Sessions

2019 M2W^® Session Descriptions

WongDoody Marketing to Moms Session Descriptions

Skyler Mattson
President
Wong Doody

Setting the Stage Part 1:
Tools to Keep up with an Ever-changing Mom

Modern moms are dynamic – constantly adapting to the ever-changing world around them. As marketers, we need tools and processes to get rapid responses from moms. Ways that allow us to connect with moms fast and often to get on-demand insights to understand her emotional life, beliefs, attitudes, and motivations. We also need to uncover the blue sky thinking that informs how we create technology, experiences and engagement that will resonate. In part one of a two-day presentation, we’ll outline our approach to getting the insights that move your business forward through an agile insights practice. One that that takes you from insight to innovation to market at the speed of mom.

Setting the Stage Part 2:
Innovation Solutions at the Speed of Mom

As a follow up from Day 1, we’ll show you the process and output of our agile insights practice: an engagement approach co-created with Mom, and then tested and validated before final execution. This session will close the loop on the agile insights process from data to strategy to creative concepting and validation. You’ll leave with tools to drive innovation in your category in a way that is as iterative and dynamic as mom herself.

What Matters to Mom:
Identifying Micro-Insights that Inspire Her Preferences & Behavior

Amy Henry
President
Flashlight Insights

In a world in which data and information are easily accessed, it’s easy to feel like we know our moms and their families more than ever. But increasingly, brands are recognizing that they lack the kind of intimate, nuanced insights that come from observing life as it happens. In this presentation, Amy will share why getting close to your consumer is more important than ever, and how you can make more of your customer intelligence by identifying the micro-insights that inspire behaviors and preferences. We’ll reverse engineer our favorite micro-insights from the field to provide you with a new view on the moms you serve.  Expect specific examples from brands who seem particularly mom-intuitive in this best-in-class session with proven strategist and award-winning M2Moms® speaker, Amy Henry.

Solo: A Celebration of Women on Their Own Widows, Never Married and Divorced

Kathleen Fitzgerald
Photographer & Author
Kathleen Fitzgerald Portraits

Portrait photographer & author, Kathleen Fitzgerald, introduces us to her new work – a collection of women living on their own. Some have never married; others are divorced or widowed. Their stories might remind you of women you know. Collectively, these women represent resiliency, creativity and courage. In 2016 the U.S. Census Bureau reported that 53.2% of women 18 and older were single. Plus, in our society, single moms are the new norm.

Kathleen’s book reveals the “single” phenomenon from the artist’s perspective …sharing their compelling photographic portraits and unique stories. They range in age from their 30’s to 90’s and come from across the country. As diverse as they are in ethnicity, culture, education, spiritual beliefs and socio-economic standing, one common trait is the women’s ability to tackle unforeseen situations with tenacity, strength, and resilience. Kathleen reminds brands that ‘single file’ is a dominant choice for many of today’s women and this session will remind you to keep them in your marketing lens.

Who Do Moms Trust?

Linette Attai
Founder & President
PlayWell, LLC

What does it take for a mom to trust you with their child and feel comfortable knowing that the child will be safe with your product, experience or service? Navigating the complexities of marketing effectively and ethically to children, while keeping their and their parents’ data safe is not for the faint of heart. However, these days, this work is second only to protecting the physical safety of the child. Being able to strike the right balance and to communicate your practices clearly is critical to the success of your brand.

There’s no shortage of companies making costly missteps in this arena. With over 25 years of experience helping companies get it right, Linnette Attai will show you what it takes to stand above the fray and build and maintain the vital trust with parents that is essential for the staying power of your brand.

The Mother of All Opportunities

Katrina McCarter
Founder/CEO
Marketing To Mums

Mothers are the powerhouse of the global economy. They’re responsible for 80 per cent of consumer spending. However, there are key mum segments that are being overlooked and it’s costing brands valuable sales and profit. Plus, new technology and multiple cultural forces are changing the marketing-to-mums landscape. How do we prepare to take our brands forward?

In this presentation, Katrina McCarter gives an overview of those critical mum segments and then shares 8 key marketing to mums success factors to build brands over the next ten years – Rise of the Sharing Economy, Importance of understanding Mums Moments, Growth of Femtech, Being Mother-centric, Role of Voice, Experiential Marketing, Strong Brand Purpose and the game changing impact of Facebook Libra. Brands who are able to tap into these 8 areas will win over the coming decade.

