Marketing to the mommy contingent

Today Southwest Airlines launched a mommy focused campaign, My Peanut and I Fly Southwest.



Since the Motrin debacle late last year, mom's, and specifically mommy bloggers, have been the "it" target. Walmart and Graco are just a few of companies who have parent employees blogging and tweeting on their behalf.

It's not a big surprise—70 percent of moms claimed that advertising does not speak to them (Mintel), yet that same percent consider what they hear from their fellow moms to be very credible (Marketing Daily).

Still doubting the power of moms? Know this: half are likely to pass along recommendations they hear from other moms and would makes purchases based on that information.

And finally, amazingly, one in four moms publish or maintain a Web page or a blog and also comment on blogs, according to Forrester.

Clearly moms are online en force.

So back to Southwest. What works about this campaign? Well, first of all they launched a mom blog. Second, they launched it along with a promotion for a contest and third the contest is linked to posting a badge on your own mommy blog. It's a simple approach but a smart one because it draws on the popularity of blogs for their target audience in addition to leveraging the recommendation factor.

I'll be curious to see how the program goes, and of course, whose next to pick up on this trend.

OK that's it from me, I have to go play peek-a-boo with a 13-month-old.

Happy Mother's Day!