Moms Give Motrin A Headache

Updates:
-As of 8:00 CST, Motrin.com has been down for nearly 1/2 a day.
-Motrin.com is back up and has been updated with the below message in an image format (should have been text you can copy and paste)
-A "cosmetic surgery" parody of the original ad is now is now on YouTube

I am literally in the middle of watching what Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff call a "Groundswell".  As far as I can tell, Motrin posted an ad on their Website (see above) which ignited a community of mothers who were insulted by it. Specifically it seems that many of the mothers use baby slings and objected to the tone of the ad which describes them as "in fashion".

Full disclaimer, I am not interested in taking sides, but I am interested in events like this and how they unfold, specifically as it relates to power consumers, online communities, brands and the digital trail all of this type activity leaves.  Here's a few considerations for any business, brand or even individual to consider in similar situations:


Motrin.com Website Unable To Respond Rapidly
As of 9:30 CST on a Sunday night, Motrin.com is down for the count. Motrin customers have already reported that an e-mail went out apologizing for the tone of the ad and took it off their site. The big takeaway here for me is that e-mail was the default vessel for communication because it can be utilized rapidly, but the Website can't. It's possible that the site went down due to server traffic, but friends in the field tell me this is unlikely. In the not-so-distant future, business and brands will need Websites that are as easy to update as blogs. You can quote me on this one.



Google Results Immediately Influenced
If you were to Google the words "Motrin + Mom" you will get results which look like the screen grab I took. Google has immediately picked up blogs and Twitters and organically placed them in spots from #2 down. It's possibly that it will go to #1 shortly. In the meantime, Motrin's purchased ads on the side make for an interesting comparison.

The Community Organizes
No, it's not slick, it's not marketing and ad people can poke fun at the music as much as they want—it's a real response. Direct and genuine, whether you agree with it or not. And it was put up more quickly than most marketers could ever dream to produce content. The unofficial "motrin moms" took matters into their own hands, and they were heard by the community, outside the community, the search engines and by Motrin itself.

The Motrin Brand On Twitter
The Motrin brand seems to have an official presence on Twitter. Ironically called "Motrin Moms" (can anyone confirm/deny that this is Motrin)?. Here's what the last few Tweets look like as the PR situation unfolds:

There's no mention of the upset moms, and in fairness to the Motrin brand, it's probably designed to handle marketing vs. PR.  But of course those lines are increasingly blurring and presents an interesting dilemma for brands using Twitter which is how to leverage the presence in a communications crisis.

In Summary
As I mentioned at the beginning, I'm not interested in taking sides, but rather I'm interested in studying the dynamics of case studies like this. I have a few recommendations for organizations if faced with a similar issue. They are:

1. Design Your Website For Rapid Response
If your site has to be taken down in order to respond to a crisis, re-design it so that it can be updated quickly and easily without having to throw your organization and agencies into a panic. Worry about your response strategy, not the design of your site.

2. Think Like A Blogger, Tweeter, Community & Citizen Journalist
Look at how quickly the mommy community organized and produced an authentic video. It's because they don't have legal guidelines holding them back. You probably do—but of you can figure a way around them, you can fight authenticity with authenticity, which looks less like a fight and more like a conversation anyway.

3.  Have A Google Strategy In Place
Aside from perhaps smoothing things over with the offended, the real incentive for any organization to engage in situations like this is to influence the search results and digital trail so that your organization presents well on them. The best way to do this is to have people saying good things about you which means you have to give them something good to say and can't force it. The end goal needs to be helping people. The ROI will be a much more positive long tail.

My 2 cents, for what's it's worth. Hope it's helpful.

Comments

[David Jones]

From a PR guy's perspective I have to say your post is well laid out. Our crisis management presentations and training covers exactly all of that. Your corporate and product image is at risk every day and you better be listening at the very least and ready to respond if you know what's good for you.

It's getting through to PR people that they need to have the ability to update websites themselves at a moment's notice. It's the front door of the company to pretty much everyone and the traffic will skyrocket when your image is under attack.