Fast track your brand and gain a competitive advantage in your category by gaining critical insights in these overlooked, and in some cases new and frequently untapped market opportunities.

Katrina, a conference favorite, was voted 2018 winner of the “Take the Cake” best speaker award. This year she launches her new book, The Mother of All Opportunities, on the 2019 M2Moms^® stage.

Speaking with her – Finding your lingua branda!

Dawn Lerman, Ph.D.
Professor and Executive Director, Center for Positive Marketing
Gabelli School of Business
Fordham University

Conventional wisdom says that women have their own unique style of communication that affects everything from word choice and intonation to sentence length and structure.  However, marketers who seek to align their message copy with this “female style” in order to connect with women can easily be misled.  In this session, drawing on the latest research, Professor Dawn Lerman will separate myth from reality about gender differences in language and communication and provide marketers with tangible tips for developing a language for your brand—a lingua branda—that will connect with today’s women.

Reaching the Invaluable, but Invisible, Female Consumer

Alison Bryant, Ph.D.
SVP, Research
AARP

Everyone wants to see themselves represented in media and marketing; but today we have a huge gap between older moms & women, who are driving a significant percentage of the economy and purchase decisions, and their images in brand messaging and advertising. Overall, 85% of women wish that advertising used more realistic images but as women get older, they feel even more underrepresented. That is critical for brands to understand, because 7 in 10 women are more likely to buy or switch to brands that feature people their age! Find out more about how to bridge this gap and target the hearts (and purses) of this key market.

Stressed but Blessed

Patty David
Director of Consumer Insights
AARP

Did you know one in five adults are helping care for a loved one, primarily an older parent due to aging? Half of these family caregivers are under the age of 50 meaning they are often raising young children, managing a career, and at the same time taking care of Mom or Dad. It is not surprising that more than half of female caregivers feel stressed, overwhelmed, and strained both emotionally and financially. An AARP study showed caregivers are completely overwhelmed but also find the role incredibly rewarding and would not have it any other way. Caregivers are providing a wide range of assistance for their loved ones. One of which is shopping whether it be at a retail store or online. How can retailers make their job easier and save them time and stress? Find out what they are shopping for and what preferences they have.

Technology: The New Mama’s Little Helper

Shari Cleary
Senior Vice President of Research, Insights and Brand Planning
Buzzfeed

Regardless of how old their children are, today’s moms feel strong pressure to have it all – climb the corporate ladder or be the perfect stay at home parent, make time for family and friends, keep everything at home running smoothly – all while making it look easy in the right outfit. Technology and content continue to make mom’s lives easier by simplifying everyday tasks – from connecting with other moms via social networks, to ordering grocery delivery and finding that perfect outfit.

Join BuzzFeed’s Senior Vice President of Research and Insights, Shari Clearly, to learn about the role technology plays in modern moms lives. From different life stages and ages of children, this session will explore the opportunities brands and publishers have to leverage technology, digital and social media to help moms.

Decoding the Mom Mindset: Image-Based Insights Worth a Million Words

Grady Edelstein
Head of Partnership Marketing
Tinybeans

Find out what today’s most powerful consumer is really thinking, doing and buying…without asking a single question.

Using Unspoken Insights, Tinybeans has anonymously analyzed millions of photo memories to decode the behavior of millennial moms around key moments to further understand their parenting and purchasing mindset (while ensuring that none of our members’ data or memories are EVER shared). These unique and powerful insights can help brands identify both whitespace and incremental opportunities for their business.

The Key To Effectively Marketing With Women – Cherish Her

Emily Spensieri
Co-Founder & Strategic Brand Architect
Incite, Inc.

There is no correlation between this assertion and the syrupy 80s ballad by Kool & The Gang. (The Kool & The Gang reference just sent half of you on a Google search to figure out what on earth this session description is talking about, while the rest of you took a trip down memory lane to a time when there was no such thing as Google! OMG indeed!) While the notion of cherishing Her may sound old fashioned, in this session, Emily Spensieri, Co-Founder and Strategic Brand Architect of Incite, a Women Smart, Brand Savvy consultancy, will be talking about valuing Her in the most modern sense of the term. If you want your messaging, social media and PR strategies to connect with your female audience, your KPI strategy needs to include Cherish Testing.

