Words of Advice to Motrin: In a Crisis, Medium Matters

Nov 17

Words of Advice to Motrin: In a Crisis, Medium Matters

by Sarah Marchetti Van Velsor
Category: Digital Influence

Saturday evening, a discussion criticizing a new Motrin commercial aimed at moms exploded on Twitter. I’m not going to rehash the entire situation since plenty of mom bloggers and PR and marketing people have already written about it. But in short, moms on Twitter started discussing a Motrin commercial that they found condescending and offensive regarding wearing your baby in a sling or wrap on your body. This discussion quickly grew to thousands of tweets, spawning its own hashtag, #motrinmoms, and became the top Twitter search for the weekend. There’s even a YouTube video made by Katja Presnal that shows the negative tweets interspersed with pictures of moms wearing their babies in carriers. McNeil Consumer Healthcare, the makers of Motrin, had a full-blown communications crisis on their hands by early Sunday morning.

In a social media crisis, the medium you use to respond to the situation can make or break how severe the crisis turns out to be since communities can be fragmented. Plus, social media is all about community and starting up a conversation so you should respond to the crisis where it is currently happening. At the time of this post, McNeil’s VP of Marketing, Kathy Widmer, has started replying via e-mail to bloggers who posted about the Motrin ads with a very nice note apologizing for the ad and assuring the moms that they take consumer feedback very seriously and will pull the ads as soon as they can. I think this is a great first response and fairly timely, but McNeil needs to go further with their crisis response first thing tomorrow morning using social media to address this social media crisis. What should they do?

Get a Twitter handle, STAT! This crisis started on Twitter and is still most visible on Twitter. Motrin should join the conversation using the hashtag #motrinmoms. Unfortunately, it looks like people have already taken @motrin and @motrinmoms and started posting joke replies to the crisis. It’s too bad the brand didn’t get ahead of that, but they can still make an impact by starting another handle. Laura Halsch wrote a great post about using Twitter in a crisis, so get some tips from the Twitter series and start tweeting. Obviously, it would have been best if Motrin had a Twitter handle before the crisis happened especially since so many mom bloggers use Twitter. This might have prevented the conversation from getting so big.
Make a YouTube Video. McNeil should create a short video from their VP of Marketing or other high-ranking mother in the company that apologizes for the ads and provides a place for moms to go to give their feedback. They should post the video as a response to the video created by Katja Presnal so that everyone who views that video has the option to view the response.
Create a place on their Website with more information. Twitter isn’t the right medium for getting out more than a few sentences of information, but it is a great way to link to more in-depth content on a Website. McNeil could use an existing portion of the Motrin website to address moms’ concerns.

Using these medium-specific tatics, along with commenting and continuing to reach out to bloggers, should help mitigate this crisis quickly by reaching the people talking about this crisis where they already are. Of course, the advice for next time would be to establish a social media presence ahead of time to prime yourself to respond, especially when your target audience is moms. The mom blogosphere is very powerful and vocal. Brands would be wise to participate in the conversation long before a crisis.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 17th, 2008 at 12:04 am and is filed under Digital Influence. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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TAGS: Tags: Healthcare, pharma

29 Responses to “Words of Advice to Motrin: In a Crisis, Medium Matters”

Martin Ringlein Says:
November 17th, 2008 at 8:01 am
This seems to be one of those classic situations where a group of men and a group of women (women who either have never been pregnant or don’t use the carrying device in question) worked directly on this campaign.

The piece was very condescending; this coming from a man! Situations like these are easily accounted for … just simply have a test base of the target audience, the “moms”; show that test base the piece and get reaction.

