No commercials. Why?

We have commercials for pretty much every thing these days. Why is it carseat manufactures (or even baby gear in general) do not use commercials to get their products known??

Probably the expense of advertising in relation to profit margin on the product.

Babies and children need to eat a lot, and they need lots of diapers, so it makes sense to spend a lot of money advertising those products because parents buy them constantly, and companies jockey for market share.

People spend obscene amounts of money on toys, so it pays to advertise those, too.

Cribs? Those are only bought once. Strollers? Once or twice. Most parents will buy three, MAYBE four seats per child between birth and 10 years. It's not something constantly on people's minds, nor something that needs to be.

The cost of producing spots and then buying enough airtime to make an impact would be astronomical, and likely wouldn't result in much increase in sales.

I do see magazine ads now and then, and sometimes there are various other sponsorships they're involved in, but I imagine regular commercials just wouldn't be financially beneficial.

You mean TV commercials? Or all ads in general? I've seen magazine ads and banner ads for carseats, so I'm going with the TV commercials.

I think it's a bunch of factors. TV ads are very expensive, and if you think about it, you don't see many for any kind of baby 'gear'. Consumables, like diapers, and non-essentials, like toys yes, but not strollers, cribs, playpens, etc. I think that's because they're mostly a one-time purchase, so you're not going to get much bang for the buck. You can spend a million dollars on a spot for an item a parent is going to spend $300 on during their child's life time, or something they're going to spend thousands of dollars on in their lifetime. It's a better ROI to spend on the thousand dollar items. Also, many of those gear items are considered 'essentials' so you don't have to convince parents to buy them; they're going to do that without any expenditure from you. All the manufacturer needs to do is convince them to buy their brand once they're in the store. Point of purchase ads and preferential placement is cheaper than TV ads too.

Those are my thoughts, anyway. :shrug-shoulders:

ETA: Apparently they're Jennie's thoughts too!

Another reason could be how quickly models change. Commercial could be quickly out of date.

I remember SafeGuard ran TV ads several years ago but that's all I can recall in terms of carseat company commercials. Plus many viewers use DVRs/TiVo and/or watch online and skip through commercials so the payoff may not be there for companies to invest in commercials as much anymore. PR/advertising has trended toward Facebook, banner ads, and viral marketing more and more, KWIM? :twocents:

Yeah, there are many baby-centric magazines just FULL of print ads for strollers and car seats.

Thanks for your opinions ladies