Excerpted from BrandChannel.com: “Do Hockey and Soccer Mom Brands Share Goals?”, Abram Sauer, September 11, 2008
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Alaska governor Sarah Palin opened a (marketing) debate: Is hockey mom the new millennium’s soccer mom, just as soccer mom was the 1990’s version of the 1980’s super mom? Are soccer moms and hockey moms different? Is the branding that represents them accurate, or are the terms just oversimplified stereotypes?
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There are about 350,000 hockey players under the age of 20 in the US, and that these hockey families have a median household income of nearly US$ 100,000—which is far higher than the national average.
A soccer mom is “most likely married, aged late 20s to early 40s, probably driving an SUV; she works, Some are college graduates and some are not.”
“The demographics of hockey moms and soccer moms are very similar … Hockey moms might have a reputation for being a little tougher—perhaps due to the nature of the sport.”
Celinda Lake — often credited for coining the term “soccer mom” in the 1990s — explains that, despite an average household income of almost US$ 100,000, “Hockey moms are more blue collar than soccer moms,”
The hockey mom demographic is also called “Wal-Mart Moms.”
“Hockey moms’ respond to male communication styles—competitive, assertive, hierarchical, us vs. them. Soccer moms respond to more female communication styles—cooperative, focused on common ground, connecting and sharing values.”
There is a consensus that “hockey mom” has a more blue-collar feel: “Some have gone so far to say that hockey moms are anti-intellectual and worse.”
Paradoxically, the generalization of “soccer moms” has made many women anxious to disassociate themselves from it.
Often, when you think of a soccer mom, you think of a mom consumed with her kids driving a mini-van. You don’t have pictures of a highly accomplished career woman, or a technologically savvy woman, or a world leader. That’s why the label is so loaded, you associate many attributes to it that may or not be true of a particular woman.
Brands looking to reach these moms need to make solid information readily available: “There’s still a perception out there that soccer moms are only online to email, do a little shopping, and perhaps visit blogs. What they do want is information. Women are going online to research everything from buying a car, to health care insurance, to planning the family vacation. They want a lot of information, not just fluffy celebrity stories.
Women often have more questions than men do, which is another reason she is going online to do research on information she can’t find in the stores or from the sales people. There’s a huge opportunity here for companies to provide answers to her questions. Because even if she shops offline, that search very often begins online.
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Full article:
http://www.brandchannel.com/start1.asp?fa_id=440
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