Often times people take the web for granted, thinking that everything can be put up without traditional testing and modified quickly and easily. I am unaware of the agency behind the creative strategy, but I suspect it was not Motrin’s traditional agency but instead a “new media’ agency that put this together — one that forgets the message and focuses too much on the “conversation”.
Sarah Marchetti Says:
November 17th, 2008 at 9:15 am
Martin- Actually the campaign was TV, print and online, so it isn’t a case of slapping something on the internet. Several sources have said that Taxi is the agency of record for Motrin. They are a full service advertising agency. I think that the concept of it could have worked, but the execution was poor. They were trying to sympathize with moms, but the tone just didn’t come off right and was condescending instead of “in the know”. They didn’t capture that insiders view of a mom’s life that they were going for.
Yianni Garcia Says:
November 17th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Companies can contact Twitter and work with them to claim their brand’s name if it has already been taken, specially if it has sabotaged and it’s being used for making jokes and negative comments. I believe Biz Stone, the co-founder of Twitter, has helped a colleague with this issue before. His Twitter handle is @biz.
Sarah Marchetti Says:
November 17th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
Thanks Yianni. That’s helpful information.
robin seidner Says:
November 17th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
I think these responses are so “careful,” and will be ignored by such a vocal group because they are still relatively impersonal and “from the brand”.

Yeah, ok, apologize, but it seems so impersonal. Also, telling us that you’re parents too seems somewhat disingenuous. You’re trying to sell product, and that will cloud your thinking, even if you are a baby-wearing mom or dad. Create a consumer council? Maybe. How about a Friendfeed room, ala the Pepsi Cooler, to get feedback AND stimulate discussion in a more streamlined environment? How about instead of freaking out, instilling some kind of sense of humor? How about if the folks at Motrin stop taking themselves so seriously and poke some fun at themselves?
Sarah Marchetti Says:
November 18th, 2008 at 10:25 am
Robin- I disagree that the tactics are careful. For a brand that doesn’t have a social media presence, getting a Twitter handle and joining the conversation would be quite revolutionary. The brand issued a press release and sent e-mails to bloggers as their crisis communication strategy. This doesn’t reach people where they are reading about the issue except in the case when bloggers post their response as an addendum to their post on the issue. If someone stumbles across, this on Twitter, YouTube or Google, the brand should ensure that their response is right there next to the negative information. Makes it easy for people to see that the corporation’s point of view on the issue without losing their attention. I do agree with you that using a sense of humor could be helpful in their response.
Ogilvy PR 360 Digital Influence Blog » Blog Archive » Mom Bloggers React to Octuplets Says:
February 5th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
[...] with the Motrin Moms crisis a few months back, the reaction against Suleman shows that a social media community can amplify [...]
The Hyper Local Social Media Crisis | Media Badger, Social Media Consultants Says:
January 7th, 2010 at 3:21 pm
[...] emphasis on Social Media crises is focused towards large brands – JetBlue, United, Motrin etc., and there’s plenty of them. But what about the small local business? You’ll have [...]
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February 20th, 2011 at 4:25 pm
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Live Stream Says:
June 9th, 2011 at 9:26 pm
Thanks for the information about the live nature of twitter.
Another topic would be the growing influence of Live streams in the internet.
marie Says:
June 10th, 2011 at 2:25 am
Great Article! If someone stumbles across, this on Twitter, YouTube or Google, the brand should ensure that their response is right there next to the negative information!
Barhocker Says:
June 15th, 2011 at 4:40 am
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Ravinder Tulsiani (Parent Central: Advice & Tips Blog for Parents) Says:
December 2nd, 2011 at 3:42 am
Ravinder Tulsiani (Parent Central: Advice & Tips Blog for Parents)…

[...]Words of Advice to Motrin: In a Crisis, Medium Matters[...]…
TechCrunch talks PR – but what does PR mean to you? | thebluedoor Says:
January 2nd, 2012 at 6:51 am
[...] same applies to PR. If going it alone, what happens when it goes wrong? Look at what happened to Motrin in November – now an infamous digital PR case study for all the wrong reasons. PR is about [...]
Norbert Says:
February 2nd, 2012 at 5:53 pm
Thanks for the information about the live nature of twitter. Great work. best regards