Walmart Moms

November 2, 2016

Sexism has no place anywhere, especially in the grocery

See this seemingly innocuous graphic used by Walmart in a recent email promotion?  It’s purporting a gender bias that mom is the lead parent, and essentially, runs the proverbial show.walmart6

It’s terribly offensive to dads who spend equal, more, or all of their time running the show.  In today’s modern world, parenting is one of those equally shared duties, and suggesting anything otherwise is wrong.

Period.

Amazon wisely caught its error when it quietly renamed the awkward Amazon Mom as the more inclusive Amazon Parent.  Yes, families involve both mom and dad — as does shopping and cooking — and you’d never catch an auto parts store or sports league saying that those stereotypical male realms are “dad’s domain.”

So why does Walmart continue with this practice when it should know better?  Why did Walmart actively promote a Walmart Moms program with no dads’ counterpart?  Why does Walmart ignore our staff when we try to communicate with them about these topics?

We expect a little more from the nation’s largest retailer, and it should certainly notice a sexist promotion when it sees one, because a mother’s place is not in the kitchen, and dads can indeed cook.  Truly, with this kind of message, no one looked good — not moms, not dads and certainly not Walmart.

Walmart has since dropped the use of this graphic, but it’s never too late to let Walmart know how it can treat dads in the future as equal, competent parents.

All of which might make dads more interested in shopping there.

Now that’s some serious food for thought.

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September 16, 2015

A fine ad, but what’s with Walmart Moms?

mixedsignalsIf you’ve been following this website since the beginning, you know we’ve focused on a variety of ways in which dads are portrayed in marketing, advertising and media.

We’ve featured companies, media channels, sports, entertainment avenues, service organizations, as well as some general ideas of our own.

When it comes to the products we buy and consume every day, it is the retailers who exert immense power. Their prices affect our overall budget. They decide what’s on sale. They decide where it’s placed in the store. They shape our buying habits, and often turn items that “I want” into “I need.”

The retailer at the top of the list, of course, is none other than Walmart. With 4,779 stores nationwide, it’s responsible for $482 billion in annual sales, and no other store comes even close.

When we wrote about Walmart on January 7, we were disappointed by an ad featured in the October 2014 American Baby magazine.

walmart2But now, almost one full year after that magazine ad we discover a change in Walmart’s ways with an advertisement so impressive (featured left), it will no doubt get everyone’s attention in the retailing world. Hopefully it will turn heads and change the way others operate and market their products and services.

Check out this list of the top retailers from last year.  If you’re reading this Kroger, Costco, Target, Home Depot, et al, your friends at Walmart have officially raised the bar.

That doesn’t mean, however, that Walmart is officially the leader in dad-friendly marketing. This ad was a hit, but another part of its portfolio is a clear miss.

That’s because it still insists on offering “Walmart Moms,” a practice that wouldn’t seem so sexist if it offered a dadly counterpart. The old fashioned use of this biased name fosters the misbelief that mom is the lead parent, and dad is merely an assistant.

We call for an end to this chauvinist exercise by renaming the program “Walmart Parents.”

What do you say Walmart?

walmart5Walmart’s approach shows that it’s at odds with its own self. By offering a fantastic ad showing dad in a positive light as an involved parent, and then disregarding dad’s parental abilities through the exclusionary Walmart Mom program, it’s sending mixed signals to dads everywhere.

We’ve debunked the moms are the lead shoppers fallacy so many times over it’s hardly worth doing again, so we’ll let another group do it.

Again, Walmart here offers one quality ad and a fantastic step in the right direction. But as for Walmart Mom, it reminds us of another dad exclusionary marketing campaign that’s taken a beating this year.

Perhaps it’s time for Walmart to be proactive (like the Today Show), rather than reactive, and let dads know that they matter as consumers.