Don't mess with the mommy bloggers. That's a lesson the makers of Motrin have been learning the hard way over the past two days, after a blogosphere campaign forced the company to pull a viral web ad and issue a public apology.
On Saturday, U.S. pharmaceutical company McNeil Consumer Healthcare posted an ad on the Motrin website aimed at moms who may be suffering back pain from carrying their babies in baby slings or baby-Bjorn-style carriers.
The ad begins with a female voiceover, musing, "Wearing your baby seems to be in fashion. I mean, in theory it's a great idea."
She goes on to list her aches and pains, concluding, "I mean I'll put up with the pain because it's a good kind of pain; it's for my kid. Plus, it totally makes me look like an official mom. And so if I look tired and crazy, people will understand why."
By Saturday evening, the "Motrin Moms" controversy was the most tweeted subject on the social-networking site Twitter. Baby-wearing mothers immediately objected to what they called the ad's condescending tone.
One mom, Lauren Allen, who blogs at Instinct Parenting, wrote: "Fire your ADVERTISING people, or at least hire a REAL MOM to be on that team!" Crunchy Domestic Goddess urged her readers to buy generic ibuprofen instead and posted the letter she e-mailed Motrin in which she wrote: "Stop disrespecting us moms, Motrin. Unlike our babies, we weren't born yesterday and we will take our $ elsewhere."
On Sunday, McNeil Consumer Healthcare removed the ad from the site (at press time it was still available on YouTube) and sent out apologies to anyone who wrote the company a complaint.
After cries for a public apology, the company, which is owned by Johnson & Johnson, obliged yesterday. "With regard to the recent Motrin advertisement," the apology by vice-president Kathy Widmer reads, "We have heard you."