[Shannon]

Thanks for the post. I used this entry to direct some folks on Twitter to a quick synopsis of the ad/resulting meme since response was web-wide. The only thing you're missing (probably intentionally) is a link to the ad copied on to YouTube. Various copies exist (none mine), including http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mztymu72l7c

[ohplease]

Oh the mad mommies need to save their outrage for something a bit more important than a stupid ad. Economy, war, and so on. This is just silly and shows how thin skinnned Americans are now.

Plus, when did we become a nation that worships at the Cult of Mommy?

[Darren]

Here's what strikes me as odd about the Motrin ad. I think it's a tempest in a teapot, but it seems obvious to mommy bloggers what's wrong with it. D

Didn't the ad agency show the ad to any actual mothers? And if they did, why did that focus group response differ from the blogosphere's?

[tweetip]

#motrinmoms ~ 1st Tweets ~ timeline & chart http://tweetip.us/lkmhe

[Pete Blackshaw]

Great, well-timed analysis, David. On your website point, there are some good parallels here to the pet recall issue several years back. The limited “sense and respond” capacity of the implicated brands was no match for the pet-enthusiast sites and blogs that became near real-time communication hubs for any form of relevant content related to the crisis. For example, while pet food brand search engines fired back blanks against obvious terms like “Melamime,” the pet blogs were building Wikipedia-quality conversations around the term.

On the Google search issue, I think the best think the brand can do (beyond waiting for better "organic" outcomes) is to dedicate all paid keywords (including directionally negative queries – e.g. “motrin controversy” or “motrin ad complaint” or even “Motrin Moms”) and then link to brand sponsored content addressing the issue. Moreover, borrowing a page from Mattel’s smartly executed video apology, I would supplement the text based response with some form of video-formatted response. There’s clearly strong feelings around this issue, and some level of “look the consumer in the face” video might appropriately defuse the issue, or contain some of the viral currents here. Worth mentioning that J&J has a fair amount of experience here (something I even noted in my book).

Lastly, if I were the brand, I’d stay close to Wikipedia, as the brand definitions tend to efficiently absorb the conversational currents of controversies like this, often instantaneously.

- Pete Blackshaw

[Jessica Gottlieb]

I know they're calling me silly, I would urge them to talk to their own mothers.

[Michelle Evans]

I am also fascinated by what is happening here. As a marketer and a mom I've been glued to this since I came home last night to find out what was going on.

This is where a good CMS would come in handy... one click of a button to revert to an older home page. If they'd reacted quickly enough, the video might not have made it to YouTube. It didn't get there until mid day today, but this all blew up last night.

I am also quite certain that @motrinmoms on twitter is a troll and not an actual Motrin rep. The account showed up early today and whomever is posting is sickeninly sweet to even those who insult him/her. I think they are making matters worse for Motrin with the uncertainty of whether or not it's an official account. @motrin also seems to have been hijacked.

[avin]

Great stuff David, and very relevant to some projects I'm working on at the moment. A good case study for any of us on how brands should not be acting in this space.

[crunchy domestic goddess (amy)]

Thanks for the post, David.

It's interesting that people are saying things like "the mad mommies need to save their outrage for something a bit more important than a stupid ad. Economy, war, and so on."
Who's to say we can't and don't tackle more than one thing at a time? I personally have a history of activism over the past several years. This is just one of the many things I've felt needed to be addressed.
I volunteered for the Obama campaign and made numerous phone calls in my home state (a battleground state) of CO. I'm involved in a project right now about the economy. I regularly host "green challenges" on my blog hoping to inspire people to take better care of the Earth. My current challenge is the "No Plastic Holiday Challenge."

We all have different causes that we believe in and want to support. If we didn't, what a boring world this would be.

As the saying goes - If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything.

[John]

If this ad had been posted in pre-Twitter days, would the response have been any different? No. It might have been slower, it wouldn't have snowballed so fast for sure but the "offence" would have been the same?

In a connected world, of course a company should have monitoring systems in place. But they wouldn't have been needed if the ad's tone had been audience-appropriate in the first place.

This is not a social media error, it's a marketing error. Humour is fine but in the pain business you should be empathising not mocking - even if your mockery might be justified in another context.

