Katherine Wintsch On Marketing To Moms: 'Get Real' (VIDEO)

Moms control over $2.3 trillion in spending power, and Katherine Wintsch is an expert in marketing to them. AOL's David Shing chatted with Winstch -- who founded The Mom Complex and is a VP/Group Planning Director with The Martin Agency -- following her panel on "Moms & The New Zeitgeist" Monday during Advertising Week.

Wintsch said that marketing to moms is "pretty tricky," and said that most of the marketing towards the demographic is "really bad," in that it presents a picture of "idealized, glamorized perfect moms always happy to clean." She said she blames moms as much as marketers, in that they participate in focus groups and idealize their own lives. Her goal, she said, is to "get moms to get real" and then "get large companies to pay attention."

"It is challenging, and what we do is we try to uncover a real insight that is truthful and honest and has some tension in it, because their life isn't perfect," Wintsch told Shing. "Humor is always a good thing. We're moms and we're people too and we like to laugh. We've tried that route and it's worked out well as a way to capture their attention, whether it's lipsticks or laptops."

Wintsch said that the key takeaway from her panel was: "get real."

"If you're a marketer you probably are a mom or you're married to a mom or you have a mom," she said. "It's not rocket science: go talk to moms around you, and they will tell you that what you're doing is too idealized."