Authenticity and empathy: the Mumsnet route to engaging with mothers

This event report considers research that offers a much more nuanced picture of mothers than marketers typically rely on.

Authenticity and empathy: the Mumsnet route to engaging with mothers

Brian CarruthersWarc

"Are you ready to stop faking it?" That was the question posed to brands during Mumstock, an event focused on marketing to mothers, organised by the Mumsnet forum and held in London in March 2016.

Carrie Longton, co-founder of Mumsnet, argued that brands were "selling mums short" by making simplistic assumptions about them, by creating unrealistic segmentations (such as "low-income Lisa") and by indulging in brand-centric research. And these tendencies had been "weaponised by automated marketing".

Research commissioned by Mumsnet and the Saatchi & Saatchi agency...

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