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Nov
19
If you’re not familiar with the Motrin Moms ad debacle, start here.
Yeah, seriously, cry me a river (behind free subscription; post is called, “Social Media And The Motrin Controversy: Or, Will Social Media Kill Advertising Creativity?”):
[My question is] 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.
Given the current downturn in the economy, I’m not looking for people to lose jobs, per se, but please. Why is advertising that goes “plain vanilla…too bad for all of us”?
In fact, in lean times, all appeals should be plain and simple. And making more with less, doing more with less, challenges rather than stymies creativity.
No can do here. The ad agency screwed up and if they are skittish because of it, then good. They should have been more skittish before. Since when is the mantle of creativity supposed to be shouldered by insulting people – least of all women, mothers and parents? Not to mention the entire part of many of our lives: taking care of kids.
Someone, someones, so doesn’t get it.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 4:21 pm November 19th, 2008 in Business, Culture, Health Care, Parenting, Women, Youth
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17 Responses to “Motrin mom update: ad agencies set to blame moms for feared creativity constraint”
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Oh for the love of ‘waaaaahhhhh!!’
Marketing 101:
Don’t p#&@ off the customer. And yes, the customer’s wants, needs and sensibilities always come first. And, yes, they are always right. They DO spend the money on your product after all – or not.
Someone in this agency needs to grow a thicker skin and see it as the learning experience it is.
And it was a BAD ad, the insulting nature notwithstanding. The herky jerky-ness of it d@*# near gave me a headache. You want the message to be ABSORBED passively. Hello? Television is a ‘cool medium.’ Don’t make the viewer work to absorb the message unless you can make it reasonably funny and entertaining.
And this nonsense there’s no room for great, quirky and innovative advertising? Rubbish. I think they want to use this as an example to slack off and turn out easy cookie cutter campaigns.
Of course, I’m under-qualified to work in an ad agency with all of those young hot shot creative geniuses.
Maybe the ad agency should ask congress to force twitter to put up a “disclaimer” about the side effects of social media:
“This product may cause unintended and adverse side effects to the main messsage of the product including lack of sales, fainting, erectile dysfunction, and in rare cases corporate death. Use only as directed, and ask your doctor if twitter is right for you.”
Well, as an add runs on television it has all kinds of reactions…none are ever really known, they do say that add dollars directly translate into sales.
I wonder did the internet add team see the audience as strung out and excessive? Attempted to relate, I mean if you are attempting to relate in that manner, should all the adds on TV be of fat unshaven people? People half asleep in sweat pants eating potato chip?
Disconnected thoughts…rambling on? Angry frustrated?
It’s like advertising the abdominal trimmer with someone that is morbidly obese.
If this is you then you could use this…hey that’s not me! Dam it I resemble that remark!
Hey if you go back packing across Europe make sure you pack some Motrin cause that pack will make your back ache… hey screw you back packing across Europe is way to exciting and cool to get a back ache doing.
Am I giving you a headache…take a Motrin.
Its like stop buying from Johnson and Johnson…not because the product eats holes in your stomach…because you did not like an advertisement?
I do not care just make it sound good. You know if you take 800MG of motrin…do not carry a baby or drive a car or operate heavy equipment…it is pain killer, unless you have experience on drugs.
Oengus – it’s not about the pain one feels – it’s about treating the child as a fashion accessory and mothers as slaves to fashion and society – think of Paris, Britney and Jessica Simpson and their little dogs. Our kids are not dogs. The ad agency objectified the children to sell a product – that’s just not okay as a general proposition. Sure I want good pain relievers if I’m feeling pain from that activity – but don’t present it to me in a way that cheapens the mother experience at the expense of my child.
Like having baby to get a VW Routan?
If you do what you do because you enjoy it then why worry about what others think? If a person assumes you do it to be cool or hip that would not bother you if it was simply not true. If it does then you are just another victim a slave to the perceptions of others.
Oengus, bottom line: J&J wants women who have back pain, for whatever reason, to use Motrin – but women who have back pain due to carrying their babies don’t need J&J to sell to them by putting judgement and mores on the activity. They pissed off the very market they want to sell to – that seems like the breaking the #1 rule of advertising, no?
Motrin made a tactical error. It bet on the assumption that most mainstream moms consider babywearing fringe behavior.
That may once have been true. But babywearing moms are no longer a fringe group, at least not among the women who are active Internet users.
Better educated and wealthier women are both more likely to breastfeed their babies for longer, and more likely to use the internet as a way to find out information and find a community. If they’re stay at home moms, they also have more time & greater opportunity to share reactions online to content they find offensive. Twitter made that communication happen even faster than email and blogging has.
(There’s abbreviation on discussion boards and in chatrooms and IM for “nursing at keyboard” [NAK]. Wearing your baby while you nurse them allows you to have your hands free for typing — although your attention is not always free, hence “NAK,” used to explain why you’re not paying full attention to an online dialogue.)
