time goes on I realize that "mommy" and "me" are so intricately intertwined that I think it's sometimes hard to separate the two. In fact, we as mommies are constantly struggling to balance the two roles - sometimes we can achieve a balance and then sometimes we can't.

It's just not that black and white and I find it disturbing that someone out there in the marketing world would think it smart to change our title for us!

Let me decide if today's a "mom" day or a "woman with kid(s)" day - it's my decision, not yours!


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5 comments:

Elaine at Lipstickdaily said...

Huh . . . go figure. Guess they don't sell detergent . . . it's soap powder for washing machines!

Tara said...

Hmmm...good point! The two roles -"woman with kids" and "mom" are one and the same, basically, depending on who you ask. But they should know better when marketing to moms anyway. It's a delicate balance....

Peter and Nancy said...

That is a little disturbing. I think it's weird that our culture is SO kid-centric (so much is marketed to them, when no one really needs 98% of it), but so mom-unfriendly or mom-ignoring in many ways.

Elaine's comment cracks me up. :o)
-- Nancy

Mocha Dad said...

What?? These marketers are insane.

Sapphire said...

Maybe I'm slow, but I don't get it. What's the difference? I mean, really, what did they say the difference was or did anyone on the show bother to ask? I would love to hear their explanation.

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