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Marketers are revising how they think about women, particularly working mothers with children. The tired old stereotypes simply do not match with reality anymore — if, indeed, they ever did.
According to a study of 500 advertising and marketing professionals conducted by the DraftFCB agency, the majority of the professionals surveyed considered single moms to be young, poorly educated and mainly from minority groups.
But those perceptions are wrong.
Even though the survey found that 35% of marketing professionals believe single women with children are 18-24 years old, only 12% of single moms are that young.
The largest group of single mothers is actually ages 35-44, with 35% of single moms falling into that category.
Only 22% of marketers understand that, however.
The misperceptions do not end there. Marketers believe that 31% of single moms did not finish high school, but only 9% did not finish.
Far from being mostly from minority ethnic groups — marketers believe that only 24% of single moms are Caucasian — 58% of single moms are Caucasian.
"When we did our first round of research," Gigi Carroll of DraftFCB told MediaPost, "we found that 35% of women are blatantly offended by the mom-centric way they are portrayed (in advertising)."
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