USA TODAY
March 27, 2007 Tuesday
FINAL EDITION
Alpha Moms leap to top of trendsetters;
Multitasking, tech-savvy women are expected to be next to watch

BYLINE: Bruce Horovitz

SECTION: MONEY; Pg. 1B

LENGTH: 1525 words

There may be moments in Constance Van Flandern's day when she's got a BlackBerry in one hand and one of her two kids in the other.

That is her Alpha Mom moment. She ought to know: She created the label to describe moms such as herself.

The graphic designer from Eugene, Ore., and millions of mothers like her, are becoming a marketing phenomenon. Alpha Moms are educated, tech-savvy, Type A moms with a common goal: mommy excellence. She is a multitasker. She is kidcentric. She is hands-on. She may or may not work outside the home, but at home, she views motherhood as a job that can be mastered with diligent research.

An Alpha Mom typically has money to spend, and -- key for marketers -- she is, as the label implies, a leader of the pack who influences how other moms spend.

She's also wired -- online 87 minutes a day, estimates ComScore Networks, an internet market research specialist -- and she spends a hefty 7% more than the typical Internet user. The impact of her purchases or what she touts can spread on the Internet far beyond her e-mail list or blog.

If your product or service passes the Alpha Mom test, it's gold. That's why the nation's biggest marketers, from Procter & Gamble to General Motors to Nintendo, are focusing on this remix of the modern mom.

"She ignites markets," says Michael Silverstein, consumer guru at Boston Consulting Group. "She's a hyperactive purchasing agent."

There've been other moms before her at the forefront of cultural shifts. They, too, were highly sought after by marketers as "influencers" -- people whose brand preferences are followed by others. There were the Soccer Moms lugging kids to sports fields in their minivans and courted as key swing voters by presidential campaigns. They were culturally ousted by the Yoga Moms who made time for themselves and made millions for marketers who wooed them.

A label that described her life

Van Flandern came up with the Alpha Mom label while working on a graphics assignment several years ago. She was designing a logo for a new video-on-demand cable TV service that wanted to attract information-hungry, multitasking moms. Names being considered: Mommy TV, Mommy Channel, even Mommy Says.

Though Van Flandern is an artist, not a marketing maven, none of the names sat well with her. She'd just given birth to her daughter but continued to work as a freelance graphic artist. She was living the life of the customer her client wanted to reach, and none of these names fit.

"I couldn't get behind Mommy Channel," she says. "But I realized that the audience is me: a hip mom who wants to be involved with her children's lives but who doesn't want to give up her identity."

Presto: Alpha Mom TV.

The name she came up with was embraced by her client, Isabel Kallman, CEO and "founding mother" of Alpha Mom TV. She was a new mom herself and a former Wall Street executive, and her husband, Craig, is co-chairman of Atlantic Records. She was living that complex life, too. But with some frustration.

"As a new mom, I couldn't trust my own instincts," Kallman recalls. "I sought information on how to take care of my child, but I couldn't find anything on TV." That's when she got the idea of a 24/7 cable channel dedicated to parenting.

The channel launched in 2005 with this simple mission: Provide information that helps parents trust their instincts. Short videos cover everything from breastfeeding to blogging.

Alpha Mom TV, in 11.5 million homes with distribution deals with Comcast and Cox, has struggled in the early going. So has Kallman, who was the subject of a biting profile in New York magazine that portrayed the Alpha Mom as an ultra-controlling, hyper-ambitious Robo Mom.

"I am a complex woman who is unloading a lot of emotional baggage on her motherhood journey," is how Kallman responded in her blog to that article. "Alpha Mom is my reflection -- and my beacon."

Alpha Mom TV's website next month will add a baby name search engine, product reviews and social networking, and it is creating content for everything from broadband to mobile phones. The company will turn a profit this year, Kallman says.

Marketers go for those moms

A funny thing has happened along the way, however: The label Alpha Mom and the women it describes were embraced by the marketing world.

Among the first big marketers to chase Alpha Moms: video game company Nintendo, which is trying to expand its market beyond hard-core gamers.

Last fall, as it was about to roll out the cool Wii game console, Nintendo gathered small groups of trend-setting moms in eight cities to test it.

