When most Brits hear the name "Alfie," they think of Michael Caine's skirt-chasing cad in the 1966 movie of the same name (with all due respect to Jude Law's reprisal of the character).

Now there's a new swinging Alfie out of the UK — chatting up his girl/friend Evie, about the benefits of Huggies' "drylock system" which promises to keep a baby's skin dry for up to 12 hours and help prevent leaks. He even has his own Twitter handle — presumably because he's too young to give out a mobile number.Continue reading...

Sixty-six percent of moms confess to hiding in the bathroom for alone time according to a recent survey commissioned by Procter & Gamble’s most iconic consumer brand, Ivory.

The national study canvassed more than 1,000 moms to garner insights ‘on the realities of their lives,’ and gave impetus to Ivory's new online social community, The Soap Dish, which is located at Ivory's Facebook page as a branded content/community partnership with Emmy award-winner actress and mom, Melissa McCarthy, whose star rocketed this year after her scene-stealing turn in Bridesmaids. 

"I grew up using Ivory and that smell always reminds me of when I was a kid," stated McCarthy in P&G's press release. "As a working mom of two, I love anything that simplifies my life. So when one bar of soap can handle backyard dirt, spaghetti hands, and the unidentified crusty bits under my girls' necks — I'm in."

“As part of Ivory's modern day makeover, which began with the unveiling of our new packaging design and advertising campaign, we sought to tap into the everyday opinions and attitudes of today’s busy mom,” said Jay Sethi, Ivory brand manager. “What we found was today’s moms have an unyielding desire for honest, down-to-earth, simple yet social connections with other women and moms.”Continue reading...

Madres y Comadres is an eight-part original Spanish-language miniseries from Kmart targeting Hispanic mothers and the unique challenges they encounter raising a family in America and remaining true to their Hispanic heritage, as seen above, housed on a dedicated YouTube channel.

With Hispanics now the largest minority in the U.S., the webisodes are humorous and sensitive to the prevalence of extended families in the culture, hence the title: 'Madre' meaning mother, and 'Comadre,' her female confidantes.

Evocative of a 'telenovela,' the scripted episodes tackle issues such as a heartbroken mom who discovers her son is trading homemade tamales for tuna sandwiches at school; a son from a Spanish-speaking home who gets a ‘C’ in Spanish and an ‘A’ in Chinese; a mother whose daughter really wants a sleepover, a practice not popular with Hispanic moms.Continue reading...

The folks at Procter & Gamble have got an army of women helping them out online. Through the use of its Tremor marketing arm, P&G has built up a massive focus group to help the company make some big decisions and some sales along the way.

Tremor CEO Chris Laird tells eMarketer that online word-of-mouth has been particularly effective within Tremor’s Vocalpoint program, a collection of a half million “highly engaged” moms who “advocate for products within their social networks.”

One example Laird shared was how effective a campaign for Secret deodorant was through the use of Vocalpoint.Continue reading...

Being pregnant just became a little easier thanks to a new iPhone app, ExpectingBaby, just released by Mead Johnson, maker of Enfamil infant formula.

Moms-to-be can track their nine month journey with customized week-by-week updates on a child’s development through photos, updates and pregnancy milestones via Facebook, Twitter and email.Continue reading...

In a funny twist of virtual fate, turns out that social media-savvy moms wield substantial clout when it comes to recommending, among other things, eReaders and banking services to family and friends.

As competition in both markets escalate, it’s women with one or more children under 18 living at home, who regularly engage in social media, that are influencing brand choices. 

Motista's recent survey on eReaders asked consumers about brands including Amazon's Kindle, Barnes & Noble's Nook, Sony's eReader and Apple's iPad.

“Social media moms definitely feel a deeper connection to their eReaders that their non-social media counterparts don’t,” said Alan Zorfas, chief product and marketing officer at Motista, in a press release.Continue reading...

There isn't anything that can do more damage to a brand's credibility than a product recall. Stork Craft, the Canadian manufacturer of baby cribs, is reeling from a recall of over 2 million drop-side cribs -- the largest crib recall ever. About 150,000 of the recalled cribs were sold under a Fisher-Price brand, and the company's phone lines are jammed with calls from anxious parents.

The US Consumer Products Safety Commission reported that four infants died from being caught in the crib's side gates, which slide up and down. Drop-side cribs have been the subject of criticism before. In the past two years, close to one million of them were recalled by Simplicity.Continue reading...

After Maclaren recalled a million of its strollers, even the New York Times apparently couldn't resist getting in on the schadenfreude reserved for brand perceived as a favorite of  "yuppie" parents:

"In Park Slope, the Brooklyn neighborhood that probably has the highest stroller-per-capita ratio in New York City, baby buggies are known to create traffic jams on the picturesque sidewalks, often turning cramped cafes into veritable obstacle courses. And behind each of Park Slope’s strollers, the stereotype goes, is a neurotic parent, prone to worry."

The voluntary recall, initiated for "fingertip amputation and laceration hazard to the child," seems to be rolling forward without a glitch, though an early flood of traffic took down the company's recall site. A spokesperson called this unexpected, which demonstrates Maclaren maybe doesn't understand its demographic. But anyway, the recall is for the United States only, which... uh oh:

"Maclaren said it would not do the same in the UK because there was less concern in this country where Trading Standards recorded just one case."Continue reading...