The marketing world has been awash in the wave of the Motrin Moms debacle since Sunday, which I was first alerted to by Holly Buchanan's blog post on the topic. Certainly a milestone in the influence of social media, Twitter allowed these pissed off mothers to send their messages farther, faster than anyone had previously imagined possible, even including a 9 min video montage of the tweets on YouTube - where did they find the time? -spurring an apology from Kathy Widmer the marketer who oversaw the campaign and an immediate withdrawal of the ad on motrin.com, though sadly for the company, as Widmer admitted, they can't do quite so fast a pull on the print ads. Red letter day for social media, not so good news for print.
But, onto the topic of that response...Seth Godin already pointed out the corporate feel of it, which isn't in sync with the medium, to say the least. The tone is serious and grave, more apt to a product recall notice. Look, it was definitely off target but no one's life was threatened. And I doubt the company set out to intentionally offend or alienate moms. This is a giant, public case of foot-in-mouth. So, why not apologize with some self-effacing humor? Like a spoof video that begins by showing the executives and creatives involved needing to pass around a giant bottle of Motrin as they view moms' feedback to the campaign on their computer screens. Then follow them going from their offices to their cars where everywhere they look a woman is happily toting a baby in a carrier while they duck their heads in shame. The background conversation could include the women admiring each others' carriers and raving over which ones alleviate back pain the best. At the end each of the marketers involved adds their signature to a hand written message, which they hold up for the camera - "Sorry moms, we screwed up. Next time, we'll talk to you first."
Research has proven time and time again that when a company messes up and takes responsibility loyalty actually increases. Motrin has a huge opportunity here, but corporate-sounding statements won't cut it. The response has to be as sincere and personal as the reaction - the medium simply demands it.
Perhaps there's still time...
