Mindshare Study Shows Quality Time With Mom Tops List of Mother’s Day Gifts

But High-Tech Gadgets Unlikely for Mom This Year As Respondents Reveal Need for “Human Touch”

Almost 25 percent of adults would take their moms on a weekend trip for Mother’s Day—the most favored gift among a wide range of choices, according to a new Mindshare survey.

After the weekend trip, a spa day (18 percent), a piece of fine jewelry (18 percent), a night out with Dad (12 percent) and a new summer wardrobe (10 percent) were the top responses.

But the survey in which respondents were asked to make their choices based on the assumption that cost was not a factor—also revealed that technical gadgets like smartphones, e-readers and Internet-enabled TVs were at the bottom of the list of preferred gifts for moms.

“These responses solidify a theme that is continuously emerging from our research—the desire for the ‘human touch’ trumps the desire for an iTouch,” said Mark Potts, Managing Director, Mindshare North America. “As we continuously monitor the consumer pulse, we have noted that real people—rather than anonymous reviews and reviewers—hold unique influence and sway over purchasing decisions.”

The study was part of Mindshare North America’s “Culture Vulture” series of reports and is the latest in a group of surveys indicating the desire for the “Human Touch” is outpacing that of the latest tech gadgets.

In fact, technology-oriented gifts ranked behind almost all other responses with eight percent choosing “A fully loaded new tablet or e-reader with her favorite books,” six percent picking “an Internet-enabled television with the latest technology” and only five percent selecting “the latest smartphone available.”

Culture Vulture is Mindshare’s cultural trends program that sets out to identify macro and micro trends that impact the marketing and communications strategies of the agency’s clients. The need for the “Human Touch” has repeatedly materialized in surveys as a driver of, and prerequisite for, consumer purchases.

In a March survey, nearly three-quarters of adults (74 percent) agreed with the statement that “in today’s hi-tech world it is better to spend quality time with family and friends.” Respondents also indicated their desire for purchasing guidance from friends and sales people. More than half of all adults (55 percent) indicated they would “prefer to talk to a customer service or sales representative when interacting with a company or brand.” In addition, more than half (52 percent) of all female shoppers 18–29 said they consult with a shopping partner before making a purchase.

Potts noted, “In the seemingly endless sea of product and service reviews offered to consumers via social media and other online sources, consumers always hone back to the opinions of those they most trust.”

This survey was conducted online and fielded on April 26–27, among a sample of 1,052 nationally representative adults 18 years of age or older.

About Mindshare
Mindshare is a global media and marketing services network with billings in excess of $27.8 billion (source: RECMA). The network consists of 113 offices in 82 countries throughout North America, Latin America, Europe, Middle East and Asia Pacific, each dedicated to forging competitive marketing advantage for businesses and their brands. Mindshare is part of GroupM, which oversees the media investment management sector for WPP. Visit Mindshare online at http://www.mindshareworld.com.

About GroupM
GroupM is the leading global media investment management operation. It serves as the parent company to WPP media agencies including Maxus, MEC, MediaCom, and Mindshare. Our primary purpose is to maximize the performance of WPP’s media communications agencies on behalf of our clients, our stakeholders and our people by operating as a parent and collaborator in performance-enhancing activities such as trading, content creation, sports, digital, finance, proprietary tool development and other business-critical capabilities. The agencies that comprise GroupM are all global operations in their own right with leading market positions. The focus of GroupM is the intelligent application of physical and intellectual scale to benefit trading, innovation and new communication services, to bring competitive advantage to our clients and our companies.

Primary Contact:
Scott Berwitz
Director, Corporate Communications
Mindshare
(212) 297-8083
[email protected]