Toy makers, wanting to capitalize on the action-figure formula for girls, began to create little girls’ characters that were intended as licensing properties from the start. A studio called Those Characters from Cleveland, part of the American Greetings card company, was the first to do this, with a character named Strawberry Shortcake. Her curly-headed, freckle-faced, old-fashioned cute look was in fact a product of sophisticated marketing. Strawberry Shortcake’s diminutive appearance and rather superficial message of “friendship” appealed to overworked Boomer parents who, too overwhelmed to vet toys carefully, would gravitate on impulse to anything that seemed innocuous. But the Strawberry Shortcake character was designed to attract Gen-X girls, whose notoriously unstable upbringing made them feel vulnerable and insecure. Those Characters from Cleveland chose the strawberry theme after market surveys showed that little girls connected emotionally with strawberries and felt “security and affection” in relation to them.
WOULD PREFER TO STAY AT HOME
Given the bleak portrait of their childhoods, one might expect Gen-X women to be numb and emotionally unavailable as mothers. In fact, the opposite is true. Because they did not have stability as children, marketers observe, stability means a great deal more to Gen-X mothers now that they have their own families. Indeed, as a group, they do appear to be more stable than their mothers were: 70 percent are married. But a Gen-X mother is not a true traditionalist. According to market research, getting married is not as important to her as providing a stable household for her children; if she doesn’t meet the right person, she will either defer marriage or will choose to have children on her own. According to 2004 census data, the number of college-educated mothers who have never been married and have children under eighteen has tripled since 1990. Many of these women, sociologists say, have chosen single motherhood. Indeed, the national support group Single Mothers by Choice can point to Gen-X women’s sensibilities as a factor contributing to the doubling of its membership in just three years; though the group is twenty-five years old, it grew from twelve chapters in 2002 to twenty-four nationwide by the end of 2005. The average age of the Single Mothers by Choice is thirty-five, and nearly all have completed college. About 52 percent of the mothers conceived a child by donor insemination, and approximately 25 percent adopted. About 20 percent became pregnant with a “known donor” or sex partner but are raising their children alone.
Marketers have also learned that Gen-X mothers’ top priority is spending as much time as possible with their kids. The 2005 National Study of Employers, conducted by the Families and Work Institute, revealed striking shifts in work patterns that can be attributed to Gen-X parents’ insistence on maintaining an acceptable balance between work and family. Small businesses, the study showed, are increasingly offering employees flexible hours, while large organizations provide benefits that have direct costs, such as retirement funds and on-site daycare programs. Small companies seem to believe that without flexible work hours, Gen-X mothers might simply quit, if they have the financial freedom to do so. “Of the 92% of employers that offered at least eight work-life initiatives, including flexible work schedules, family leave and child care, nearly half, 47%, reported they provide these initiatives to recruit and retain employees,” said the study; 25 percent reported that they provide these choices to enhance productivity and commitment.
Gen-X mothers do not share with Baby Boomer mothers the imperative to drive hard on the career track. According to WonderGroup’s survey research, 87 percent of Gen-X moms with kids of twelve and under said they would rather stay at home to raise their children than work at an office. If they can afford to, many do just that.
STORIES OF THE “OLD DAYS”
Gen-Xers are famous for their hard-won self-sufficiency. Some speculate that their resourcefulness and flexibility in adulthood result from a childhood in which adults were often scarce or frazzled. However, having grown up with shaky role models, Gen-X continues to nurture a guarded view of authority and a deep attachment to individuality (32 percent of Gen-X women have tattoos). Gen-X mothers are less likely to rely on their own mothers’ parenting advice than previous generations have done. Take, for example, a typical Gen-X mother deciding which brand of baby food to buy for her first child, as outlined by marketers Maria T. Bailey and Bonnie W. Ulman in Trillion-Dollar Moms: Marketing to a New Generation of Mothers. “Not surprisingly, the Baby Boomer grandmother will tell her how things were when she was a child and what brands she used to feed her babies as a young mother,” they write. “The Generation X mom will discount stories of the ‘old days’ in an attempt to forget her own unstable childhood and avoid recreating it for her child.” The authors also observe, however, that the Gen-X mother generally regards her own mother as a peer — perhaps an outcome of being raised in a single-mother household — and will listen to her advice as she would to that of a friend.
Friends are extremely important to Gen-X mothers, perhaps even more important than their family of origin. Gen-X mothers depend on friends for everything from emotional support to shopping tips. Market researchers explain that as children, Gen-Xers were often compelled to rely more heavily on their peer groups than on parents for support, and they continue to do so as mothers. The rise of mother-and-baby play groups and online parenting communities such as BabyCenter.com and iVillage reflect the Gen-X mom’s need to connect with other women going through the same life stage to compare notes, commiserate, and offer advice. It also explains at least part of the runaway success of Baby Einstein: Gen-X moms love Julie Aigner-Clark.
A MOM LIKE YOU
Each video or DVD in the Baby Einstein series ends with a segment in which Julie Aigner-Clark introduces herself as the series creator — and as a mom. Gen-X mothers, according to Disney’s market research, watch this segment repeatedly. One reason seems to be that Aigner-Clark is exceptionally ordinary — but not in the conventional way. Nearly every demographic and psychographic group in the United States sees her as one of their own. She has a broadcaster’s nonaccent, and, in the American transient tradition, she is from a middle-class everywhere. She grew up in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, was living in suburban Atlanta when she made the first Baby Einstein video, and now lives outside of Denver. Her demeanor and sensibility bridge major culture gaps. On the one hand, she is cheerful and unpretentious, projecting an image of a suburban heartland stay-at-home mom who always has cupcakes and neat crafts projects waiting for the neighborhood gang. On the other hand, she has the hyphenated last name, cultural values, and educational pedigree of an upper-class urban career mother who schedules play dates for her toddler at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Born in the mid-1960s, she sits astride the cusp of the Baby Boom generation and Generation X. She appears to be Every-Mom.
Disney focus groups have revealed that Gen-X mothers see that in the final segment Aigner-Clark is talking to them as a mom herself. Mothers connect with her as if she were a friend. Thus they support her and promote her work to other friends. First-time mothers rave about Baby Einstein videos to other first-timers. The network of Baby Einstein devotees grew quickly, in part because of the rise of e-mail and the Web in the 1990s, but also because of the growing number of mother-and-baby groups flourishing at the time. The company was able to establish immediate credibility with mothers and, soon afterward, with parenting magazines, which conferred awards on the company during its first few years. Viral marketing through new moms was so powerful that until 2003 — when Disney had owned the company for two years — there was no formal advertising for Baby Einstein products. None was needed. All promotion was by word of mouth, from one mother to the next.
Moms’ viral marketing is still the keystone of Disney’s