« Slater, NBC and GM drive right off the road | Main | Adweek celebrates 30th in print and online »
Motrin targets moms but shoots self in foot
If you're going to launch an online ad on a Saturday and spark outrage among your target audience, you might want to plan to work the weekend. Motrin caused the aforementioned fuss with an ad aimed at moms who practice "baby wearing," the fine art of carrying your kid in a sling or backpack. The spot comes off sounding pretty insulting to these moms, whom it implies are treating their babies like fashion accessories. When mom bloggers got wind of the spot, they started a tidal wave of criticism, flooding Twitter with thousands of angry comments about Motrin. (Here's a video compilation of some of the irate feedback.) Assuming the ad was the work of Motrin agency Taxi New York, a blogger contacted the agency's director of corporate communications, who was reportedly unaware of the online firestorm. Social media professionals were quick to point out that there's no good excuse these days for failing to notice that your new ad went over like a fart in church. "Motrin apparently did little to no monitoring of their intended audience before or during the Twitterstorm," writes new-media maven Mack Collier, "which is still baffling to me in this day and age of free and easy tools to let you do just that." UPDATE: Motrin has now apologized in a message on its homepage. —Posted by David Griner |
|
November 17, 2008 in Controversy, Griner, Motrin, Taxi | Permalink |
Comments
You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.
Maybe I'm missing something, but this is the least offensive "offensive" ad I've seen. I think the woman is just being honest in the spot. As a woman, but not a mom, I didn't see anything wrong with it. Um, yeah, lugging at least 15 pounds of child around with you all day sure would cause aches and pains.
Posted by: DW | Nov 17, 2008 1:40:52 PM
Very fair balance reporting, David. Thank you. With all due respect to the articulate commenter above me, I think her post points up the curious fact that much of the brouhaha on the web has focused not on Motrin's bumble but on the question of whether or not Moms had the right to be mad. Not surprisingly, most of the naysayers have never toted kids on their hips and are (lucky for them) insensitive to the subjugating subtext.
Posted by: Ad Broad | Nov 17, 2008 2:06:02 PM
From a pure marketing perspective, there are lots of lessons to learn from this. Namely that we don't live in a M-F, 9-5 society. Bloggers are blogging on the weekends, so companies need to be listening. I'm surprised how slow some big companies are to demonstrate a clear understanding of social media and how to use it and respond to it.
Posted by: Heather | Nov 17, 2008 2:17:11 PM
Thanks for the link David. I think that since Motrin has added their apology to their main site, that this all but puts this to bed.
Now moving forward, it will be interesting to see if Motrin attempts to (in whatever fashion they can, considering pharma regs) reach out to the mommy bloggers they offended. Often, the quickest way to convert a detractor into an evangelist, is to just listen to why they are upset.
Posted by: mack collier | Nov 17, 2008 2:27:51 PM
Whether or not the moms had a 'right' to be angry is moot. They were. Motrin was caught flat-footed and they panicked.
The real question is why would a company put out an ad that has the potential to anger the very demographic that it's targeting. I'm guessing the only testing they did was to run the ad by some moms in the office.
Posted by: wheatley | Nov 17, 2008 2:33:39 PM
Not really offensive, but it's annoying and try-hard.
You can't advertise to hipster moms trying to sound like one. You'll sound fake, plus annoy ironic hipster twitterers at the same time.
Posted by: Somebody | Nov 17, 2008 2:37:06 PM
I'm glad to see there are so many moms out there twittering. It's very important to the rearing of children. (I will save my diatribe about modern parenting for another day.) But how dumb do you have to be to not realize that you can't make fun of the mother/child bond in a commercial? It's just like the Volkswagen spots. Making light of it doesn't work.
Posted by: thatguy | Nov 17, 2008 3:33:45 PM
Is it the concept of slings being hard on backs or that end phrase "makes me look like an official Mom" that's angering young mothers?
Haven't we already seen a pain reliever commercial where the grandparent picks up the baby and gets a sore back?
Posted by: Steve | Nov 17, 2008 4:29:36 PM
Steve - it was the insinuation that moms are wearing slings and having to endure the back pain for fashionable reasons, rather than baby bonding/hands free carrying reasons. Moms don't really appreciated being told their babies are a fashion accessory. Much like the VW ads, as someone mentioned above, but since that made a stronger effort to be parody and has Brooke Shields acting like an idiot, most moms I know just blew that one off.
Posted by: jenny | Nov 17, 2008 9:53:10 PM
So they had an insight. It might be true, and you could use it to create work, but mom's don't want to have a mirror held up to them.
