Interview Maxi-Cosi
Going above and beyond
expectations As an established and leading car seat brand Nursery Today’s Editor Penny Franks had the pleasure to interview Maxi-Cosi’s UK & Irelands Marketing Manager Debbie Wakefield to find out more about this forward thinking car seat brand. Maxi-Cosi launched their first car seat in 1984 and you have certainly come a long way since then. How have you driven the brand to become a leading car seat manufacturer of today? It takes a lot of hard work and amazing teams all over the world, but I believe the fact that we have always been innovators in the car seat category by introducing technologies such as the first car seat with air bags, or the first rotating car seat has resulted in us becoming leaders in the industry. We are proud to provide options to suit every family’s needs and budget within our range.
The brand is synonymous with safety – what drives the company to always meet this criteria? We understand that being a parent is extremely challenging at times so at every point we ensure that our products are making parent’s lives easier. We ensure that our car seats are as safe as they possibly can be by using the latest innovations and following the most up-to-date regulations which ultimately provide peace of mind to parents. 24
nursery today
We ensure that our car seats are as safe as they possibly can be by using the latest innovations and following the most up-to-date regulations which ultimately provide peace of mind to parents.
How do you convey your key car seat safety message to the consumer? We always highlight the features that make our car seats so safe in our communications to consumers. By drawing attention to safety technologies such as G-CELL side impact protection and ClimaFlow that moderates babies’ temperature, we hope to help make parents understand all the various innovations we incorporate into each of our products and how they benefit their children; going above and beyond the now expected i-Size safety. We use a variety of ATL, TTL and BTL communications, which have the end goal of educating parents with relevant information on car seat safety. We also constantly test and improve our designs in partnership with organisations concerned with child car safety such as the United Test and Assembly Centre Ltd (UTAC), Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) and the European Commission.
Do you feel that as an industry all key car seat brands are sending out the same message to the consumer on car seat legislation and requirements through the various
age/height stages, or do you feel more can be done? All car seat brands have a duty of care towards consumers and the legislations can be difficult to understand for new and existing parents alike. At Maxi-Cosi we have prided ourselves on educating consumers and being the leading voice on regulatory changes. With the impending end of the R44 regulation to i-Size, car seat safety should be significantly clearer to the consumer which in turn, enables brands to communicate their car seat safety more effectively.
You state you were the first creators to bring to market an i-Size baby car seat – how important was this milestone to the business? The Pebble Plus was a defining moment in our history, winning countless awards. Since then, this bestselling platform has evolved into the Pebble Pro i-Size and more recently, the Pebble 360. However, all of our first-to-market products have been a proud moment for the business. It enables us to set the benchmark for others and show consumers that safety, innovation and ease of use come as standard with all our products.