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J&J yanks mom-offending Motrin ad
A Johnson & Johnson online ad has captured headlines all over the place. Too bad it's the wrong kind of headline. The online commercial looked to promote the Motrin painkiller to new moms. But its flip approach got them all riled up instead.
The ads promise Motrin can treat backs, necks, and shoulders that ache from Mom's toting baby in one of those slings or packs that keep infants close and their mothers' hands free. Baby-wearing women were not amused. Offended moms spewed complaints via Twitter, YouTube, and various motherhood blogs. Some even called for a boycott of the medicine, which is one of the standard treatments for childhood fevers.
By the end of the day yesterday, J&J had posted an apology on the Motrin.com website and pulled the online commercial. Magazine ads are also set for the axe, though they'll take longer to get out of circulation. The ad was "meant to engender sympathy and appreciation for all that parents do for their kids, a VP of marketing wrote on JNJ BTW, the company's blog, "but did so through an attempt at humor that missed the mark."
As the Wall Street Journal noted, both the outcry and the swift response shows how quickly Internet-savvy consumers can influence corporate behavior.
- here's the video
- read the story at Scientific American
- check out the WSJ's article
Related Article:
Johnson & Johnson - Top 13 Ad Budgets
Comments
By Concerned Mom | Posted 1:32pm | November 19, 2008
What I am really concerned about is not the ad, but the attitude of the time-wasters who are taking offense to the commercial and calling for a boycott. Get over yourselves women, mothers, men, fathers! You are not doing the rest of us any good by boycotting a drug that is, for all intensive purposes, made to alleviate pain in the neck, back, shoulders, etc. What would happen if your boycott came about? Loss of jobs along with pulling the product? Please - what a laugh. I find it refreshing that big Pharma can poke fun and be comical. Really, I find it hard to believe that the mothers and others out there are offended by something that actually depicts what mothers and fathers do when they have children and not enough hands to handle everything at once. Try putting your efforts towards real causes, like what you are really teaching your kids at home, the economy, the environment - I am sure you will find something that offends you just as much if not more in those subjects and where you could actually effect a positive result. Grow up and develop a sense of humor.
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