It seems I leave for a week and a “big” social media story drops. Now, a week late on the game, after EVERYONE has already written about it, I will join the fray. Here I am a “me too” in the Motrin game.
Being a mommy blogger and a marketing blogger I feel that I couldn’t NOT write about this hoopla.
There are many legitimate ways that moms get pain that can be cured via pills. For example right now I am suffering from listening to a three year old whine because he didn’t want to eat his lunch, and my legs hurt from pacing the floor trying to get the baby to sleep, and my back hurts too – from carrying the bloody car seat around, Did I mention the ache in my neck from lack of sleep, and the arm pain from lifting both kids in and out of the car, stroller and grocery cart. Any one of these “pains” are very common amongst new moms…why not choose one of these.
While I agree with Peter Kim, it is “impossible to please everyone all the time”, but, Motrin might have checked to see if they were “pleasing” at least a large portion of their target demographic. Babywearing (fancy name for carrying your baby in a Snugli or Sling) is one of those things that in my experience (I have a lot of mommy friends!) is a topic moms are either very strong FOR, or they don’t care one bit one way or the other. Rarely, are they strongly AGAINST. Yet, Motrin chose the against side. I know when carrying my kids I have received some strange looks from the older folks, and many have asked if it doesn’t hurt my back to carry them around – so perhaps the 60+ would have found humour in the Motrin ad. But, this wasn’t the demographic Motrin was targeting, was it!?
As well as ensuring they were targeting the message properly it might have made sense to make sure that you are solving a problem that exists. While carrying a baby in a sling can hurt your back (if you wear it a long time, or improperly) carrying a baby in your arms, or in the car seat hurts a lot more. And, any mom will tell you carrying a baby is out of necessity not a fashion accessory.
Motrin couldn’t have picked their timing worse. November 12-18th was International Babywearing Week, and they chose to launch before a weekend which meant it was Monday by the time they were able to post an apology and deal with the issue.
Once Motrin realized their mistake why not engage with the now very watchful audience? Instead of a lame corporate email, ask Mom’s if they aren’t getting pain from carrying around the baby in a sling, where is the pain coming from? Get them to share what is causing them pain today…I know I could tell you a few tales of suffering.
To side with Motrin, on the other hand, I have to agree with Don Mills Diva – the “The power of the momosphere need not be unleashed on every damn thing that’s lame and silly. Power is always more effective when wielded judiciously.” It takes a lot of guts for a company to dip their toes in the social media space, especially after watching company after company get whipped by those of us blogging and twittering online. As Sean Moffitt said over at Buzz Canuck, this may not be worthy of celebration. He says:
“Some people in social media, particularly those on Twitter are championing this as the power of the human voice and are pointing to social media’s defining moment of influence. They may be right but this is not a corporate-sized Obama. This is the type of change we don’t need – nobody wins – moms are offended, Motrin takes it on the chin and other companies who were fence sitting now avoid social media like the plague.”
Of course the benefit of the discussion, the blogs, the comments, the and the tweets, (a-hem, the social media…) is that if companies are considering testing the waters – there are lots of places to learn the best practices and the lessons learned by others.
I am the Community Manager for a company in the Greater Toronto Area. I spend my limited free time (away from work and kids!) attached to my computer and BlackBerry. Find out more about me by visiting: www.michellekostya.com
Contact:
michelle.kostya at gmail dot com
