Nov16
Marketing to Moms- Ur Doing it Wrong!
(Insert funny LOLcats pic here in your imagination, because I couldn’t find an appropriate one.)
Nothing like waking up on a Sunday morning to a bunch of moms ranting on Twitter. If hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, I can personally attest to the fact that the fury of mama bears with their dander up is something any smart person would avoid like a bad case of herpes. This is a lesson those in charge of marketing to moms for the purpose of making money should especially take note of.
Apparently the person in charge of marketing at Motrin.com was asleep at the wheel on this one when they decided to run a video ad on their site called ‘Motrin Mom-alogue’. In an effort to relate to moms (*snort*) they put up a condescending little video supposedly from a mother’s point of view talking about how much Motrin helps when she wears her baby.
Huh?
The clip talks about how babywearing is becoming fashionable, and how incredibly painful it is to the back, neck and shoulders, but the woman will continue doing it “Because it’s the good kind of pain! The kind that’s good for my kid.”
Barf.
Seriously, I understand where they were half-assed attempting to go with this. They just did such a shitty job of it they have managed to set off the biggest firestorm of bad press among moms I’ve seen in months. Their message may have been ‘You are a good mom, let us help’, but instead what it translates to is ‘We know fuck-all about this subject we are trying to capitalize on, but you are too dumb to understand, so it doesn’t really matter. Here, buy some Motrin!’.
As a former and possibly future babywearer myself, the most obvious point here is wearing your baby in a pouch or sling should not hurt. If it does, you don’t need Motrin, you need to check the directions, because you are not doing it correctly. Getting the hang of a sling can be tricky, but once you do it is considerably easier on the back and shoulders than carrying your little one. Why else would women around the world have been doing it since the beginning of time? Fashionable my ass.
Motrin needs to seriously watch their steps in their marketing to mothers right now, because if their next ad talks about how breastfeeding is painful, but Motrin can help, not even the best PR in the world could save them from the wrath of mothers everywhere, myself included.
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