In Los Angeles, it treated 35 moms to an evening at the chic Chateau Marmont. Among those tapped was Linda Perry of Venice Beach, who has two kids, is a full-time legal assistant and leads a Yahoo parenting group that reaches 7,000 tech-savvy moms.

"I'm constantly using the computer to find information," says Perry. "If I get an amazing facial, the whole world knows about it."

Ka-ching. This is just the type of Alpha Mom that Nintendo wants to impress with its Wii, which uses motion-sensitive controllers to manipulate action on the TV screen. Nintendo went all out, setting up a room filled with fancy food, an open bar and Wii demos.

Perry went bonkers for Wii -- so much so, she says, that more than 200 women in her e-mail group have bought the $250 console on her recommendations.

With the help of Alpha Moms, Wii became the nation's top-selling game system in January.

"Alpha Moms are one of our key targets, because they have this high social-networking factor," says Perrin Kaplan, Nintendo's vice president of marketing. The company's outreach to them, she says, "is not a fad -- it's permanent."

Baby, you should drive my car

General Motors is getting hip to Alpha Moms, too -- at least its Cadillac division is, and not by accident. Liz Vanzura, Cadillac's new global marketing director, is a self-described Alpha Mom with three kids ages 4, 7 and 12. The brand recently started targeting Alpha Moms because Vanzura saw Cadillac missing out on a big growth opportunity.

While 75% of Cadillac buyers are male, 70% of car purchases are influenced by women, Vanzura says.

"We're going after moms who wouldn't be caught dead in a minivan," she says. "These are Type A moms who hit one goal, then are off to the next." Much like Vanzura.

A good chunk of Cadillac's online ad campaign -- at mycadillacstory.com -- features Alpha Moms.

One of them is Holly McPeak, a professional beach volleyball player who won a bronze medal in the 2004 Olympics. She's also a stepmom to two teenagers. She's pressed to divide her time between family, workouts and media. "My BlackBerry is attached to me all the time except when I'm on the beach practicing," she says. She's online four hours a day.

She told Cadillac how much she loves the Escalade she bought two years ago, and, for no fee, appeared in a video now on Cadillac's website. McPeak says she likes the SUV because it's efficient for hauling volleyballs, groceries or family.

An Alpha Mom, she says, is someone who does it all, "but doesn't forget about themselves."

Executives at Kimberly-Clark have joined the Alpha Mom hunt.

The company has grown hip to the fact that Alpha Moms are "often online seeking out peer information," says Brad Santeler, director of media and relationship marketing.

Its Huggies brand created the online Huggies Baby Network. It's intentionally light on pitching diapers and wipes, but offers a fountain of information on healthy baby tips and nursery design. The site lets moms find things of interest, "link it to the brand, then share it with a friend," says Santeler.

Next month, Unilever has big plans for Alpha Moms.

In partnership with Sprint, the company's Suave brand is creating an "In the Motherhood " website that will air a mom-focused Web video series. Moms will suggest the story ideas and vote on which ones to produce.

"This is where moms are and where we need to be playing," says Sarah Jensen, director of marketing for hair care at Unilever U.S. "The minute you start doing things online, the word spreads."

Risking Swiffer reviews

Which is why consumer giant Procter & Gamble is tapping parenting websites to get its products into the hands of Alpha Moms.

P&G recently gave several hundred Swiffer WetJets to what it identified as influential moms who often visited TheNest.com., a site about homes. P&G asked the moms to review the Swiffers on the site.

"You get positive and negative responses," says Paul O'Connor, brand manager of Swiffer. "But if you get 98% positive and 2% negative, it's a win."

A win for Van Flandern, the graphic artist who coined the Alpha Mom phrase, is any day that she simply can fit everything in.

Early mornings with her kids. Work at home on her laptop from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Exercise from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. Afternoon activities with the kids. Dinner at 5:30. Bath time at 7, followed by bedtime for the kids. Then there's a debriefing with her husband, before she goes back online to revisit her latest project.

"I'm at my Alpha-Mommy-est when I have the most balls in the air," she says. "It's multitasking to the nth degree. It's like training for the Olympics. Most of all, it's fun."