This new KPI is borne from a crucial learning found in an often confusing muddle of differences between men and women, which is that men want to be wanted, while women cherish being cherished. So, how does your brand show her she’s cherished? You build Cherish markers that start with your research. During this session, Emily will explain what Cherish markers are, and detail how Incite’s SheSpeaks research methodology Cherishes Her at the most crucial point in the brand life journey – the beginning.

A Seat at Her Table: Black Women’s Perspectives on Life, Beauty and Advertising

Pepper Miller
President
Author, Black Still Matters in Marketing
Co-Author, What’s Black About It
The Hunter Miller Group

Pepper Miller will engage Mita Mallick, Head of Diversity and Cross-Cultural Marketing for Unilever, in a spirited and insightful conversation that explores the Black woman’s multifaceted experiences around life, beauty and the images she sees and does not see in advertising. Mita will also share key insights from Unilever’s 2018 study on Black women, to help brands empathize, engage and use her words to embrace/embody her world. And just as importantly, Pepper & Mita will talk about how equality, diversity and inclusion at all levels is essential to the future success of every business targeting women, moms & families today.

Multi-tasking with Audio: How Moms Use Audio for Self-care and Inspiration, While Still Getting Sh*t Done

Megan Lazovick
Vice President
Edison Research

How does a mom find time for self-care when her attention is constantly divided between her work, her children, and other relationships or responsibilities? Luckily for moms, listening to audio is something that can be done in tandem with many of the other tasks in their lives. Among the chaos of being a mom, audio is the respite – and for many, an essential source of comfort and inspiration. And luckily for marketers, they have access to moms through these media at a time where there is an incredible amount of new, exciting content available and more women than ever consuming that content. According to Edison Research’s annual Moms and Media study, 87% of moms listen to online radio (up from 74% in 2016) and 56% of moms listen to podcasts (up from 37% in 2016). Edison Research, a world leader in audio research, conducted one-on-one interviews with moms about the importance of audio in the lives and how it makes life better. New, never-before-seen data from The 2019 Research Mom national survey will also be premiered.

Building Community Internally at Facebook with Super Moms

Lauren Brandt
Client Solutions Manager
Founder, ‘Super Moms’ at Facebook
Co-Founder, The Returnity Project
Facebook

Inspired by her company’s mission of “Giving people the power to build community and bring the world closer together”, Lauren Brandt started a movement internally at Facebook to build a community of moms returning to work from maternity leave. Within just one year, the group skyrocketed in growth from 2 members, to 1,000 members! It includes a mentorship program, Lean In Circles and more. She also took this concept outside Facebook and started something called The Returnity Project, with similar positive results. Learn how Lauren built the community she needed herself when she returned to work after maternity leave, why it is so successful, what it can mean for talent retention in your marketing teams and walk away with tactics on how to build something similar for moms at your own organization!

The World’s Largest Retailer Gets Digital with Moms – With Jetblack!

Dominique Essig
Chief Product Officer
Jetblack

Need it. Text it. Get it. Astonishingly Fast. Everything from laundry detergent to diapers to a birthday gift for a four-year-old boy who loves puzzles, delivered to your doorstep same day or next.

Currently available to moms in Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn, Jetblack strives to help time-strapped parents get time back with their families. In this session, Dominique Essig, Chief Product Officer for Jetblack, the first company to launch from Walmart’s technology incubator Store No 8, explains how this AI-enabled membership concierge service reflects some of the broad trends effecting the current retail marketplace.

So what does this mean for marketers like you who focus on building business with today’s moms? Dominique will share how shopping the Jetblack way could answer all consumer expectations for efficient, personalized and delightful shopping experiences and deliver better business results for brands who get involved.

Winning Her Business: The New Rules of Engagement

Bridget Brennan
CEO
The Female Factor

Based on her best-selling new book, Winning Her Business: How to Transform the Customer Experience for the World’s Most Powerful Consumers (HarperCollins Leadership), Bridget Brennan will inspire you with winning strategies and best practices for transforming the customer experience to increase sales, marketshare and emotional engagement. Join the ground-breaking author of Why She Buys as she covers the big trends impacting women’s purchasing decisions and the four key motivators driving their buying decisions. You’ll walk away with practical strategics and real-world examples to help you win the future in a rapidly changing world.