[Larry Irons]

Thanks for the overview of this "controversy" David. Those who think Twitter escalated the groundswell are probably on target. I think of TellShell whenever these organic controversies occur around a brand. That said, the commercial seemed just about right to me. Perhaps they needed to place a few mommies with back pain in it. I remember the feeling well as a daddy who used to lug around a hefty son. I'm not sure apologies are the way to go though. A follow up with an overview of back pain in new mothers would prove more effective in my view. Just Google "mothers back pain."

[Julie]

Interesting that they responded by email. Fairly pointless as a response, I'd have though.

I didn't get their email, and I'm betting most of the #motrinmoms folks didn't either.

They should have used Twitter: that's where their audience is going. (I saw the apology reprinted in Forbes, that must-read of Mommybloggers everywhere!) Corporate Execs need to take a breath and get on board with social media.

[robin seidner]

David,

I like that you took this away from the message and focused on the impact online. The reality is, many brands are built on messaging that belittles their audience, and frankly, most TV commercials aimed at women and moms fit that bill (have you seen Swiffer ads? what about Mr. Clean?). This one just hit a nerve with a vocal and active audience.

The response is tricky for them. Saying sorry is probably good but not good enough. Heck, maybe they should make fun of themselves and create a Motrin ad of all the marketing/PR folks at Motrin and their agency having to take Motrin from the headache of this Twitter and YouTube frenzy?

[Jared Lukes]

I have to say as impressed as I am with the new era of speedy retorts by the masses through social media, I can see this being abused by marketers, if it hasn't been already or presently. Think about how #motrinmoms just CREATED & GAVE the Motrin brand a massive organic online media buy with this public affair. Granted it's negative, but in reality will Motrin have to do much more than say "oops sorry" to redeem the parent brand of Motrin? The brand recognition is still lasting.

[Stan Joosten]

There is an interesting paradox here. In 'traditional' marketing any copy created goes through quite a bit of scrutiny & testing before going 'on air'. This is mainly a factor of cost - not too easy to redo a $300K commercial.

Digital is bringing down ad production costs significantly. This may well result in people making more 'agile' (or fly by the seats of their pants) decisions to act on an idea. After all, it's only a small amount in the bigger budget (at least for bigger brands like Motrin). A 'redo' is relatively simple, so seems a big bonus.

However, a bad TV commercial probably has impact of 0 (vs. 100 for total success). In the digital space, and especially with social media, there is a much larger potential for negative impact (ie. -50). The cost and distraction of this can become quite staggering (ie. how many people are now running around figuring an 'appropriate response'? How many times over will that response be vetted at various levels of management so not to screw up the response?)

A question I have is what (and how much) 'ad testing' would be appropriate in the digital space? This becomes an especially challenging question when your costs are probably no longer reasonable as % of production cost.

I assume that the Motrin Moms story will be over relatively soon. But as a marketer it gives me a great learning/teaching moment. I'd love to know what happened behind the screens at Motrin to evaluate the execution and how decision was made to put it online. My hunch is that there was limited or no time/money to even do a quick gut check. They now probably wish they did.

[Susan Getgood]

I agree with commenter John -- the Motrin ad is a fundamental marketing fail that was brought to light FAST by social media. Good advertising makes people want to BUY the product, not boycott it.

A little bit of listening and maybe talking to a few babywearing moms, bloggers and non bloggers, might have made all the difference.

[Morgan Coudray]

What I take away from such a post is that the public opinion still has a strong hold on the internet which is great. Furthermore, no company should get involved in social media whithout a good understanding of it because it can backfire: Seth Godin has just trashed them in his last post !!!!

Lastly, that Twitter account HAS to be theirs and that is clearly a very VERY VERY bad idea for a pharmaceutical company to get so involved on the internet.

