Motrin Moms Controversy

I'm not easily offended, first of all. Have you seen Motrin's new "We Feel Your Pain" ads that are geared toward moms? Their latest, which just so happens to have been released during Babywearing Week, talks about how painful it is to wear your baby, and how women do that just so they can look like an official mom. It's meant to be tongue in cheek, but it doesn't come across very well. It comes across as trivializing the attachment parenting concept.

Whether or not I'm hugely offended, many people were. Angry letters were written. Mommy bloggers posted late into the night. Twitter exploded with #motrinmoms tags, which even trended to the number one spot with more than a thousand tagged posts in about two hours. Let this be a lesson to companies who want to market to moms. Be careful. Ask questions. Invest in focus groups and test panels. Ask women who don't depend on you for a paycheck what they think. When moms get mad? They talk. Loudly. It's so much easier to get it right the first time than to fire your PR firm and beg forgiveness later.

For the record, babywearing doesn't hurt to the point that you need Motrin, anyway. I've used many different kinds of carriers, and they never made me cry or reach for the painkillers. And it was the baby barf on my shirt, not the sling, that made me look like a real mom.

Read more about Motrin Moms.

Motrin Makes Mommy Mistake
Motrin the Anti-Mom
Don't Mess With the BabyWearers
Annoyed By Motrin's New Ad Campaign
Motrin Makes Moms Mad
Would You Like Some Insult With Your Pain Reliever?
New Motrin Ad Angers Twitter Moms Around the World
Motrin's New Ad: Wrong Message, Wrong Time