Gen Z and Tomorrow’s AI-Powered Mom

Jola Burnett
SVP, Research
GfK Consumer Life (formerly Roper Reports)

Whether we know it or not, our lives are already powered by emerging digital technologies – and this trend will only accelerate, transforming every Mom’s daily world. Gen Z is and will be at the epicenter of this rapid-fire evolution, relying on devices and services that we cannot even imagine today. How will a Gen Z Mom’s unique experiences, values, and attitudes shape her beliefs and needs as a consumer, as she navigates a new world of work, parenting, and personal relationships. How will she be different from today’s Millennial Mom – and how can businesses and brands prepare for the needs of this highly pragmatic, somewhat cynical new breed of parent. Jola Burnett of GfK, a leading voice on this stage, once again gives us valuable insights that can help shape and secure our success with today’s moms and families.

The First 1,000 Days: Nourishing America’s Future

Blythe Thomas
Chief Strategy Officer
1,000 Days

The first 1,000 days of a child’s life – from pregnancy to age 2 – offer a unique window of opportunity to build heathier and more prosperous futures. It is a period of tremendous potential and enormous vulnerability. Yet the U.S. has one of the highest maternal mortality rates of any wealthy country in the world. Less than half of U.S. moms receive any paid time off to care for their newborn. More than 25% of infants and toddlers live in poverty.

Many of the issues with which we struggle – from educational achievement gaps, to higher healthcare costs, to deepening disparities – have their roots in how well a child fares during the first years of life.

We know what to do, and it’s not too late. Learn how we can better support moms and babies during the first 1,000 days to create healthier and more prosperous futures – for our children and for us all.

Panel: The New World of Omnichannel Marketing
Winning with Today’s High Media Consuming & Time-Strapped Women

MODERATOR:
Tina Daniels
Director of Agency Business Development
Google

PANELIST:
Megan Lazovick
Vice President
Edison Research

PANELIST:
Erin Phraner
Video Producer, Creative Lifestyle Brands
Buzzfeed

In one way, the refrain of the 1960’s hit song ‘you’ll never walk alone’ has come true for everyone walking around with a mobile phone. Lonely you may be, but never, ever alone! News, opinions, product descriptions & pricing, customer ratings and recommendations, gossip, places to chat or learn anything under the sun, support groups, advice on every subject, instant access to all kinds of services and shopping, buying and cost-efficient delivery…basically we carry the world in our pockets. So, with the many digital & media options, how does a brand win in today’s user-choice world?  Especially with today’s time-strapped moms.

This omnichannel marketing panel is led by Tina Daniels, the Director of Agency Business at Google. A long-time supporter of this conference, Tina is joined by an impressive panel of media, marketing, research and commerce experts from Facebook & Instagram, Foursquare, Edison Research, Jetblack & Buzzfeed.  This panel will begin with insights on how marketers can best capture the attention & action of distracted mobile phone users on the go.

Understanding the Modern Family: Kids Aren’t Growing Up the Same These Days

Melinda Cheng
Kids & Family Video Strategy Lead
YouTube/Google

Hear from industry veteran, Melinda Cheng, about what she has learned from her unique experiences from all sides of the kids and family media industry, from media agency to marketer to now a partner-side at YouTube/Google. Technology has turned the age-old saying that “kids just aren’t growing up the same these days” on its head, having a profound impact on how kids are consuming media, how online video is the new TV, and the important role they play in modern families’ purchase journey.

This is Parenthood

Dria Barnes
General Manager
Healthline Parenthood

Parents go through a transformative journey that impacts their hormonal, emotional, physical and mental well-being. But often the resources they turn to are focused squarely on the baby. Using consumer research, search data and conscious language to meet moms where they are, Healthline’s Dria de Botton Barnes will share how Healthline is now focusing on helping new moms own their health. Learn surprising ways your brand can engage mom as a whole person and how you can think differently about your digital campaigns heading into 2020 and beyond.