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For Mother's Day, Zappos Goes Comic With Breastfeeding

Just in time for Mother’s Day, Zappos is stepping up its defense of breastfeeding moms, with a new video campaign starring comedian Dena Blizzard, pictured above. It’s part of its expanding partnership with Mamava, the company that puts cute little breastfeeding pods in airports, malls and workplaces, which Zappos hopes can help it sharpen its image for outstanding customer service.

Blizzard, best known as One Funny Mother and for her Chardonnay Go game, interviews unsuspecting passers-by in New York’s Grand Central Terminal, asking them where they think women can go for privacy when it’s time to breastfeed or, more problematically, pump. 

Zappos, which prides itself on its innovation in customer service and experience, “is an always looking for areas of underwhelming customer service,” says Sabina Vavra, senior marketing manager for awareness for the Las Vegas-based company. “And it just doesn’t seem right to us that moms have such limited options. Mamava, with its mission to transform the culture of breastfeeding, is a good fit for us, and another way to extend our service outside of our core competencies of shoes and clothing.”

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It launched the first phase of the Mamava partnership earlier this year, installing six Zappos-branded Mamava pods in Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, the world’s busiest. Besides Zappos’ name, the pods are also decorated with information about the struggles of breastfeeding moms at work to build awareness among the 275,000 travelers who walk by them each day. And they’re loaded with special Zappos amenities, like individually wrapped nursing pads and a playlist to encourage let-down.

Pods fill an important need, she says: While 88% of new moms want to breastfeed when their baby is born, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, only 21% are still at it by the time their baby reaches six months. And health experts recommend breastfeeding babies for the entire first year, to get the most benefits for both babies and women. A major obstacle is that new moms need to pump daily, often every three to four hours. Unless they have private offices, many have to retreat to weird places, including work closets, parked cars or public toilets, to do so.

Mamava helps with one of the biggest logistical challenges, which is providing women with clean, private places to breastfeed or pump when they’re in public. Users download an app that can help women find and unlock its 2,000-plus pods, available in airports, malls and private companies.

Vavra says Zappos, owned by Amazon, has nine of its own lactation pods, with commercial-grade nursing pumps,” she says. “They’re the only lockable rooms on campus.” Like its nap pods and fish tanks, she says it’s another facet of its service mission.

“We believe that customer service means treating employees as customers, too. We do everything we can think of to support working parents, and that’s what the Mamava partnership is about. We want to create awareness about this important problem.”

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