The first ever JPMA Baby Show opened on May 9-12 in Anaheim, CA. Produced by the Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association (JPMA) and Family Media – organizers of the New York Baby Show -- the California event showcased hundreds of vendors in the prenatal to preschool products marketplace.
Even if you’re not a parent, you would have to be impressed by the range of products featured at the show. From space-age strollers to healthy snacks, stylish yet safe mattresses to creative baby wraps (who would have thought a blanket could be innovative?) - the expo floor was transformed into a vast center of creative solutions for parents and parents-to-be.
In addition to three days of trade show exhibits, the Baby Show offered a day and a half of educational sessions and keynotes, including a regulatory track, “Managing Compliance and Safety in a World of Innovation.” JPMA’s mission is about more than recognizing innovation and promoting new products. Safety is the top priority in the juvenile products industry, and companies must meet stringent requirements at federal level, as well as retailer requirements. For a small brand or one new to the industry, the process can be daunting. For their part, JPMA has established a Certification Program that helps companies understand and fulfill the testing requirements.
During the show, we met with Danielle Iverson, JPMA Director of Legislative & Regulatory Affairs, as well as many members of the JPMA involved in regulatory affairs. We continue to have ongoing discussions with National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) on using Photoregister – our mobile product registration solution – with the juvenile industry. Photoregister has been adopted as the industry standard in a number of industries and is now offered on 70% of US major appliances.
No doubt parents also feel that the safety of products their children use is paramount. Even as stringent as the regulations are, recalls do happen and parents need to know if a product is found to be defective. One of the best ways to stay in the loop is by registering the product – and our recent trends research shows that 61% of people who register products in 2016 have children (up from 23% in 2005).
Research also shows that many parents of young children, especially millennial parents, want to connect with brands very soon after a purchase and that they prefer to do it on their mobile devices. (Flashback to JPMA show keynote speaker, Jeff Fromm, co-author of Marketing to Millennials & Millennials w/Kids: "If you're not thinking mobile first as a brand, you're losing.")
As the leader in mobile product registration for appliance brands, we were excited to share our approach with the many vendors we met at the show. It’s our mission to help brands connect with their customers post-purchase. In this case that also carries a greater responsibility – to help keep the lines of communication open and give parents peace of mind when it comes to safe products for their children.