3 Tips for Marketing to Millennial Moms and Dads
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Hoping to capture the buying power of the parents of all the little Avas and Liams being born these days?

Then make sure you’re addressing millennials – who comprise the majority of today’s new moms and dads. I’ve been immersed in this topic lately as I’ve worked on research for The Hartford’s survey of millennial parents. And recently, millennial parents have influenced employers such as Microsoft and Netflix to announce significant expansions to their paid parental leave benefits.

As the Gen X mother of a four-year-old daughter, I’m also keenly aware that millennials are inspiring companies to offer what parents from all generations want — much like we’ve seen with other millennial-driven changes to the workplace and the marketplace.

If you’re wondering how to market to millennial moms and dads — and other modern parents who think similarly — these three tips will help.

1. Focus on health and wellness

Millennial parents’ tots, lovingly swaddled in diapers from Jessica Alba’s The Honest Company, will probably never know mac and cheese used to be iridescent orange. Today’s parents are reading nutrition labels, putting down the Juicy Juice and Ritz, and replacing them with organic and natural alternatives.

The effect of this consumer consciousness is significant: General Mills, for example, has announced plans to eliminate artificial colors and flavors from its cereals, such as Lucky Charms, Trix and Count Chocula. And guess who recently announced they would change their mac and cheese ingredient list? Yep, Kraft is feeling the heat from today’s popular, natural brands, and is removing artificial preservatives and synthetic colors from its mac and cheese recipe, starting in January 2016.

2. Avoid gender stereotyping

Forget blue and pink – or even yellow. Nurseries today are chocolate, orange, gray – any color you can imagine. And it’s not because parents don’t know the sex of the baby; it’s because gender-neutral is the new black.

Toys are moving toward equality of the sexes as well. Target just announced it’s removing unnecessary gender-based signs in the toy aisle. GoldieBlox designs more female-focused building and engineering toys, and Lego – my daughter’s favorite toy – recently increased its offerings of women in STEM figures. Toys that encourage girls to learn STEM-related skills like coding are cropping up (and getting funded) on crowdfunding sites.

3. Recognize the ongoing struggle between helicopter and free-range parenting styles

How much freedom should children have? Today’s parents are wrestling with how much assistance and oversight is necessary and healthy, and companies in many child-centered categories need to be sensitive to the question.

Because while some parents are being hauled into court for letting their kids wander to the park, a less intense parenting style is being touted in recent books, such as How to Raise an Adult, by former Stanford dean Julie Lipscott Hanes, and The Gift of Failure, by New York Times writer Jessica Lahey.

Millennial parents have this dilemma on their minds, and they’ll be looking to brands and products for support in their choices.