[Michael Rivera]

David, your analysis is spot on. I've taken in the opinion traffic all day, and as a response, I have some specific thoughts about how Motrin might begin to act on this event from a creative and executional standpoint – a plan for an actual campaign strategy. I've written about it here: http://buzzbean.blogspot.com/

[Kelly Beaman]

I am SOOO tired of moms and their JUDGEMENTS of other moms and speaking for everyone in general. From the day I got pregnant, I had moms who were critical of every… single …minute …decision I made on MY baby. I’m tired of tsk tsks I get from certain moms who feel they know the answer to everything. You have the moms who say you have to breastfeed or bottle feed, au naturale w/ no pain meds or caesarians w/ lots of meds, Gymboree clothes or Target, to Babywise or No Babywise, sling or stroller, crib or bassinet, plastic bottles or glass, Gerber or Beechnut, Baby yoga or Soccer Tots, to vaccinate or not vaccinate, Dreft or Tide, Fruit or Snack Packs, work or not work, organic or not organic ETC. ETC!!!! The list goes on and on. Every mother makes a million decisions that she feels are critical to the well-being of her baby. WHO CARES WHAT SHE CHOOSES?? As long as she is not beating a child, those decisions are hers to make. If it works for you, then do it. So, if a mom wants a DAMN MOTRIN for her freaking back b/c she chose a sling over stroller then let her have one w/ o some other mom judging her or the ad people who were thinking of those moms like me who might just be in pain. BTW, I thank the Lord someone made motrin b/c my baby was 10.5 pounds at birth. SO SHOVE IT TWITTER MOMS!!!! My back hurts!

[Amy Jussel]

To me this is the Target tragedy redux in Twitterfluence format, re: our AOC2 title, "why they don't get it."

I interviewed Jessica G. on Shaping Youth and asked 'What could Motrin do to make things right?'

Though I'm not sure I agree with her answer, the question is key to get beyond short-sighted ‘crisis mgmt’ into larger thinking of how to create less adversarial/combative ‘side-taking’ and more collaborative understanding of both the ‘problem and the solution.’

Marketers don’t seem to ‘get it’ that the ad problem (e.g. the insult itself via subliminal cuckoo clock sound track, mockery of moms, and implications of whiny/trendy/airhead fashionista hormonal basket cases) is only part of what needs to be the inherent ‘solution’ (an unwritten promise that marketers will respect the audience by getting to know them BEFORE firing off a message that lands sideways in relevance and tonality)

The age of conversation needs to elevate from ‘me to we’ in order to serve ANY of the parties effectively.

http://www.shapingyouth.org/blog/?p=3627

(We need to add 'logic' to defuse 'emotion.'

[kate]

This is oh so why is makes sense to involve your constituents in the development of your campaign. And not just by doing a few focus groups.

The 'mommy' community is highly active, involved and vocal. Both on and offline.

As my friend Pauly put it "I've learnt to nod and smile as mothers, aunties friends and complete strangers have imparted unwanted advice on how to look after my baby"

[Katja Presnal]

Thank you for a great article, and especially noting that this was a genuine response from the mom community. Mothers were offended, and their voices needed to be heard.

I created the video as a tool for mothers voices heard and my plan was to send it to Motrin to see, and I expected maybe 200 views, mainly from the 150 moms who had contributed in the video. I had no idea that it would go viral. Then I might have done more research on the music...

The music... um, I used OneTureMedia.com for editing and needed music that would cover the 10 minute video, picked two longest songs, had never heard them before, just picked something instrumental - didn't google the songs. If the music was something everyone else recognized, I didn't (maybe you can blame it for me not being American ?).

Again, thank you for a great post, I think this makes a great case study for any company, and I agree with the suggestions you made. The biggest mistake here was that Motrin did not know their target market.

[Michelle O'Hagan]

So, the latest group of "offendeds" is moms who are bothered by the fact that an ad for a pain reliever stated the obvious: strapping on an extra 20 lbs. can be painful for back and shoulders. I guess perpetual victims can spot the "insult" here, but I cannot.

Your point is well-taken though regarding the fact that most corporate websites and corporate marketing departments still move at a snail's pace when it comes to creating or posting content on a website. An editor with strategic marketing experience should be responsible for the daily care and feeding of corporate websites, using a well-constructed CMS.

[Josh Bernoff]

So, we've added some new jargon to the language? A Groundswell indeed.

One of these needs to come along every once in a while to help me keep my case study examples from getting too old.

Seriously, thanks for the speedy and insightful analysis and nice to see your name in Ad Age.

[jennifer rosenberg]

David-

This is a great summary and I continue to be amazed at the response.

