Motrin Moms Commercial causes outrage. Thing is: seriously?
There’s PR controversy afoot in the blogosphere and Twitter today about a commercial for Motrin, a US brand of Ibuprofen.
The commercial is a little tongue in cheek, referring to the practice of wearing children in a sling or similar as being “in fashion” and talking about the issues related to carrying a child being painful.
You can see the full commercial below. Turns out not everyone out there has an even small sense of humor, and the ad is now being talked about a massive PR blunder. You can track the conversation on Twitter here.
Here’s the thing: seriously? Aren’t there far more important things to get worked up about than a glib comment about carrying a baby in a sling being in fashion (which seems to be the biggest gripe).
Here’s the second thing: wearing a baby in a sling IS IN FASHION. If you’re Gen X, ask YOUR parent about how many of them carried YOU in a sling.
Third: yes, being close to your child is a good thing, but here’s the other thing I know from experience IT F$%@ING HURT MY BACK. It also hurt my wife’s back. We purchased an insanely expensive sling/ child back/ forward thing when our now 6 year old son was born. Between us I reckon it would have been lucky to have been used a dozen times because that’s how much it hurt both our backs.
Honesty people, Motrin is guilty of having a little fun, nothing more, there’s no evil multinational conspiracy to slag you off or insult your child raring. I respect that some of you may not share the joke, but I don’t respect that you’re spending a pile of time on this.
PS: before you start crying “you’re a man, you couldn’t understand” let me warn you in advance that such as statement is sexist (and perhaps the ad is a little as well by only targeting mothers), and secondly, I’m the one at home running around after my son and doing “mom” things.
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Nov 16, 2008
Maybe Motrin can do a follow-on ad for those of us constantly rocking our kids in bouncy seats. I know my right knee was tired and I couldn't figure out why, but after 2 days of taking on the twins full time so my wife could do her paper, I could use something.
And … I dig our slings and baby carriers. Do we get sore? Sure, but most of the time, no. If I hold the sling wrong, it'll wrack my neck, but usually, it's no big deal.
Nov 16, 2008
The one thing to remember is that the customer is always right. If it was just one person running around spouting about it I'd discount it somewhat, or if was a bunch of people who hadn't seen the ad I'd discount it somewhat, but I just watched the 9 minute YouTube video that showed a series of tweets from people, most if not all of whom had seen the ad, and all of whom were displeased if not outraged. At the time I'm writing this, we don't know why the Motrin site is down (i.e. whether Motrin brought it down, high traffic brought it down, or something/someone brought it down), but when negative consumer reaction adversely affects your site, then you know you've made a mistake with your target audience.
Nov 16, 2008
totally agree!
Nov 16, 2008
I thought exactly the same thing. I liked the style of the advert (the graphical representation) it reminded me of “I met the Walrus” – http://g2007.com/blog/gary/index.php/2008/07/12…
Nov 16, 2008
ontarioemperor,
I don't disagree with your overall premise, but you also can't please all your customers, ever. I can't, when you find the secret recipe, share it. A couple of self promoters who are now spamming comment thread on this are driving this, not some great widespread, mainstream upswell of protest. I'm betting that Motrin will sell MORE now because of it.
Nov 17, 2008
People have just so got to get over themselves. The ad was funny precisely because it was was an honest and self-depricating reflection on the self-sacrifice of parenthood.
Nov 17, 2008
SNARKY SNARKY… easy ladies. Anything that seems to permeate around these sphere of ladies is not to be taken seriously. Ironically it wasn't a woman I heard about this from… but rather it was by going to aMANdaCHAPel's twitterfeed coming into friendfeed. btw… HI BRIAN!
Nov 17, 2008
People need to get a life. We have become ridiculously PC in this country. Instead of focusing on what is wrong with our lives, we try and divert our attention to insignificant things.
Nov 17, 2008
Totally agree. Guerilla marketing at its best.
Nov 17, 2008
I take your point. On the other hand there really is no excuse for putting the ad up in the first place. Good market research would have told them the ad wouldn't fly. Why didn't they test this ad with consumers? It's not just a case of people not getting the tongue in cheek aspect, it's a case study of what can go wrong when you don't really listen to your consumer. This is not just an Ad that missed a bit, it's an add that does damage to their brand.
Nov 17, 2008
Good point, and I'll grant that negative news travels faster than positive news. Any way to quantify supporters vs. opponents on this one?
Nov 17, 2008
You are spot on. All this fracas does is make bloggers look less relevant (and devoid of humor). I feel badly for Motrin, who in no way, shape, or form deserve this piling on by a vocal few who lack perspective.
Nov 17, 2008
As I said on Twitter – they should have put a man in the ad and then everyone would be saying “Ahhhh that's sooo cute!” om nom nom
Dec 6, 2008
WTF – I never had a sling, I carried the damn thing. Pain? Try Wild Turkey. Walk the kid into the bar. If it's early enough in the day, put fifty cents in the pool table and let 'em bang the balls around.