There’s are reason juggernauts like Woolies and Coles invest in child-driven sales promos such as Stikeez and Disney Words. Kids have overwhelming influence over what Mums buy and clever marketing to kids results in Millions of dollars; not only for kids products.

Just ask any parent you know, not ‘if’ – but ‘how’- their shopping habits change when these campaigns run. The spending power kids have over parents is frightening.

We recently surveyed 2000+ other households for the 2019 “Billion Dollar Mum – What Makes Mums Buy Your Product” White Paper to uncover hundreds of definitive stats and trends hindering or helping brands to sell more to this lucrative buyer.  (pre-register here)

Pester Power is one area explored and its role in the pathway to purchase.  Of those surveyed:

• 75% have given into pester power and bought an item due to their child’s insistence.
• Pester Power is expectantly high for Children products (34%), and alarmingly high for Supermarket items (31%) among categories such as Entertainment, Home, for the Mum
• A solid 40% of Mums would not have purchased any of these products otherwise.

Given the role the child has in influencing a sale, the question for marketers is – where are kids discovering the brands they want Mums to purchase? 

Contrary to popular belief that TV advertising is the dominant culprit. 

Research in the Billion Dollar Mum Report shows the impact of advertising mediums ranging from: Instore (36%), schoolyard/friendships (25%), Social Media/Online (18%), TV advertising (10%).   These insights, alongside global industry, trends another medium within ‘social’ set to greatly influence pester power of the future and that is the role of Kid Influencers.

A trend that is only in its infancy in Australia.

In light of this, Kids Business wanted to find out more about the Kid Influencer industry. I recently spoke with Greg Alkalay, CEO of batteryPOP and Kidfluencer^TM – a U.S. based agency specializing in connecting brands to kid Influencers overseas to find out how this industry is evolving in this more advanced market and what Australian brands need to know to enter this space with confidence.

Full interview here.

Here’ an extract from the Top 8 tips and insights about Kid Influencer trends you need to know

• Tip 1: “Successful Kid Influencers produce content regularly. They’re consistent about their own style, and they engage. Fans feel another level of connection with them unlike TV or movie personalities”
• Tip 2: “Brands need to understand that there is a need to capture the energy that the kid influencer has already created with their audience for their product to be understood”
• Tip 3: “There is less control from brands over kid influencers, compared to what you would have when you have with a studio and a cast and a director for a commercial spot”
• Tip 4: “There is due diligence brands need to do to get that balance between their message and the influencers style, which engages an audience and it adds to the level of authenticity.”
• Tip 5: “You need do some due diligence. Watching the kid influencer content to understand what content these channels are making and which videos work best. Don’t put a round peg in a square hole because you do have an audience that has an expectation of what they’re going to see, and they won’t react properly to content that doesn’t fit the tone”.
• Tip 6:  “Test the waters and work with a group kid influencers to find some scale through bundling up audiences and cross-promoting. Aggregated projects are hot, right now!”
• Tip 7: “A huge trend is micro kidfluencers. Brands can either work with the one big channel and pay a bunch or you can work with an aggregation of other micro-channels with smaller but more dedicated fans.”
• Tip 8: “There’s going to be more rules and regulation around sponsored and paid advertising. It’s really is on us (marketers) to be doing the responsible thing ahead of time.”

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Just like the influencer space overall, Kid Influencers is a rapidly growing space that Australian brands -across different categories – need to monitor to capitalise on market opportunities successfully – and ethically.

If you would like to access more facts from the Billion Dollar Mum Report commissioned by Kids Business, pre-register your interest here, or contact us for a 15-minute call to workshop your Mum Marketing Success Strategy and discover your 2 greatest growth opportunities.