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RSSSo, Motrin releases an ad online, that puts the "me" back in Mom-my by explaining, in a tone smothered in snark, that carrying your baby can hurt, and that Motrin can help with the pain you're feeling. (If you want to see it, click here. Take note of the unforgettable term "baby-wearing.")
Some of the outraged "Motrin Moms" who saw the ad may disagree with me, but I'd offer that it was not the message of the ad so much as its cataclysm of tone and language that set them off. Describing such "baby-wearing" as a fashion accessory upset many Moms who happily -- and apparently without popping Motrin -- wear their babies. They then caused a revolt to break out over the weekend on Twitter and elsewhere in the social mediasphere (although, ironically, the ad had been out for more than a month). Ouch. That's worth taking some Motrin for.
Johnson & Johnson is now pulling the ad, and the sliver of the blogosphere who cares about these things from a social media perspective has been, well, all a-Twitter about how the client should have been monitoring social media sites all weekend long -- blah, blah, blah. .
Of course, that's a procedural oxymoron. No advertiser releases an ad expecting people to revolt against it. The cure, from a social media perspective, is relatively easy: monitor social media to see what people are saying about your brand on an ongoing basis, not just at the moment you happen to be in the middle of a new brand initiative. Stop firestorms before they start.
But my question of the day isn't exactly about that. It's about how suffering this outcry will affect advertising for Motrin, and by extension, advertising creativity itself. For that, the cure is much harder. Can we expect. Johnson & Johnson to be skittish the next time a well-meaning creative director presents something somewhat edgy to the client? Yes. Can we expect said idea, even if it makes it out of the conference room, to be focus-grouped to death before it is unleashed to the vocal masses? Yes. And are other advertisers watching the Motrin drama unfold and quaking just a little about whether the campaign they just approved has the ability to incite a riot? Sure.
So what's a client to do? Developing a thicker skin is always a good first step, but so far in the history of advertising that's only been achieved by the bravest of marketers. Then, there's the art of learning not to listen to every person that complains about your advertising, realizing that if the ad is moving the sales needle, certain voices don't matter. (In this case, the firestorm surrounding this Motrin ad doesn't seem to make that an option.). Then, there's the decision to run increasingly conservative advertising, until fully addressable, trackable TV advertising gives marketers enough insight into their ROI to realize those kinds of ads are ineffective. Until that time, the conclusion I draw is that much advertising will go plain vanilla, and that's too bad for all of us.
(Note: I have received many submissions for our Twitter business model contest, and am sifting through them as we speak. For those who still want to compete, click here to read the details. Remember the deadline for submission is Dec. 12.)
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So for some it was offensive and for others it was just another commercial, I mean Midol has a commercial referring to Womens' menstrual cycle as a curse so each person's perception is different.
http://talkischeep.com
Being a father myself, I've seen plenty of ads that are offensive to dads. It's stupid creative, not creative itself that's the problem.
I remember complaining to Quiznos a few years ago about their annoying ads with what looked like squashed rats singing, "We love the subs, 'cause they are good to us," in high-pitched, annoying voices. I asked them how something so disgusting and annoying made their product more attractive to customers, suggesting that a beauty shot of their product would make it more appealing to customers. Two weeks later, the ads with the little squashed rat looking guys were gone, replaced by an appetizing ad for their chicken sandwich, with a nice beauty shot of the sandwich in center screen.
Not that I think I am the sole judge of good advertising; the company was probably responding to many complaints. But ads like McDonald's former commercial with sesame seeds moving onto the bun (it looked like maggots to me) and Burger King's ad where two white guys surround a black guy at a table stating, "You got cheese on your face; you're a big disgrace," (the next line in the song they are parodying is, "Somebody better put you back into your place") leaves me wondering if sales and social responsibility taking a back seat to creativity possibly hurts sales more than it helps. Comcast's latest commercials in Houston, where they make fun of Sam Houston, the first president of the Texas republic and a state hero, is just another in a long line of cases to that point.
Creativity? It's fine and good, but in advertising it should never be justified at the expense of alienating the customer from your product or brand, and never at the expense of alienating yourself from your customer's hard-earned money. Get a clue, guys!