This is the kind of work planners and clients love and think is so smart. But this is the problem with simply regurgitating an insight and not interpreting it, and not using it to create a creative idea. It's like they went straight from the strategic platform to the execution, leaving out the magic of turning it into a clever idea.
Kudos for the art direction and actual writing though. The aim was just off.
Posted by: Luis | Nov 18, 2008 10:27:07 AM
FWIW, late maket research and asking real moms.
i wore a baby carrier 26 years ago in a country where they told me doing such was going to ruin my baby's back. He should be lying on a firm mattress cushion in a perambulator. i am, of course, a stubborn strong headed individual and called those people jerks and did as I pleased. I did indeed have a mini baby carriage and did throw out my back when having to carry a sleeping baby in that thing up two flights of stairs to my apartment. No lie, I had to crawl in the door because i could not stand up I was in such pain. it lasted fifteen minutes or so, the baby woke up crying, and I managed to stand up and take care of the child's needs.
No motrin or any other pain reliever was used in the actual events or retelling of this story.
Posted by: | Nov 18, 2008 10:31:08 AM
I've got mixed feelings about this one. As Luis said, the writing and art direction are great. The strategy? Not so much.
My guess is that no one on the team on this one is a parent. I'm also guessing that the brand manager on the client side isn't a parent either. Why? Here goes:
1. Speaking as a dad, it's more fun to carry your kid than push them in a stroller, and it really does help the bonding. And any aches from doing so are probably the last things most people I know would complain about when it comes to early parenting.
2. Even hip, sardonic parents don't necessarily take kindly to parenting-related snark.
3. People who follow the Sears' books on attachment parenting tend to have very strong opinions.
So, yeah, I can imagine the concepting sessions on this spot, and the team I imagine is still allergic to the idea of parenting.
***********
On the VW note, I think they did a much better job with Passat spots in the late nineties like "Flirt" and "Five-second Rule."
Posted by: Paul | Nov 18, 2008 3:15:58 PM
Wow, the writing "is great?" I'm suprised to hear that. This was a huge missed opportunity from a copywriting standpoint in part because the character is written to be whiney and clueless, and in part because the whole "I do it for my kid" notion is crammed in there amongst the snarky jabs at slings and doesn't ring true.
In more adept hands this could have been masterful. Which is sad, actually.
Posted by: esgg | Nov 18, 2008 6:46:14 PM
take it fucking easy, overly sensitive people. it's not offensive at all and it does call out that slings are fashionable. they are. fucking aye, it pisses me off how sensitive people are.
makes me ashamed to be so fucking liberal sometimes. next baby i see, i'm going to make him/her cry for the fuck of it
Posted by: truth be spoke | Nov 20, 2008 7:41:06 PM
Painkillers HIDE the symptom of pain. In this case, mainly from muscle that is held in contraction for extended periods of time as the "baby wearer"'s body adapts to the altered load distribution. The pain is a symptom of damage being done to the muscle, because muscle should be able to contract and relax. Muscle that is contracted has reduced perfusion of blood through it, an increased metabolic demand, and increased metabolic waste output, and also self seeds with prostaglandins, which encourage stronger contraction and also stimulate sensory nerves to generate.. more pain. Over time, with insufficient blood perfusion, the tissue deteriorates. But if you are taking painkillers, you just don't know about it. Better to give your muscles opportunities to relax, as that increases perfusion of blood through the affected tissue, bringing fresh nutrients on site, taking away metabolic wastes and the prostaglandins.. and low and behold.. less tissue damage and pain!!
How to do that?? Regularly adjust the distribution of the weight you are carrying (your baby wearing), stretch after exercise, drink enough water, eat good quality food and if you still can't seem to sort it, visit an expert like an osteopath.
Posted by: Candy9 | Nov 27, 2008 4:00:36 AM
Social blah, blah, blah! The point of the ad got through and it worked. People are not only associating Motrin with pain relief they're actually being caused pain.
The fact is that these same moms will reach for Motrin when they need it.
Posted by: James | Dec 30, 2008 11:46:28 AM
Interested in How to Pass a Drug Test? We offer various free information and sources to make sure you pass your drug test! No need to spend money and fail a drug test, we can provide you with tips to pass a drug test for free! We recommend that you read our various articles so that you can learn about the history of drug testing, and how to easily pass a drug test. The immediate and most important goals of detoxification is start eliminating toxins such as
Posted by: hatJaPtruct | Apr 7, 2009 4:37:48 PM
