Last week while listening to Pandora, I heard a commercial for VistaPrint promoting “mommy cards” (along with networking cards and dating cards.)
What exactly is a “mommy card,” I wondered (and tweeted.)
Now before, you jump in and think, “how stupid are you, Susan, to not know what a “mommy card” is,” rest assured, I had a pretty good idea of what was intended. I just thought it was a bit silly and more than a bit sexist.
Unless you also have a separate line of “daddy cards,” promoting the “mommy card” associates the act of parenting entirely with one gender. And that is sexist. Undoubtedly inadvertent but still….
The term “calling card” seems perfectly suitable if you don’t want to call it a business card due to the more personal nature of the information. Or if you need to be more descriptive, call it a Family Card or a Parent Card, since it lists important family information that a parent might want to share with a babysitter or the parents of their children’s friends.
But this isn’t a post about sexism or gender bias. If I was going to stop at my rant about “the mommy card,” this post would be over on my personal blog Snapshot Chronicles.
Here, I write about marketing and social media. And I’d like you to take away two marketing lessons from my Twitter exchange about “mommy cards.”
First, if your brand is criticized online, you need to figure out if the critic is a rational individual or a wing-nut. Ignore the wing-nuts and engage with the rational ones. VistaPrint figured out I was a rational human being, and reached out to me on Friday.
The company Twitter persona told me why they promoted them as “mommy cards” and promised to share my feedback with the product team.
As I said in my tweets, I like the company. I’m a customer. I just didn’t like the concept of the “mommy card.” Full props to them for monitoring the Twitter stream and actively engaging with a customer. Makes it that much more likely that they’ll get my Christmas calendar order again this year.
Lesson number 2: VistaPrint told me that they used the term “mommy card” because the research indicated they should. My reply was that research didn’t make the term any less sexist.I firmly believe you can market calling cards to mothers without calling them “mommy cards.”
Now, you may disagree with me on the “mommy card” point (and I fully expect someone to do so), so don ‘t get too hung up on whether you agree with me that it is sexist. What I really want you to remember is that sometimes the research is wrong. Or more accurately, it is right, but you still shouldn’t do it.
This is particularly true when marketing to moms. Just calling a product “for moms” doesn’t make it so.
Be very careful about playing the mommy card.
Sarah says
Why not just a child card? That’s what the info is about anyway! And why would your child be with someone who *didn’t* know his allergies and so on, without you there?
Or maybe I need the upgraded version “THE Over-Protective Mummy Card”!
Leighann says
Vistaprint isn’t the only company using that term. Several other companies (and I’ve even seen them on Etsy) use the term “mommy card” or “mommy calling card.” Vistaprint may just be the largest company making them with a budget large enough for radio ads.
I have an MA, work outside the home, am a card-carrying feminist and I quite frankly don’t think this is something to get worked up about.
What else are they going to call them? “I need to give this other parent my email address” cards?
(Not that I’ve purchased these, I just type contact info into my phone.)
Susan Getgood says
Leighann — It struck me when I heard it as both silly and sexist. There’s a perfectly good name — calling card. Why create a new one that also reinforces a harmful stereotype?
We can say it is no big deal — that it’s just a silly business card, but it is the accumulation of small things just like this that support what is still a fundamentally inequal social situation.
That said, I probably wouldn’t have written the post if VistaPrint hadn’t reached out to me. The exchange offered up an opportunity to have marketing takeaway from the story.
amybhole says
I don’t have a problem with Vista Print — they’re trying to sell the most of these cards, so they’re doing what their research told them would sell the most cards.
My problem is with the women who were a part of the market research and somehow gave answers that led Vista Print to deduce that “mommy card” was the best name. Women need to stand up and say “I’m more than a Mommy” or “My husband would use these, too.” Instead they get sucked in by the cutesy and don’t do anything to defy the stereotypes.
sgetgood says
I don’t really have an issue with the company either. I just wish more companies would do the socially responsible thing and NOT do the sexist stereotypical thing that the research pointed out.
Yeah I know I am a bit of a utopian. Too old to change now. 🙂
Brian says
It’s interesting that you note the inherent sexism in the term “mommy card.” I think you’re absolutely right, and that just because that’s the popular name doesn’t make it okay to promote. I would suggest, though, that you ease up on Vista Print, though. The term mommy card is traditional–the counterpoint to the originally masculine “business card”. Of course, nowadays, many more women are working in executive positions with need for business cards, so the term has become more gender neutral, but “mommy card” remains intact mostly as an artifact of the times. Perhaps this is another thing the feminist movement should pick up.
Cara Stafford says
Let me go ask my husband if he wants a daddy card…….hang on……..nope. Alrighty, then. I think the issue of sensitivty goes too far. I think people should ask themselves, “If I am insulted by a Vista print card OPTION (meaning if you don’t like it, don’t buy it or buy it and all it what you want), am I possibly reading WAY too much into this?” Chances are, you are.
I am a woman. I have kids and a career in Marketing, and I say…chill. I care about sexism, racism, and every other kind of negative -ism out there. Everyone in marketing knows you market to your demographic. Just as my husband laughed at the prospect of him ever wanting a printed cutsie “Daddy Card” (because most men will write any info on a Mickey D’s napkin in the car), Vistaprint is simply showing through their product name that their target demographic is females with children, aka MOMMIES 🙂
Susan Getgood says
Cara,
You missed my point. While I did find the concept of “mommy card” sexist and offputting, the post was also about VistaPrint’s responsiveness.
Julian says
I think it would be nice to someday see more Dads being 1) as engaged in their children’s lives, caregiving, homework, etc. as Moms traditionally have been and are and 2) so secure in themselves and their role as Daddy that they would want a Daddy card. Maybe this is already happening and Vista Print’s research is biased.
I just love it when I see men carrying babies and taking care of them and spending a lot of time with their children as the primary caregiver. I think Vista Print promoting a Mommy card without also saying “we have Daddy cards too!” is understandably bothersome to folks whose eyes are wide open and to folks who care about increasing the pace towards a society where women and men enjoying more equal playing fields. Thank you, Susan, for the thought-provoking post.
I want to write to Vista Print and share with them this: If you look at recent movies and TV commercials, more and more we are seeing men shown in positive lights while carrying a baby especially in those cute baby-body-carriers where the baby is in a sling-type contraption (with no Mommy around), and it’s super adorable in my view. Men are so sexy – in my opinion – when they are so secure in themselves that they are totally fine with “looking like a Mom.” I hope Vista Print realizes that their research was/is probably biased and that they can potentially increase sales by including ALL demographics (including the LGBT demographics) while also being socially responsible. If Vista Print wants to prove using research that a Daddy card would sell too – or at least be more inclusive of multiple perspectives which could be good for PR – then I believe they can, because often we find what we want or expect when we conduct research.