The Power of the Internet – Not Even Motrin Can Help You Now

Oh yeah, that's Motrin Pain.

During this weekend, while sitting in my hotel room surrounded by the beautiful Rocky Mountains, I decided to check my twitter feed. Out of nowhere, all this stuff about Motrin started to pop up in everyone’s tweets. Apparently, Motrin decided to launch a flash web-ad targeted towards new moms. Their marketing was based on the idea that since we are going through a second baby boom and that babies are really becoming an accessory new moms are proud of their babies, it must be physically painful for the moms to “wear” their babies all the time. It was an honest mistake on their marketing department’s part to target this demographic with this ad. However much truth there may be in the theory that babies are an accessory, it’s still not a subject you should focus on in advertising to new moms. As a husband without kids, I do not have the full perspective on raising a child or the want/need of a child. There are two distinct camps of outspoken people; those that believe children fulfill your life, and those that believe life is not about having children. I’m willing to bet that Mortin’s marketing team falls closer to that second group.

I don’t want to critique their ad campaign and as I’ve stated, I feel I’m not qualified to offer up an opinion on this topic, being without children or the want of having them. But the thing that really caught my attention is how the internet and social networking really bared its fangs. Within moments (I’m not sure how many moments to be exact) of this ad being published on the Motrin’s site, twitter was burning with comments and tweets on this ad. Moms were up in arms, so far as to call for a boycott of Motrin. With this past Presidential election showing us how internet and digital media can play a major role in advertising, this shows the flip side of that coin. What you get in exposure can backfire as well. In the internet age, there is such a thing as bad press and Motrin just got a face full of it. The vocal minority has been given a really tall soapbox to stand on and a megaphone the size of Texas to speak into. It’s exciting to see how businesses are now being held ever accountable for their actions and even companies that are not technologically based are held in the same regard.

“Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned / Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.”- “The Mourning Bride” (1697) by William Congreve

That’s not pain, that’s Motrin pain ™