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APSE SALIAPTA PAPAS

PARNICPACTION

BABIES IN THE ‘80s

Baby fair returns

LIBBY ORDEL’S
brainchild was conceiv-
ed in the shower.

That's how partner
Marilyn Taylor recalls the
beginnings of their consumer
trade show ‘‘Babies in the
30s**.

That was about a year and
a half ago when Libby Ordel
approached Marilyn Taylor,
a teaching colleague from
Capilano Coliege, with the
idea of putting on a baby
fair.

“*! loved the idea because
both of us have young
children,”’ said Taylor, ‘‘and
we realized there was
nothing of this nature being
done in Vancouver’’

So, they gathered up their
entrepreneurial chutzpah,
but not without researching
the feasibility first.
“Although it was very temp-
ting to run with it, fortu-
nately we had the good sense
to calm down and do some
market studies,’’ Taylor
said. In order to satisfy the
curiosity of the corporations
they were going after for in-
vestment sponsorships.

Statistics Canada reported
the birthrate was increasing
ata ‘mini baby boom’’ rate,
roughly 17,000 annually.
And half of these newborns
are first-borns in Canadian
households. But the most in-
teresting data, acccording to
Marilyn, were about the
parents themselves,

‘*These new parents are
the baby boomers of the late
40s and 50s, and this is what
is most interesting to mar-
keters of baby products,”
comments Taylor.

“We now have very af-
fluent, better educated
parents who have fewer
children, but are more in-
volved with their children,

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are spending more money on
them, and are more con-
cerned about their education
and learning process."'
Because of this, baby
goods manufacturers are
catering to the consumer

MARILYN Taylor (left) and Libby Ordel are already pre

80s fair to be held in Octeber.

demands of these modern
parents. They are spending a
lot of money on research, to
find out about the modern
family.

Both working mothers,
Taylor and Ordel often feel

the pressures of juggling
family and career. And this
diiemma certainly was ap-
parent in the focus studies

See Sabies
Rage 45

" NEWS photo Terry Peters
paring for this year’s Babies in the