’Tis the season for fall holidays, and it seems like they keep arriving earlier every year! For Millennials, holidays and special occasions are not just about Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and Hanukkah anymore. Even “Hallmark holidays” like Boss’s Day (today, coincidentally) have nothing on the trends that Millennials have created to celebrate milestones, particularly once these women become moms.
Millennials can take credit for gender-reveal parties, half-birthdays, baby moons and push presents, to name a few. The generation that spent their childhood with parents who marked ages and stages with celebrations and praise has discovered ways to keep themselves in the spotlight. The Millennial generation has created reasons to gather as expectant couples to reveal the gender of their unborn child or to travel on a “baby moon” as one last, child-free vacation before their babies are born.
The following facts speak to the Millennial-made holidays that present golden opportunities for marketers:
- 30% of Millennials create and send “expecting” announcements as a formal way to share their pregnancy news.
- 15% of these new mothers have enjoyed baby moons and received push presents, and this number will continue to grow as only one-third of Millennial women are mothers thus far and the trend is not going away. (In case you’re not familiar with the term, a “push present” is a gift a mom receives after delivery in appreciation for giving birth.)
- Almost 20% plan gender-reveal events, big and small, as well as monthly events celebrating baby’s first year.
These new traditions provide smart marketers with the opportunity to be part of the celebrations and open new channels for sales. Baby moons present travel services and destination resorts a whole new market of consumers with slightly different needs and goals than that of the honeymoon market or the family clientele. Tapping into the baby moon market might lead a travel destination to offer foot massages, elongated pillows for comfortable pregnancy sleeping and nonalcoholic specialty drinks.
When it comes to celebrations focused on baby, there’s almost no limit to what Millennial moms will do for their sons and daughters. The interesting question is, “What will Millennial moms think of next?”
