New parents are nothing short of a marketer’s dream. Giddy with the excitement of a new baby in the family, and eager to spend money on the best products available, new parents soak up marketing material like sponges, as they generally have no preconceived brand loyalties or preferences.

And as the category continues to grow and competition becomes more fierce, marketers are putting expensive mass-media advertising on the back burner in favour of sampling programs and direct marketing, designed to hit the target group before those crucial brand decisions are made.

Marketers are wise to invest more heavily in direct one-to-one channels, according to Mariam Hoosen, VP media director at Starcom Worldwide in Toronto, whose clients include baby-food manufacturer H.J. Heinz Canada.

‘New moms are always looking for information, so sampling and direct mail are ideal ways of reaching them,’ she says, adding that Starcom is currently working with Heinz to increase its promotional activity.

Indeed, many marketers are already putting an emphasis on sampling. For example, new and expectant mothers who sign up for baby clubs such as Mead Johnson’s Baby Steps (through subscription forms available in pregnancy magazines and online) can expect to receive free samples of formula through the mail, together with information about baby nutrition.

And for Gerber – the manufacturer of bottles, pacifiers and cups – sampling is also key to success, according to Miles Cleary, marketing manager for Mississauga, Ont.-based Gerber Canada. Timing is crucial, he says. ‘We place the majority of our emphasis on prenatal advertising during the third trimester [of pregnancy]. Research has shown that a huge percentage of purchase decision-making is made before the birth of a child.’

The second-best target location is in the maternity wards, according to Cleary.

Gerber Canada uses a third-party group called ParentsCanada which gathers a database of pregnant women from child-birth educators and doctors’ offices, and targets them with an ‘Expecting Baby’ pack, containing goodies from Gerber and other manufacturers.

(However, Gerber is among several marketers restricted in their sampling efforts by a World Health Organization initiative called Baby Friendly that encourages hospitals not to allow distribution of bottles and formula, as part of a bid to promote breast-feeding.)

Meanwhile, leading the diaper wars with a 28% share of the US$15-billion global diaper category, Dallas, Tex.-based Kimberly-Clark’s Huggies brand also puts a significant emphasis on sampling.

Freebies and tokens are provided in gift packs put together by Dominion stores and distributed at events including the national programs, Mommy & Baby Fitness and Cinebabies (a program through which new parents can watch a new-release movie at a local theatre, with baby in tow).

Huggies, which sponsors Cinebabies on a national level (and provides a fully equipped change table), is just one of the marketers to display its products at events across the country.

Guest marketers such as baby nutritionists and clothing companies also attend to give lectures about their products or services and often offer freebies.

‘One of the benefits to the marketers is that our group is extremely targeted,’ says Sandi Silver, the Toronto-based founder of Cinebabies. A prize draw each week enables the program to obtain information about the participants that can be beneficial to marketers, such as the baby’s age, and family’s postal code, which can be used to track average incomes.

‘Marketers have an opportunity to present their product and get it directly into the hands of first-time moms,’ adds Silver. Cinebabies sends a weekly e-mail newsletter to approximately 4,200 moms, through which marketers can promote new products or include links to their own Web sites, although Silver stresses that the database is not shared with any third parties.

Many marketers are finding that today’s more mature, information-seeking generation of parents responds well to e-mail newsletters. Pampers, for example, invites parents to enter their baby’s birth date on its Web site in order to receive an age-specific monthly newsletter with tips and advice for their baby’s current level of development (obviously highlighting products which might be suitable at each stage).

In fact, more and more marketers are adding online marketing to the mix, using their own Web sites as well as advertising on other parent-friendly sites such as Canadianparents.com. The Web site is an ideal vehicle to reach decision-makers with spending power, as it currently enjoys 70,000 unique visitors per month, of which 95% are female, and 54% have a household income greater than $60,000.

For Heinz Canada, the country’s largest manufacturer of infant foods and cereals, Internet marketing forms a big part of the marketing package. ‘New Moms today are hungrier than ever for information, so the Heinz Web site is a valuable tool for passing on information,’ says Anna Relyea, communications manager for the Toronto-based company. Direct mail, and targeted magazines like the new-parent publications are also among the key media vehicles used by Heinz.

However, despite the heavy emphasis on sampling and direct marketing, traditional methods still play an important role for many marketers in this category, according to Christine Saunders, account manager for Johnson & Johnson at Toronto-based MacLaren McCann.

‘Any new life stage is a great opportunity for marketers to target consumers who are making brand decisions,’ she says. ‘Pregnant women are like sponges who absorb any written material in magazines, books and on the Internet.’

A mom’s marketing onslaught

As the mother of a one-year-old, I have personally spent the last couple of years absorbing, and sometimes fending off, a slew of marketing materials that hit me from all directions.

Virtually from the moment of conception, samples of formula, bottles, powder and wipes began landing on my doorstep, together with information packs about the importance of RESP’s (Registered Education Savings Plans) and huge booklets of coupons for various baby products.

I later found out that marketers gather databases from doctors’ offices and midwifery clinics in their urge to build loyalty at the pre-natal stage.

Close to my delivery date, I was still debating the all-important question of whether to opt for Pampers or Huggies, but canny marketers solved my dilemma. No sooner had my daughter entered the world than she was clad in a Pampers newborn diaper, (cleverly supplied to hospitals free of charge by Procter & Gamble) and we were only too willing to take home a big bag of these and other free goodies.

I was considerably less impressed by the marketers who visited my hospital bedside hours after I had given birth, where I lay in sleep-deprived drug-induced fog, to try and convince me to sign up for a baby photo-session. Surely there should be a time and a place.

My diaper loyalties were briefly tested when free samples of Huggies were offered to me during my first visit to Cinebabies, and in goody bags provided to Mommy & Baby Fitness classes, but by then we were firmly entrenched in a Pampers-buying ritual.

Dominion’s Baby Bonus Club (which offers shoppers a $20 gift certificate to the store for each $200 in baby spending) also proved very effective as we quickly sealed our loyalties with this supermarket in favour of the less baby-friendly Loblaws.

But certainly getting in there early was the key to winning my loyalty. Perhaps marketers should be putting more money into the free samples and coupons and less into the tired old TV spots and magazine ads, especially considering that most new moms are too exhausted and preoccupied with their little bundles of joy to switch on the television or open a magazine.

Do older moms spend more?

The trend towards having babies later in life has been beneficial to Toronto-based child safety specialist, Babyproofers, which sells car-seats, gates and door locks among other devices, according to company owner Yehudah Franken.

‘It can cost several hundred dollars to baby-proof a home, so higher-income families are the key to my business,’ he says. ‘Dual-income home owners are more likely to be concerned about safety issues.’

For Franken, permanent directory-style advertising has proven more successful than transitional TV or print. ‘Not everybody is safety-oriented, so we have to be where people are looking, in the Yellow Pages and on the Internet,’ he says. Franken also picks up business by giving safety lectures to women’s groups like the Toronto-based Mommy & Baby Fitness.

However, the fact that people are having babies later in life has only affected marketing to a limited degree, according to Christine Saunders, Johnson & Johnson’s account manager at MacLaren McCann in Toronto. She says: ‘There is certainly an increasing number of information seekers now that women tend to be a little older and wiser, but at the end of the day a new mom is still a terrified new mom, regardless of her age.’