How Social Media Brought Down Motrin Mom Campaign

Motrin launched an ad campaign targeting baby-sling wearing moms to coincide with International Baby-Wearing Week. It was a tongue-in-cheek campaign with commercials and print ads targeting that “new baby” and “mommy” target audiences.



Over the weekend the campaign was scrutinized, boycotted and vilified thanks to the connecting power of social networks. Yesterday and today, mainstream media (e.g., WSJ, AP, Chicago Tribune, USA Today) picked up on the story.

How did it spread? Moms with large amounts of followers were “tweeting” their thoughts about the campaign. Then Twitterers started using the “#motrinmoms” hashtag in all of their tweets so they could find and track each other’s conversations. It sounds complicated, but it’s a very simple, powerful way to spread information virally.

Apparently, neither the marketing team at Motrin nor the ad agency who implemented the campaign had proactively enlisted the aid of a few online Motrin mommy advocates who could have 1) inoculated the initial outcry, or 2) helped make the campaign initially resonate more successfully.

Motrin also waited nearly three days before taking down the ads and issuing an apology – some claim because they weren’t monitoring what people were saying about their brand online, particularly on Twitter.

This morning one of my Twitter friends linked to a Motrin commercial parody about breast implants, and given the continued lambasting of the campaign in mainstream and new media channels, it’s safe to assume there will be more of this coming.

Perhaps worse yet, 7 of the top 10 search returns today for "Motrin" and "headache" on Google referred to the marketing debacle. That’s a major corporate reputation issue when consumers are searching for product attributes and bumping into this level of criticism. And it’s a corporate reputation issue not easily corrected.

Beyond that, because the social media flare-up caught the attention of mainstream media, a Google search for simply "Motrin" lists news stories from USA Today and 128 related articles FIRST -- above the link to Motrin.com.

Here’s a key quote from AdAge on the impact and lessons to be learned from the Motrin Moms crisis:

"We now have indisputable proof that online marketing, YouTube and Twitter and all that it encompasses is meaningful and has arrived…We are seeing real consequences to a mistake. If [social networks] didn't matter, you wouldn't see this type of reaction from J&J or consumers."

You may not have 10 minutes to watch the entire YouTube compilation video of complaining tweets an angry mom made, but it's worth a skim. Here's the description, “What happens when companies don't use Mom Experts. Bad PR. Very Bad PR. Motrin published an ad offending baby-wearing moms, and moms at Twitter.com wanted to send a message to Motrin.”

Forrester social media analyst Jeremiah Owyang just added Motrin to his running list of brands that have been punk'd, and it seems this incident will be used as a social media marketing case study for the next few years.

By the way, are you on Twitter yet?

If not, I recommend reading PRWeek’s Tweeting Your Way to the Top about how Twitter has become an essential PR and marketing tool, and then sign up here: www.twitter.com.

Even if marketers aren't interested in participating in the social mediasphere (hmmm..), it's critical to listen to what is being said about brands they represent each and every day.

Automated tools like Twitter Search, Google Alerts and TweetBeep make high-level monitoring easy, and there are plenty of third-party dashboards and platforms available for more in-depth tracking, notification and measurement.

If you’re finding a lot of discussion (or deafening lack of discussion, frankly), start thinking about strategies to harness that existing community of advocates and ways to leverage that passion and interest in 2009.

Motrin earned their headache the hard way. These days, customers just expect it.