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Warren Whitlock

Offending Moms Everywhere. The Motrin Ad

I begin this post like most.. admitting I really don't "get" motherhood. I'm a big fan of moms everywhere, especially my Twitter Mom friends, but I'm careful to remind myself. I'm not equipped to understand being a mom.

That said, I had no problem seeing how the Motrin ad was offensive. Does any mom talk like that? Does anyone say "wear a baby?"

And they used the word "thing" in a way that could be construed to refer to a child. YECH!

You can read the flow of complaints on Twitter here

You'd think a big company like that could find at least one really mom to write copy or edit.

OK, so they screwed up. And moms around the net are talking about boycotts. So now we get to see the REAL social media power of the Motrin people. Will they ignore us? How long will it take for them to take the ad down?

I can't imagine that they will leave it up for long. What remains to be seen.. how long until they engage the critics? How well will they handle the apologies? Will they learn from their mistakes?

My recommendation would be that they take 2 Excedrin, engage the market, listen and respond.

Tags: ads, advertising, media, moms, motrin, revolution, social, to, twitter

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Warren Whitlock Comment by Warren Whitlock on November 21, 2008 at 6:17pm
We're talking about #motrinmoms on the Twitter radio show tonight
Warren Whitlock Comment by Warren Whitlock on November 17, 2008 at 12:29pm


What next? Will they engage their critics and customers in a dialog?
Jane Chin Comment by Jane Chin on November 17, 2008 at 10:42am
I tried explaining the anger factor but it's difficult on twitter to do this.

Some people got so angry because baby-wearing has become more of personal value-based decision. As many personal value-based decisions go, it can become a component of a person's identity. Not at the extent as, say, political inclination or religious views, but still elicits a pretty strong emotion.

Effective ads elicit strong emotions in people - so in a way you can say the motrin ad was effective. Just that the effect was not what the execs intended.

What I found short-sighted is the amount of tweets from people saying "you guys are overreacting, too emotional, too hormonal", etc. for the following reasons:

1) opinions are opinions and are already subjective. makes no sense to negate or trivialize someone's opinions just because it's not your own opinion and doesn't get them to "see" your p.o.v.

2) ads ARE supposed to tap into the emotional side of consumers. people almost always buy on emotion not through logical thinking. otherwise we wouldn't have the amount of sex-implicit ads and "buy this ipod and you'll be really popular with those white earplugs"

i learned lesson #1 when there was an uproar and outrage about how NYtimes covered the 2008 BlogHer event. some social media experts (women) were outraged because they found the tone "derogatory" (the article was written by a woman!). i personally wasn't offended by it, and i've been blogging since 1997. i just didn't see what the fuss was about. however, i came to understand that this was a matter of opinion, and opinions are based on individual context and values.
Jane Chin Comment by Jane Chin on November 17, 2008 at 10:35am
ohhh the irony of the copywriter being on maternity leave.
vegasmiss Comment by vegasmiss on November 17, 2008 at 6:57am
Maybe I am just not really getting the "anger" factor. Yeah, it's a stupid commercial, and the ad agency should be called out on the carpet for it - but gosh, aren't there about 100 stupid and offensive commercials out there if we really start nitpicking. Mind you, I never used the baby sling/bjorn/contraptions - so maybe I am not even allowed to have a say in this.
Warren Whitlock Comment by Warren Whitlock on November 16, 2008 at 10:20pm
here's a post that has an official response from the Motrin people, plus some very funny lines about what they must have been thinking :)
Warren Whitlock Comment by Warren Whitlock on November 16, 2008 at 7:29pm
fairly fast response to the damaging ad campaign

http://freshtakes.typepad.com/enterprise_social_media/2008/11/znetladys-index.html
Jane Chin Comment by Jane Chin on November 16, 2008 at 7:16pm
I didn't like the ad, and I'm an avid baby-wearer (ever since my lil one was born, and he's now 11 months old) - am wearing him right now, as I type!

However, I wasn't as boiling mad as I see some of the moms were. Maybe this is because I used to work on the industry side (pharma) and now consult on the field-medical side, and I know some of the stranger things marketing has done in pharma companies. Often we've butt heads with marketing with how the messages are "crafted".

I've written an analysis of the elements that made this an epic fail:
http://twitteromics.com/motrinmoms-how-that-motrin-web-ad-should-be-done

I also had contacted my scientific executive connections in J&J and we've been emailing; she's sent stuff up the marketing channels and it appears that McNeil marketing has kept up the pace given that they've sent out the apologetic form email and taken the ad (site) down for the time being.
Warren Whitlock Comment by Warren Whitlock on November 16, 2008 at 3:56pm
my guess would be that this is from the "let's win an award" school of marketing. The testing they do isn't real feedback and they pat themselves on the back and think they have a cute ad.

post Twitter Revolution, it is much much more important to listen to the customers. We've always been telling them how stupid their ads are.. in the old days, that meant yelling at the TV or mentioning it to a few friends. But now we have the power to publish.
Redhead Mommy Comment by Redhead Mommy on November 16, 2008 at 2:17pm
KarenKramer....my husband said the same thing last night.

I was shocked by that commercial...I have a background in marketing and public relations and EVERYTHING is tested at that level before it goes out. WTF?