The Monkey Shack

Over the weekend, Motrin made an attempt to go viral be placing the above ad on YouTube, aimed at moms at moms who carry their children in slings or backpacks. Almost immediately, moms everywhere took offense at the ad's condescending tone, which seems to imply that carrying your baby close has little effect and that moms that do so are really using their babies as fashion accessories.

Sure enough the ad managed to generate plenty of buzz, just not the kind Motrin's brand managers had hoped for. No sooner had the online legion of mommy bloggers seen the spot, they began to post angry comments on their own blogs, posting irate video responses to the ad on YouTube, even rejecting the ad en masse on Twitter. First rule in social media, beware the power of mommy bloggers.

Here are some screenshots to show just how much online activity the ad has caused, certainly now well beyond its intended audience. I mean, here I am a 28 year old male blogging about a Motrin ad targeted at moms!




It's shocking that Motrin's brand managers apparently failed to test the spot prior to its release, such strong emotions certainly would have been noticeable had they done so. But what made the situation even worse was Motrin's the slow response, indicating nobody was even monitoring the conversations people were having about their brand.

The ultimate demise of the campaign demonstrates either how quickly social media can galvanize a groundswell of opinion or how much power over online discourse they can give a few vocal tastemakers with outsize weight, and remind marketers of the dangers of trying to talk TO consumers through social media when its true power is in having a conversation WITH consumers.

That conversation shouldn't start only after you launch a microsite or release a viral ad, but should only be a continuation of an ever growing and evolving dialogue between brand and consumer. Consumers will always talk about your brand, and the trick for today's brand managers is to become an active part of and lead the conversation.

UPDATE:
Great posts here from Seth Godin and David Armano about how Motrin failed a second time in its efforts to apologize. AdAge also released an excellent analysis of the campaign's demise.