Best regards, David Peterson Harvey Managing Director thehiddenart.com
However, Shel's advice is the best: McNeil should have asked J&J (I believe they are a division of J&J) for help in assembling a group from one of J&J's mommy communities (I believe they have these online communities already) They could have asked for volunteers to evaluate the commercial. Show them storyboards or a "rough cut" and see what bounces back. Allow the group to be self-selecting vs. recruiting, as you will get the most passionate users when self-selection is allowed. It's the most passionate people that are connected to social media tools and use them often that are the folks companies want to connect with. This small group of the consumer base are the ones who are giving the most vocal feedback.
An interesting experiment for them might be to balance the results they get from a self-selected group of social media mavens vs. the standard recruited test market group. Then a company might be able to pinpoint differences between active soc. media and non soc. media and adjust campaigns accordingly.
Some consumers don't like you. That's always been the case. As Catharine rightly points out, marketers are now facing a situation where consumers can talk back. However, that should not deter them - IF they find out that there is an interesting enough market segment that would love them for the exact same reasons!
Margaret www.seasonfivestyle.com
NO.
Bad, poorly researched advertising will kill advertising creativity. But that has been a problem for... ever. The only way around it? Do better advertising creativity.
By the way, great ideas, well researched, nicely executed - killer creative - works just as well in social media as it does in traditional media.
It is just a matter of knowing the medium, the target(s) and having the chops to do good work.
It will always be that way.
John Lee M:30 Communications
I went to go see this ad that had upset so many moms today. I didn't know the specifics of the ad content, just that it had upset moms. As a marketer I wanted to know what had happened.
As I began watching the ad, I was surprised at the strength of my negative reaction. I wanted to pick up the phone and call someone and tell them "No! - You got it wrong! You don't understand." I am not an emotionally unbalanced feminazi with low self-esteem, per Mr. Bug above. I am a mom of 3 though. I carried each of my babies in a sling. My youngest is 7 now and even though I haven't used my sling in 5 years, I had a very similar reaction as the other Twitter Moms.
If J&J had done their homework, they would have anticipated the deep emotional connection that moms have with "wearing" their babies. They also would have known that most sling and baby carriers result in less muscle strain and back pain that carrying the baby in ones arms. So the ad came off not only as snarky, but ill-informed and insensitive. This doesn't mean companies have to go plain vanilla with advertising. It just highlights the need to kow the target. You can be edgy if you're on target with your message and tone.
As for why it took this long for a baby-wearing mothers to find the ad online - that tells a different story.
www.theinteractivemarketer.com
I think J&J and other large companies will probably be skittish in the future with advertising, but I hope they realize it wasn't just an edgy ad that caused this brouhaha.
Every brand should seriously consider grabbing its Twitter handle before the bum rush of squatters gets their hands on them (something that is happening even as we speak). I just ran down a list of popular brands - circuitcity, bestbuy, mcdonalds, microsoft - and their handles are already taken.
I suspect that the Twitter phenomenon is still so new most brands aren't at all aware of the deleterious impact it can have.
Hopefully @officialMotrin is still available.
McNeil simply didn't test the message with a group of moms. They should have worked hard on finding the influencers in the market or the new baby, new mom blogosphere and then they would have avoided getting egg on their face. Reminds me of last month's Virgin Atlantic incident in which a bunch of flight attendants were fired for , oh my gosh!, using the public Virgin Atlantic Facebook page to air their grievances about passengers. Meanwhile, P&G's Ted McConnell has woken up to the fact that 'Social Media' advertising won't work. http://www.social-cache.com/2008/11/pg-digital-head-ted-mcconnell-smells-the-coffee-social-network-advertising-wont-work
Brands need to meet customers where they want to meet and take the lumps if they have to. They have an opportunity to connect directly with customers though conversation and to develop potential long-term relationships - someday perhaps seeing those critics becoming advocates. The thing is, I believe people want to get to know the people behind the logos. People are real. People make mistakes. People are forgiven. It's a lot harder to dump on a brand when you know the person working there, who's trying to do their best to in whatever circumstance.
The Twitter crowd is waiting for someone to step into these shoes, to sign up to @motrin and to truly listen and engage with them - one on one. The very act of doing this will go far beyond any public statement, pulled commercial, or alternative traditional campaign. The Motrin brand has a real opportunity to turn this around by truly joining the conversation and becoming the next case study about how to turn a mistake into a wonderful opportunity.
The question is - will they?