This Grandma loves to read the New York Times Wedding Section every Sunday morning. This past Sunday, I read that the father of the bride or groom was involved in Virtual Piggy, listed as Paypal for minors. That caught my attention so I looked Virtual Piggy up on the internet.
I found out that it is being re branded as Oink to appeal to older children.
I showed the concept to Grandpa. I must say he was amazed how I found out about this and pursued it. Then, he started reminiscing again about his favorite grandfather. His grandfather was the one who gave him a weekly allowance of $1 in 1954-5. Of course, we looked it up and found that his grandfather was truly generous because that would be $20 a week today. He said $1 a week was in an envelope with an additional fifty cents a week in the envelope for Grandpa to give to charity. His grandfather wanted him to learn the importance of giving to others. What a wonderful grandfather and role model Grandpa had.
Now, instead of envelopes with allowance, we have Oink!
Here is what this Grandma learned about the Virtual Piggy turning into Oink.
“Virtual Piggy, a payments service aimed at minors (COPPA-compliant, with parental controls and an educational bent) is today rebranding as Oink after buying the domain, trademarks and social marks from Milk (not Google) for $57,500.”
“Founder and CEO Jo Webber – originally from the UK and with a PhD in quantum mechanics, now based in Southern California, and with many years of enterprise IT behind her – tells me that the reason was strategic: the company was originally founded to target younger, pre-teen consumers, and to date that business has attracted 750,000 active users. But in doing research on those active users, the company found that 66% were already over the age of 13. So now, it’s biting the bullet and formally widening its focus to include teenagers. “Piggy” sounded too infantile, they decided. But “Oink” lets them retain some of the branding association with piggy banks while sounding more punchy in a way that will resonate better with the older end of the youth market – or so the company believes. Webber tells me that the rebranding is coinciding not only with a push to picking up teens, but also a product expansion.”
“Today, there is an online store of Oink-approved merchants, which include brands like Banana Republic, GameStop, Claire’s and Toy’s `R’ Us and can be accessed via desktop and mobile browsers, and via a new app. (Parents and other approved sources pay money into users’ accounts, and this is what those users then use to buy goods.). Coming soon, she says, Oink will give its users the ability to pay for goods in physical stores as well. A smart business move, considering that 90% of retail spending is still happening in physical stores, despite all the strides made online.”
It seems that protections are in the works for use of such by children: “On the lawmaking side, legislators in Washington are once again reviving the Do Not Track Kids bill, which will extend the online privacy regulations of Coppa to teens aged between 13 and 15 (Coppa is for 12 and unders); along with that comes a renewed focus on what governments’ role is in protecting minors. E-commerce goes hand-in-hand with other kinds of internet use, and as it becomes a more prevalent force, it’s natural that parents and likely merchants would like to see more ways of ensuring that kids learn to act responsibly with money online.”
“Meanwhile, Pew Research points to a growing use of smartphones among teenagers in the U.S., particularly as a primary way of accessing the Internet. In data published in April of this year, Pew found that 37% of teens in the U.S. have a smartphone; 25% of those aged 12-17 access the Internet “primarily” via a cell phone or smartphone; and among teens with a smartphone, 50% access the Internet primarily via the mobile device. It also found that girls are more likely than boys to rely on their smartphone as their primary Internet access device, an interesting stat, considering that women dominate e-commerce.”
“The idea, Webber tells me, is to create a service that kids can carry into young adulthood, university and beyond. “All the games and other apps that are appealing to kids encourage them to buy and spend, and we’d like to help make purchases, but in a controlled manner, she says.”
There is more on Wikipedia about Oink, if you are interested.
Of course, I shared what I learned about Oink with the older grandchildren. They loved the idea.
Of course, I shared what I learned about Oink with the parents of the older grandchildren. They hated the idea. They said they are stressed to the max, balancing work and raising children, and Oink becomes a chore to add to their overflowing list of chores.
That is when it occurred to these grandparents that Oink is again not targeting the right audience. Parents are too busy. Grandparents are not. How much fun is it for grandparents to use Oink as a way to give visiting money or birthday money or money just because. Older grandchildren are not into visit gifts. . . .they prefer $20 to spend as they wish when we visit.
Oink is fun for grandparents and grandchildren, and it gives grandchildren more reasons to call grandparents. Parents too busy to take the Oink phone call request. We grandparents can’t wait to take it. We could use Oink to give our grandchildren in college extra money too.
Now someone should tell Oink what we know about the wealth and internet proficiency of Boomer Grandparents.
The marketing of Oink should be to involved and active grandparents with
Joy,
Mema
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