Don’t Mess with Motrin Moms
Apparently Twitter can cause quite a headache for the people over at Motrin (how could I not?). Yes, this ad motivated hundreds of young mothers to light up the Twitterverse with a defense of their baby carriers and the other tools of motherhood. Apparently, mother’s don’t like to be told that they “look crazy” and now that mommy bloggers are a significant, and quite cohesive, part of the blogging community it doesn’t take long for them to take action.
Motrin reacted much as you would expect. There is an apology on their Web site and they are trying to remove the ads from everywhere they can. Obviously the ads will never go away and now, thanks to the controversy, they will probably reach more people than originally intended.
So, did Motrin do the right thing? Were the ads offensive?
I say no. While I can certainly understand why this can hit a nerve with new mothers, I don’t think the message is that far off for a lot of mothers that probably do feel strange walking around with a baby sling and do feel pain from carrying around the extra weight. Is it disrespectful? Not really. Does it stereotype mothers in a negative way? Not really.
This is a classic overraction by a company that sees one channel flooded with negativity. I’m sure this spot could still do very well with focus groups and they’d find that the overwhelming majority of their target market isn’t offended. The reality is that a few very vocal women were offended and the people they influence just fell in line. I don’t think this affects their mainstream consumer and, if it did, I doubt the reaction would be overwhelmingly negative. This was simply an Internet phenomenon and it will soon die exactly where is began.
Yes, listening is important but your reaction is equally important. If every brand acts like Motrin then all advertising will become so safe and white washed that it will lose all impact and just turn into wasted media dollars.
Plus, have you ever held one of those things for a long time? Dem babies is heavy! Baby hauling pain may need something a little stronger than Motrin.
