Or is Twitter the beast?
For those unfamiliar with Twitter, the number sign is a hash tag used to label “tweets” (mini-posts) similar to Technorati or WordPress tags in blogs. As you can see from this chart from Twist, the topic du jour for Sunday was motrinmoms.
In fact, at 8:50 Saturday evening, there wasn’t a single mention. But only fourteen minutes later, the true power of social networking began to show with 339 mentions of motrinmoms.
All over a Motrin ad. By the time I saw the first message, the site was already getting overloaded and the advertisement wouldn’t play until the entire site finally went down and Motrin issued an apology. The ads are no longer available, but A Dad First kindly provided a transcript in case you are wondering what all the fuss is about. Update: Of course it would be on YouTube.
I’m still wondering what all the fuss is about, but for a different reason.
To start with, we have a rather large company which certainly put a lot of money and research into this ad campaign. It most certainly was not a spontaneous lightning bolt of inspiration which struck some corporate exec on Friday night and got launched before anyone really thought about it.
They did think about it. And I’m sure they had focus groups respond. You know those people with clipboards who stop you in the mall to ask you a couple of questions? I could almost guarantee they were out in force accosting young mothers at the mall and getting their feedback. And when I saw the graphic ads and read the transcript of the video ad, I could see what they were going for: a tongue-in-cheek sort of humor that a mom could identify with immediately. The trouble with humor, however, is that it is easy to miss the mark. And when you miss the mark, people tend to feel like they are being mocked rather than understood.
Enter the Twitterers. These are not random young mothers walking through the mall with their children wandering here and there while they were being asked some questions about Ibuprofen. Instead, they are socially engaged, techically savvy, ideologically motivated mothers who have made a place for themselves on the internet discussing their parenting styles. Women who have dedicated themselves to attachment parenting, homeschooling or both. Women who do not take even subtle references to children as burdens lightly.
So they reacted. Or as some claim, overreacted.
I didn’t suggest that a Twitter protest would save the world - just that outrage is manufactured and misdirected –matthewktabor of education for the aughts, a pretty good education blog, I might add.
And this is the part that intrigues me. Did they overreact? Have homeschoolers overreacted to the “homeschoolers are demented” comment made by some comedian on The View?
As I watched this topic trend upward until Motrin responded, my first thought was not “the power of Twitter.” In fact, my first thought was how much money Motrin saved by the near instant feedback to their advertising campaign. They did not have to wait until next quarter to wonder why their sales seemed to be declining and to perhaps mistakenly blame the economy. Instant feedback, a quick and hearty response and all is forgiven with a bit of added brand recognition in the minds of consumers.
But I guess it is all in how you view Twitter and the conversations you find there. As more and more people commented on the advertising, I did not see protesters marching in front of Motrin’s corporate headquarters. I saw friends and acquaintances who were talking about what they had for lunch. And then ask if I’d seen the Motrin ad.
The thing is, I wouldn’t think twice about the vast majority of the comments I have read regarding either Motrin or the demented homeschooler line if they were dropped in casual conversation. And that is what Twitter is. Informal, casual conversation that happens to be available for all the world to read.
Principled Discovery is a place to stop and discuss news and information related to faith, family and particularly education. Pour yourself a cup of tea and join the conversation! 
Looks like I am really missing out on some fun- I haven’t been able to get into Twitter- I’m still not sure how it even works! Plus it looks like most of the action happens after my bedtime.:D Amazing that a site that looks to me like the world’s largest chat room can have such impact- that’s really cool.
I watched the Motrin ad- didn’t think it was any more over-the-top than other ads picturing frantic, tired, or aching moms dealing with motherhood. I mean, I can see why someone would find it mocking- but IMO it’s just like alot of other ads aimed at moms. Commercials are why I don’t watch tv anyway.
And if Joy Behar has three brain cells to rub together, I’ll eat my socks.
I’m on Twitter, but I haven’t figured out how to use it! I think it’s a good thing. I saw the commercial and thought it went beyond tongue-in-cheek - it was sort of stupid and demeaning. Kudos to Motrin for pulling it!
Hello there,
I liked your photo
of your son covered in muck and so I put it on a post on my blog along with a link to your blog!
Ruth
Well, just to show how socially engaged, technologically savvy, and ideologically motivated I am, I had neither seen the Motrin commercial nor heard the twitter until reading your blog.
But this: “Women who do not take even subtle references to children as burdens lightly.” That was me, a few years ago. Really sensitive to any suggestion that raising children 24/7 was ever anything less than a delight. Until I finally let go of my ideology and my perfectionism and realized that the fact that I was at times tired, frustrated, overwhelmed, and lonely was neither a reflection on me nor on the institution of motherhood, but was just LIFE.
The commercial that I have seen that I really like (and so much for brand recognition, since I can’t remember what they were advertising!) was the one where the busy mom is chasing toddlers and cleaning up messes while the phone rings and the rice boils over, then, as the day ends she tucks her sweet children into bed and sits down with a cup of something and a book as the sun goes down, and the voice over says, “…your pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.”
My pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. How very perfect. The fact that I long for some uninterrupted time and some personal space doesn’t mean that the non-stop whirlwind that is my day, my week, my life is anything less than a rainbow.
