Mom Power

MagazineLaunch.com, a website that provides information for magazine startup entrepreneurs, reports on the launch of a new magazine targeting Today’s Moms: Hybrid Mom.
The New York based print and on-line magazine launched its first issue in April of 2007. The launch party was successfully held in the Puck Building in Manhattan, on May 21, according to Hybrid Mom's website www.hybridmom.com. Among the attendants were various media and publishing executives from CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, US News and World Report, ABC Radio Network and Mediabistro.

Hybrid Mom magazine is produced by Moms-for-Profit, a marketing and consulting company, in partnership with Gymboree Play and Music. Stacey Smith and Linda Shapiro, Co-founders of Moms-for-Profit, started the magazine to fill a hole in the relatively narrow selection of magazines marketed to mothers, according to the Hybrid Mom website.
“Today’s mothers have evolved but the available print publications targeted for us have not,” Smith says as stated in Hybrid Mom's Media Kit. “We want to change that. We see everyday how moms juggle the many facets of their lives.”
The Media Kit also reveals that Smith believes that Gymboree Play and Music is an ideal partner because they too “serve a community of caring moms that have real lives, real issues and need real answers.”
According to Hybrid Mom's website, the excitement about the partnership is reciprocal. Jill Johnston, vice president of Gymboree, is quoted as saying: “So much of what we do at Gymboree is to support parents today and that’s why we are thrilled to share this new magazine with our customers.”
The magazine is currently distributed at more than 300 Gymboree Play and Music locations across the United States.

On the website, advertisers are told that they simply can’t afford to overlook these demographics:
“The Mom Market”
• 82 million moms in the US
• Control 85 percent of household spending
• 82 percent refer to themselves as CFO
• Single mothers fastest growing segment of U.S. population
• 40 percent of mothers involved in eldercare
• Represent $1.7 trillion in annual U.S. spending
• Spend $100K on their off-spring by age 18.
Source: Blue SuitMedia

The advertisers are also encouraged to “Meet the needs and create solutions for her hectic life by promoting convenience as well as money-saving opportunities for her family. Provide these things and you have a customer for life: ninety percent of mothers remain loyal to brands that meet their expectations.” Companies such as Pampers, Momtique, Spa Finder and Stuck on You are already hooked and use their website for advertising.

Because hybrid motherhood is “all about what we want to be, with no regrets about what we’re not,” I, a mother of a two-year-old and a journalism student, will certainly find myself reading Hybrid Mom magazine again.