Are you an Alpha Mom?

Alpha Moms are fast becoming a new marketing phenomenon. They are educated, completely at ease with technology and the Internet, excellent at multi-tasking and completely focused on doing an excellent job of raising their kids. Alpha Moms are a dream target for marketers, as they have money to spend and are generally the influencers in their group. According to ComScore Networks, Alpha Moms spend 87 minutes online per day, conduct thorough market research and spend around 7% more than the usual Internet users. Marketers from Procter & Gamble, General Motors, Nintendo are all focusing on these customers, as if a product or service is a hit with the Alpha Mom's, it's a success.

Van Flandern came up with the Alpha Mom label while working on a graphics assignment several years ago. She was designing a logo for a new video-on-demand cable TV service that wanted to attract information-hungry, multitasking moms. Names being considered: Mommy TV, Mommy Channel, even Mommy Says.

Though Van Flandern is an artist, not a marketing maven, none of the names sat well with her. She'd just given birth to her daughter but continued to work as a freelance graphic artist. She was living the life of the customer her client wanted to reach, and none of these names fit.

"I couldn't get behind Mommy Channel," she says. "But I realized that the audience is me: a hip mom who wants to be involved with her children's lives but who doesn't want to give up her identity."