Babywearing, internet savvy women naturally resented being depicted as the practitioners of a mothering habit which “common-sense” women like the ad’s narrator secretly resent or find to be of dubious value. (I wrote about this some over on LilaTovCocktail.org.)
Advertising that ridicules is risky. In this case, J&J underestimated the size, power and commitment of the group they chose to ridicule.
And while the ad may have been visually fresh and well-executed, its approach was definitely NOT “edgy” or daring.
In fact, its underlying tactic — encouraging self-doubt in women — was around long before the first Clairol commercial appeared in a fashion magazine.
Shalom Jill,
Allow me to insert my [commenter wisely steps away from horribly tacky and inappropriate male sexist pig metaphor] opinion into this discussion.
I think the ad is funny. It’s not going to win a Cleo, but I bet plenty of women at the agency, the company and in the focus groups got a laugh.
Women are being beaten, enslaved, raped and starved around the world and we’re talking about an ad for pain killers?
Please.
B’shalom,
Jeff
[...] Motrin mom update: ad agencies set to blame moms for feared creativity constraint Posted in [...]
Hi Jeff,
Even if we take everything you say in the comment as true, that doesn’t alter the fact that the group they wanted to persuade into choosing Motrin is the group offended, or at least includes vocal members of the group who were offended.
It’s a bad ad for the targeted audience. Better to appeal to me as a human in need of pain relief than a “fashion conscious society made me have a baby I’ll suffer in need of a mother’s little helper” customer.
Shalom Jill,
The key word here is vocal.
This is why direct Internet democracy is such a very, very bad idea. From History we know precisely how quickly mobs can be assembled and led.
Going from calm to outrage in a heartbeat is amplified by instant communication (we’ve all hit send on that email and wanted to snatch it back 30 seconds later).
In the absence of Twitter, would we even be talking about this?
B’shalom,
Jeff
I love you, Jeff, but you won’t be getting out of this one.
Yes, we would be talking about this even without Twitter because he has nothing to do with Twitter, and everything to do with it.
J&J and its ad agency wanted to go Internet viral with that video. That was their platform of choice: an Internet video. Who watches those videos? Well, they placed them where moms would see them, Jeff. And there have been multiple studies out just in this year (including from BlogHer) about the metrics of women on the Internet, what they watch, what they read, what influences them.
It was a bad move.
Anywhere they were going to put that ad where the target audience would see it, customers would find a way to make their dissatisfaction known.
Did you hear about how Nordstrom just removed a line of shirts that were in its stores across the country because of a customer who saw it in the store and complained?
See here.
So this isn’t really about the customer, though being vocal is important, as much as it’s about the very bad decision-making and decision-making process that the people wanting to sell to moms made.
Shalom Jill,
Moi? Get out of something? I love diving in and getting all funky.
This fury is a distraction from issues that are much more important to humaity in general and women in particular.
We shouldn’t sweat the small stuff.
I see this as very small stuff.
B’shalom,
Jeff
But Jeff, “mere” representations aren’t small stuff. They carry great cultural impact especially now, when viral video, twitter, etc. make it possible for all our cultural narratives to be disseminated nearly instanteously and almost infinitely.
Culture narratives of female inferiority are responsible for a host of ills from the violence against women you describe to the premature cessation of breastfeeding among working mothers. The Motrin commercial may seem inconsequential for you, but it evokes a culture narrative that has real repercussions in real lives of real women.
Not to up the rhetorical ante, but here’s how what you’re saying would look if it were applied to race instead of gender:
“Who cares what water fountain you drink out of or where you sit on the bus? That’s all small stuff when people are getting lynched.”
The product sales will not change..the add agency should not be insulting the people they are attemtping to sell to.
Some body somepelace is still defending the add…I have to wonder…yeah for sure.
Something about sending a letter to the agency or the manufacturer as to rallying others to speak out vocally against the add.
Do citizen journalists list these items on their credentials…instigated 2008 public outcry against Johnson and Johnson advertising depicting baby wearing in less than a faltering manner.
You could injure you back being pregnant…you can injure your back baby wearing.
The add was annoying…the voice was annoying. The reactions prefaced with other negative reactions…it was the tone and format more than the content.
If you baby wear and get a sore back…you can get relief with Motrin.
Did you read the comments on the add many are defending that baby wearing will not hurt your back. Some take it to the extent that Johnson and Johnson is anti-baby wearing and people should boycott the product. They refer to J&J as “Motrin” what Motrin does not understand?
Shalom Lilatov,
That’s true. You’re absolutely right.
Which water fountain you drink from and where you sit on the bus are small stuff when people are getting lynched.
You don’t put a band-aide on a mosquito bite when the patient is bleeding out from an amputated leg.
The ground swell of activism after the passage of California’s Proposition Eight indicates that the Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgendered (dang we need a shorter word for this, and I don’t mean the acronym GLBT) community gets this.
You take out the beast in the room and the mice go scampering.
Don’t sweat the small stuff. We’ve got a society to educate.
B’shalom,
Jeff
(I originally posted something very similar to this Thursday, but it looks like it got sucked down a black hole.)