“Dad-vertising”: the New Trend in Marketing?

The marketing is a field where different specialists have different opinions, and sometimes from this diversity new trends appear. Rhondalynn Korolak, a small business marketing expert and author of the book Sales Seduction, says that brands should focus on ‘Dad-vertising’.

As the number of stay at home dads more than doubled in the past decade, marketers should take in consideration a shift in their focus from moms to dads. Some of the companies already embracing this new direction are Amazon and Target. Children’s toys, small appliances and cleaning products are promoted targeting men, while toy makers Mattel have introduced a Barbie construction set. Other brands such as Huggies, Go-Gurt, Chherions and others also included dads taking care of their children in their commercials.

“If your market is changing, i.e. now stay at home dads are on the rise, then you cannot continue to deliver the same old messages that were designed 10 years ago to appeal women only. It’s about relevancy and impact, not the channel, and what appeals to a stay at home dad is very different to what might have worked in the past for these brands,” says Rhondalynn Korolak.

“While some research supports a distinct feminization of the workplace in the past few decades, with more emphasis on communication, emotional intelligence and empathy, we are seeing the opposite at home—a marked masculinization of domestic chores, purchases and routines. As a result big brands are now changing the way they sell household products in order to stay on top.”

However, a source of information for this press release is an article from 2011 that presented the results of a Yahoo survey conducted on more than 2,400 men in the US. That survey revealed that more than half between the ages of 18 to 64 said that they identify themselves as the primary shopper in their household.

It would definitely be useful to have more recent data with the percentage of stay at home dads. As we recently presented you, moms are important for marketers and they are using more and more mobile devices in their shopping process and are open to commercial messages from companies.

There is no doubt that there are stay at home dads and that they are important for businesses. It seems that marketers have to choose really carefully the type of strategies they are going to use to promote their products. Should they be more focused on moms or on dads?