Insights Family

Nick Richardson CEO - The Insights Family

Nick is the Founder and CEO of The Insights Family. Our purpose is to provide kids, parents, and families with a voice to shape their world. The Insights Family are the global leader in kids, parents, and families market intelligence and have become the business-critical tool for some of the world’s biggest brands. Nick himself has become a go-toexpert, who is a regular speaker at industry events across the US, Europe, and Asia-Paci c, with the business operating its Kids Insights and Parents Insights services across 17 countries.

Nick is a Manchester Metropolitan and University of Bolton graduate, and has previously worked in senior marketing and strategy roles for companies such as Exxon Mobil, Hilton Hotels and PennWell. Nick returned to Manchester in 2017 to setup The Insights Family. Nick lives in South Manchester with his wife, one daughter and two dogs. He is a keen tennis player, United fan, and a frustrated racing driver. He is a proud Mancunian and hopes one day to drive around the world.

About Insights Family

Parent Insights has been totally refreshed for 2021 and now surveys parents of children between the ages of 1 and 16 in 13 countries (Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, Russia, Spain, UK and US). Parents Insights will now survey more than 2,600 parents every week totalling more than 130,000 per year, providing real-time data on the attitudes, behaviour and consumption patterns. Our realtime portal is continually updated to allow our clients to spot the latest trends before their competitors do. For more information on Parents Insights, and to download their Future Forecast report visit www. parentsinsights.com/futureforecast or call 0330 159 6631.

The digitisation of parenting

This month, The Insights Family Founder & CEO Nick Richardson shares his views on digital in uence on parents and parenting.

New technological developments are rising, with a focus on consumer convenience. The smartphone has fundamentally shifted human interaction, but new developments in connected home technology have brought more convenience behind closed doors. In the UK, 29% of expecting parents use apps for information such as the latest news, or the weather forecast, and this number increases among younger parents.

In addition to apps, parents are gaining information from social media in uencers too. Instagram is used as an information source by a quarter of UK parents overall, but its importance increases for younger generations. A third of millennial parents rely on the platform for parental advice, so we can assume that its in uence will continue to grow with the next generation of parents. Not only are parents using these platforms for educational purposes, they are sharing their journey also – which begins before the child is even born.

The trend of gender reveal parties in the UK increased by 23% during 2020, with social media posts on the topic increasing 12% over the same period. The visual nature of the reveal itself makes it an inherently sharable moment, especially considering the lack of physical contact on account of the pandemic – social media steps in to ll that gap.

As such, we have monitored an uptick in the use of platforms that facilitate group conversation, as opposed to just individual chats. Apps that facilitate group conversation saw a surge in our data amongst kids throughout the pandemic – not just to contact their friends, but their extended family also. In the last year, there has been a +22% increase in the use of WhatsApp and a +28% increase for Facebook Messenger amongst 8-10 year olds in the UK. Facebook has responded to this increased consumption of group channels by creating Facebook Portal, a video calling product marketed directly at families to stay connected in the circumstances of 2020 and beyond.

As these platforms become embedded into the parental journey, an opportunity arises to include integrated shopping experiences, which recommend products to support them at various stages in their child’s development such as learning to walk, talk, and be potty trained. Social media platforms are primed for this trend, as in uencers can tag products which can be purchased directly through the app, creating a seamless user experience. There has been an increase in the technological advancements in healthcare given to parents too, such as automated temperature control devices for nurseries, sleep monitoring, and smart cribs. Even smart speakers, now a household staple for many families, enable ‘hands-free parenting’, as parents can multitask through voice control while taking care of their children. 45% of UK parents state that they own some sort of smart home device.

Connection with the family unit via wearable tech has additional implications for parents helping their children with health problems. The Apple Watch already has the functionality to send out alerts to family members should the wearer have a seizure, plus there are speciality devices such as the K’Watch Glucose on the market for diabetic wearers. As time goes on, we are likely going to see brands looking to reward connected families for a happy and healthy lifestyle.

SUB HEAD: What this means to you…

Advancements in digital technology within the family unit will ultimately enable parents to have more visibility over their kids’ digital lives too, where their safety online has previously been a concern. Both YouTube and Spotify have already created kid-friendly versions of their applications, allowing for curated kids

This shows how in an ever-changing landscape, brands need to understand which digital platforms their audiences and consumers are using.

Therefore, The Insights Family team of researchers, data scientists and developers have created the latest version of our platform, Portal 4.0, which will open more possibilities for brands. The new tools will enable brands to understand the attitudes, behaviours, and consumption patterns of kids, parents, and families.

Inside Portal 4.0 will be new data from Parents Insights, from surveying 176,800 parents of kids between the age of 1 and 16 in 17 countries.

To learn more about the attitudes, behaviour, and consumption patterns of kids, parents, and families, and to get freemium access to The Insights Family real-time data portal, please visit: www.try.theinsightsfamily.com/nurserytoday

The Insights Family survey 6,970 children aged 3-18 and 3,400 parents every week across 17 countries, equivalent to more than 362,100 kids and 176,800 parents a year. Not only do we take a global viewpoint, but also a regional, national, and local perspective, by surveying 21,300 kids and 10,400 parents across the UK each year.