Too bad ABC will most likely NOT offer an apology as compared to Motrin. If more people guarded their mouth and thought kindly of the people they criticize - even tried to UNDERSTAND them first… there would be less hate and war in the world. So what if it is supposed to be humor. I don’t take it lightly. We try not to slander anyone - even Paris Hilton (as one twitter mom suggested).
You make an important point, activism no longer has to be just for extreme causes that call for protest marches. Now, it’s easy to speak up when we see something that moves us, to discover if others share our sentiment. And, when they do, we can a difference while doing all the other things that are part of our daily life.
As a mom with Scoliosis, I really appreciated the Motrin ad. My back always hurts! And slings killed me!
BTW - After watching The View clip you provided with my Sal (14 yr. old) I asked him if he was afraid of other kids. He said that he wasn’t but that Joy Behar kind of freaked him out.
Out of the mouths…
Wellll… calling homeschoolers “demented.” Was Ms. Behar making fun of people with dementia or homeschoolers? Another really kewl label I’ve heard applied to homeschoolers is “retarded.”
I think more telling was the reaction of the AUDIENCE. They thought it was funny. I mean, what if someone got up and said they thought all Orthodox Jews were “demented?” Would that be funny, too? They could do a little skit about how these people are afraid of non-Kosher foods and really yuk it up.
Sigh.
I do think this Motrin thing has been blown WAY out of proportion. But sadly enough, I’m not at all surprised. While many AP moms are relatively tolerant of those parents who make different lifestyle choices, there’s unfortunately a number of AP proponents who are very outspoken in their belief that THEIR way is the ONLY acceptable way to parent.
How DARE someone choose to ever give a bottle of formula, use the infant car seat or stroller rather than a sling, let the baby cry it out in his/her own crib, use disposable diapers, circumcise their son, buy jarred Gerber foods rather than making one’s own from organic produce, follow the CDC’s recommended immunization schedule, etc., etc. Don’t they know how EVIL those things are and how doing so makes them a FAILURE as a parent?????
And people accuse conservative Christians of being intolerant…
A few hours before I learned that someone from a show I’ve never watched called homeschoolers demented, I heard that a show I’d never heard of called bloggers a lower life form.
I’ve been trying to figure out what it means to be a demented lower-life form since.
Other than one bad pun…I’m a luna-tick, I haven’t figured it out. Fits with the whole “bloggers are parasites” from a year or two ago.
The baby thing didn’t bother me so much with the Motrin ad. I did think that the whole campaign seemed to play right into one of the biggest stereotypes of pharmaceutical companies, namely drug everything and you’ll be fine.
And ABC won’t apologize because they don’t have to. Controversy draws viewers and that is essentially their product.
Motrin would have been stupid to not respond.
I like your comparison to marching in the streets. I try to imagine way back years ago before the internet, how people would express indignant outrage? I wonder a few things:
1. Would that many people have noticed the ad without the reaction itself becoming something to notice?
2. Would people have reacted so strongly to the ad if they had not seen other people reacting strongly? As in.. hey, yeah, that *is* demeaning! In the old days of old media, this would have had to happen over time as people read articles, passed around opinions via phone or in-person meetings.
3. How will this affect the way advertising companies do focus group testing? If the mainstream people are less effective than this tech-savvy ideologically-driven minority, will the mall questions be obsolete?
Your number three is what I’ve been wondering. After all, you could have a marketing campaign that is well-received by the average person in your target market, but it is a minority of people active on the internet that will stop it.
Meaning that marketing my become increasingly focused on us, even though we are not yet a majority.
I think there may well have been a similar reaction without the internet, but it would have taken weeks or months to build. The Cheetos campaign never received much attention but also seemed to eventually flop. That was actually the worst ad campaign I remember in a long time, and the fact that they were encouraging petty vandalism I found particularly disturbing.
It wasn’t the number one topic on Twitter, and it wasn’t discussed on every blog because everyone sort of privately reacted by not participating in their campaign and I’m sure we weren’t the only ones who thought twice about purchasing Frito Lay products until it was done.
I thought about the Cheetos campaign when you posted this blog, Dana, as well as Subwaygate.
I think the internet has given consumers a powerful voice- not only an instant voice, but one that can be read by thousands of people at any given time.
It could be a good thing, though- between RSS and Twitter, companies can take the pulse of consumers fairly quickly… but I wonder how accurately, because, as you pointed out, mothers who network on the internet crowd’ are “socially engaged, techically savvy, ideologically motivated mothers who have made a place for themselves on the internet discussing their parenting styles”
I wonder if that phrase would fit on a T-shirt…:p
And interestingly, may not even be a part of the target audience. After all, I know a few of the voices in the whole thing are rather opposed to any medication, particularly for minor aches and pains. Those who would be upset that I am probably going to request an epidural in late February are certainly not going to be impressed by people taking Motrin for significantly more minor aches.
I can’t remember if I said this here or elsewhere, but the one thing that struck me is how much the advertising fit in with the Big Pharma stereotypes of pharmaceutical companies trying to medicate any and every discomfort of life.
Particularly the one that stamped “25 lb toddler” on two Motrin tablets.