Those who say the agency probably did test the ad and that mommybloggers are just a small vocal minority should rethink this in light of what happened. First, if they did test the ad, they clearly didn't test it appropriately or well. For example, did they test it in Manhattan with working moms? Hardly their entire target audience. What did they test? The final ad with the v/o, copy, storyboards? Most agree the snarky tone is one of the things that offends.

Second, if mommybloggers are such a minority, why did the youtube ad get so many views so quickly? I'm on twitter, I was not a big babywearer, and I'm not a blogger, but I responded? Does the mere fact that I tweeted, make me a mommyblogger?

Now let's break down why this happened. I think it comes down to two things: First, a simple issue. Either the ad pissed you off or not. Not a lot to debate in one's own mind. It's visceral.

Second, it's online so I can respond to it online. And, Twitter makes it so darned easy to respond quickly (no stamps, no e-mails to look up, I don't even have to get up from my computer) and it's seamless to promote that response to others.

Now, how can we put this learning to better and more important use?

[Tom]

I have a similar story from a different sector (disaster relief. Bear with me).

You know how long it takes a cyclone to ravage a village ? Probably seconds. You know how long it took an aid agency I was working at (a BIG one) to re-skin their web site to be able to take donations off the back of this ? about 2 days. I wonder how many people died as a result of the delay in pulling in funds. A lot. Imagine how fast the homepage would have been re-oriented around the matter in hand, had it been customiseable - and the guys on the ground had been able to upload their footage of what was happening before the news crews were able to get their cameras on to planes and shipped out there, find the best filming locations etc etc.

Don't even get me started on Google optimisation / Adwords. Understanding of that was even worse.

The public responds greatest at the point of greatest need - if the disaster is made immediate to them. The frequency of death occurs along the same curve. Grainy footage as it happens is going to get people to put their hands in their pockets more and save more lives faster.

Interesting how the same principle maps over on to other sectors.

[John Welsh]

Was there a little too much sensitivity on this issue? We in the UK have just had a pretty tough video from children's charity Barnado's and there seemed hardly a sigh.

Perhaps we are just that much further behind in terms of social media.

[Paul Chaney]

The one thing in all of this that puzzles me almost as much as anything else is why their apology was done as a graphic and not text. Did they think it would make it more difficult for people to copy/paste? Found that strange.

[Elizabeth]

"Didn't the ad agency show the ad to any actual mothers? And if they did, why did that focus group response differ from the blogosphere's?"

The agency and brand teams are made up of actual mothers, too. Thing is, they captured the mainstream-mom view towards babywearing pretty accurately. They didn't count on the fact that they were a tiny, but powerful online, group of crunchy-moms who are annoyed that Motrin dare speak the truth for mainstream-moms -- which is that babywearing can be painful. The crunchy-moms mobilized, because they don't want messages out there that suggest that their practices might have any downside, because they want everyone to adopt them..

[Z]

How do we know that Motrin did not show the ad to mothers or use a panel of mothers and their opinions on the aches and pains of carrying around a baby before creating it? Surely there are working mothers and fathers at Motrin! We all like to pretend that motherhood and fatherhood with a new baby is all coos and fun and giggles, but truth be known, yes, being a new parent hurts physically sometimes.

Lets not all pretend we don't get a few aches and pains from carrying our babies around, but we still do it with love. Carrying a baby in the front of you in a sling is almost no different than carrying a full term baby in your belly. That definitely caused some back pain, remember? That last week of pregnancy walking around supporting your lower back, rubbing away at the dull ache that never quite went away. Well, that is what carrying a 10 month old feels like in a sling draped around your neck or across the shoulders. I know firsthand carrying my 2 butterballs around.

I think the mothers saw it as an insult of some kind to mothers who carry their babies in such a fashion, or as an insult to motherhood in general. Sort of like how women who do not breast feed discreetly in public are outraged when someone says something about their breast hanging out (hey, I breastfed both of my kids, not once did my breast ever show publicly. Would you walk around with your breast hanging out on any other occasion? No, of course not. Motherhood does not give you the right to passage to be a nudist.)

People are just too sensitive. these days I saw the message behind the ad and to me, there was nothing wrong with it.

[Children Anxiety Disorder]

hey you look great... nice sunglasses and the lether jacket is cool too!!!