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In hot pursuit of Yoga Mamas
She's busy and choosy, but reach her, and you tap into her network, too
Two-year-old Casandra King's bedroom is stocked with products that are very different from those her mother, Julia, had when she was that age. Instead of Johnson & Johnson Baby Oil and Vaseline, the Edison (N.J.) toddler gets slathered daily with petroleum-free lotions from California Baby. Her mom pays three times the price of the mass brands. And Casandra's dresser is filled with organic cotton shirts and pajamas from niche marketers such as Hanna Andersson and Mama's Earth, which can cost 50 percent more than clothes from Sears, where Julia's mother shopped for four kids 35 years ago.
Julia King, 38, is part of an emerging class of women whom marketers call Yoga Mamas. These middle- and upper-income mothers are more style- and brand-conscious than their parents. No matter their income, they spend like lottery winners on their babies and toddlers. In the process, they're revolutionizing the baby-products market and forcing manufacturers and retailers of all sizes to adjust.
From the start, they are focused on active, fashionable, and fit pregnancies, and then on the fitness and well-being of their offspring. They tend to be more educated and have more disposable income to spend on fewer children than past generations. As a result, the $27 billion infant and preschool products business is growing more than 4 percent per year, faster than the overall toy, apparel, and furniture industries. "This group is influencing other moms who have money and plenty of moms who don't," says Timothy Dowd, a senior analyst at market research firm Packaged Facts. "Yoga Mama is pumping up sales across the board."
Marketers say the evidence is in the brisk sales of premium-priced products: Burt's Bees Buttermilk lotion is $8.99 and a top seller at drugstore.com; $11.50 buys a 2 oz. jar of popular California Baby Calendula Cream at Whole Foods Market; Italian leather toddler shoes are $129 at Nordstrom; Bugaboo strollers Yoga moms love for ergonomic design and brand cachet are $700 and up. And the appeal is well beyond Rodeo Drive and Manhattan's Upper East Side, where baby-bling-buying includes Gund brand diamond and emerald jewelry for newborns.
Pickle bottoms and bugaboos
Although yoga mamas may draw titters for sneaking kelp into their toddlers' meatballs, marketers aren't laughing at their spending and influence. Many women are starting families later in life, when they have financial footing and established tastes. And there is a greater tendency among new parents to think their toddlers need the best of everything to succeed in life. "These mothers aren't buying baby products so much as extending their lifestyle to their babies," says Linda Murray, editor of www.babycenter.com.
That's why many new baby products are designed more with mom in mind than baby. Kids still gravitate to Winnie the Pooh, but the trendiest diaper bags are made by manufacturers such as Petunia Pickle Bottom and Fleurville and cost $150 and up, eight times the cost of a Pooh bag at Target. The designer bags, in patterns such as houndstooth and red Asian brocade, have appeared conspicuously in ABC's “Desperate Housewives” and “The Oprah Winfrey Show”. And pricey strollers are justified in part because their rugged and lightweight design helps Mom burn calories via power walking, aka "strollercizing."
Bigger spending is fed by an attitudinal change toward motherhood. Superfit mothers-to-be flaunt their bulging bellies in cropped tops and low-rise jeans. "Soccer moms are passé," says author Katherine Stewart, whose recently published first novel, “The Yoga Mamas,” follows a group of fashion-obsessed mothers through spas and baby boutiques. "They are no longer content to be lunchbox-packers, and want to make motherhood a personal statement."
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