A Motrin Mom Mob?
November 17, 2008
This post is guest-written by Beverly Cornell. She was honored with the 2008 Connectech “blogger of the year” award and blogs and podcasts at Global Business Perspectives and also can be found on Twitter with her handle, @beverlycornell. The opinions expressed are her own.
This weekend, while laid up due to bronchitis I was reading twitter and saw the flurry of tweets regarding the Motrin Moms. They were twittering like mad to each other over a new campaign that Motrin was launching. (link to ad on Youtube).
I thought the ad was cute…a bit cheeky, but cute. What some very active twitter moms found offensive, I found clever. I can pretty much assume that Motrin meant no malice in their advertising to this segment of the population but what came as an avalanche of criticism no one could have expected. Now, I am not a mom and maybe my perspective is not aligned with all those moms who were so upset but I do see the merits of baby wearing.
But, I wonder if the Motrin Moms that were up in arms over this ad had just stumbled upon the ad by themselves, if they would have felt so angry. Or did one or two mom’s very loud opinion create a perception? Did the power of the mob take over…did they lose site of the real purpose of the ad? I would call that a social media mob mentality.
Is it just human nature that we gather online (and offline) only to find that we can be swayed by a few folks to say and do things we wouldn’t normally do?
The way I see it, the purpose of the ad was to help the average mom who has back pain. If you don’t like it don’t buy it – why badmouth the product so viciously? No moms or babies were hurt in the making of the commercial.
What I don’t understand is where are all these caring, united voices are when talking about education, poverty, the economy and other topics that have far more impact and can truly make a difference for themselves and their children’s lives? And such outrage, as is it now expected for companies to have a 24-7 monitoring presence, even on weekends, for everything, and then get told “they’re not listening” when they’re probably taking care of their families on a Saturday or Sunday?
Ultimately, the power of social media can be good, bad, or in this case even ugly. Whichever way you dice it …everyone is talking about Motrin around the water cooler today.
I ask you this…what should we really be mobilizing for or against today?
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5 Responses to “A Motrin Mom Mob?”
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Excellent post. As I said in my blog today, it was amazing watching from the sidelines, you could practically feel the groundswell. Now how do we incite that kind of passion for things that really matter?
How about that well in Ethiopia for a start? http://tinyurl.com/3umshd
If Twitter can do that for someone’s birthday, imagine the power we could harness for worthwhile efforts.
I have two children and found this ad to be amusing, but I didn’t use a sling. So, maybe I don’t have a reason to be offended. I don’t feel that the ad was trying to offend anyone, but you can’t make everyone happy. Those that were offended need to look inside themselves to know the real reason why they were offended.
I agree with Janet. We should use our power to make a difference for things that really matter
[...] A Motrin Mom Mob? Beverley Cornell takes a different view: The way I see it, the purpose of the ad was to help the [...]
[...] posts leaned toward criticizing the company in one way or another. Few, notably Buzz Canuck and Beverly Cornell on the Social Commentary Blog, took alternative [...]
Jiminy Cricket, I’m a mother of three. Some of these Whiny women need to get a grip. It is unfortunately that mothers, doing the most important and hardest job in the world, feel a need to validate themselves by creating a cause when there is none. These women are the very reason folks devalue the role of motherhood. It is as if they are screaming, “look at me; I have value and I have worth”. For God sake, you do have value and worth; start acting like it. Congratulations to Motrin for making a funny commercial. Please do not pull the ad. These women ’s homornes must be out of whack. They are upset for no reason. I believe there ranting is due to their low sense of worth. A woman that truly believes she is doing the most inportant job in the world does not have to be so sensitive. God help us. To the upset moms about the Motrin commercial, listen up. You are wonderful. You do the most important job in the world. You are special. You are irreplacable. The world is better because you are in it. Now that we have gotten this behind us; chill out!