Advice to Motrin: Put the Ad Back Up and LEAD

Replace it maybe, but Motrin should have not been so quick to take it down. 

If you have no idea what I’m talking about – see my Harper’s Index style post on the dust up.  In a nutshell, Motrin released an ad that got lots of attention over the weekend while offending some in Motrin’s target market.

If I were advising Motrin, I would have advised them to keep it up, but to jump on the opportunity immediately to lead and manage. Turn it around on a dime into a conversation about 1) what was offensive (content or tone); 2) why; 3) are they addressing an issue for baby wearers correctly – but in the wrong way; 4) are there other issues they should be addressing; ….and here is the big one:

5) LEAD the vocalizers into solutions for Motrin and maybe ultmately into helping Motin shape a better campaign (which might be suitable for carrying forward into print and offline). 

Taking the ad down from the Motrin web site is meaningless from a practical standpoint – the ad is up on YouTube as are the inevitable response videos.  I downloaded a local copy to use in presentations. It’s out there. Taking it down doesn’t mean a thing.

Leave it up and do the postmortem together. Get out of crisis communications stress mode.   Manage and most importantly, lead your customer.  So much more value could be gained from that than taking it down could ever.

Jeremiah Owyang of Forrester believes the conversation wasn’t so robust that it would adversely affect Motrin in searches.  I say that is short-sighted thinking (and a disappointing analysis to read from Forrester) - the equivalent of “we dodged a bullet.”  Motrin didn’t dodge a bullet, they angered some of their customers and, in the perception, betrayed a trust.

What is especially worth noting to all marketers is that the Motrin campaign is being characterized as a “social media campaign.”  But it wasn’t really intended to be.  It was "just" an ad on their web site.  But socialized media certainly turned it into a "social media campaign" - and really fast.

Original post:  http://freshtakes.typepad.com/enterprise_social_media/2008/11/advice-to-motri.html

Comments

[Linda Zimmer]

Jeremiah, thanks for stopping back to chat. Being one of your readers, I caught your categorization post - and I encourage anyone reading here to link through to it for some perspective on "storm strength."

Your further comment here struck me with how many different angles we can view this from - and our two points of view illustrate just two of the various aspects a company has to manage when something like this happens. You've focused on the viral spread and potential damage - which is one part of the monitoring/data gathering process. That's the analyst in you. The strategist in me focuses on strategies to manage the business effects and maintaining - and strengthening - the trust of the customer.

Two sides of the coin, two activities in a process - data and actionable strategy.

I'm using the case study in a presentation tonight with a group of marketing executives, as well. It will be interesting to see what resonates with them in discussion.

I think the biggest thing Motrin's experience illustrates is everything is social media.

Thanks for taking the time to come by and further the discussion.

[Jeremiah Owyang]

One last thing. thanks for being a daily reader, I really appreciate your insights and opinions.

[Jeremiah Owyang]

Good discussion.

It's often hard to weigh apples to oranges, so I've created a categorization system (much how meteorologists measure hurricanes) to gauge the true damage of the brand backlash

http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2008/11/17/categorization-of-brand-backlash-storms/

Still today (Wed, nearly 5 days after) Motrin is what I still classify as a category 2, it's not reached a category 3.

I ran a workshop yesterday where we use Motrin as a case study, believe me, the recommendations to brands were the same as I gave in my post: don't underestimate, test your message, be ready to respond and engage --even during the weekends. The class discussed this over the day.

We took a look at the impact of Dell Hell, it was far more severe than Motrin moms, and I could measure that by amount of press mentions and direct impact to SEO --these all have direct costs.

I'm not diminishing Motrin moms by any means (Don't misread that) but compared to other brand punkings, it's not as severe as Dell Hell, Kryptonite or Comcast sleeper.

See here
http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2008/05/02/a-chonology-of-brands-that-got-punkd-by-social-media/

Believe me, if Motrin came to me, I have some very specific recommendations for them to turn this around into a win --not just stop at the apology.

[Linda Zimmer]

Hi, Jeremiah,

I'm a daily reader of your blog and I did go back and read your post - so please know it wasn't a fly-by read in the first place.

I stand by what I said, however. While I realize your post was essentially about the numbers (and you did a great job of showing the tools a company can/should employ to get a read!), I am disappointed that the conclusion you come to for Motrin is "it isn't all that bad - yet."

It's true it isn't as wide-spread as Dell Hell or Comcast's sleeping technician, but is that really the point? Isn't *managing* the outcome of your findings really the point?

If Forrester is leading clients into *understanding* the "power of participants" and into managing social media correctly, as a long-time reader I would have expected you to look at the numbers and point them in the direction of solutions. A situation like this is rich in possibilities for engagement - and for using all the benefits and power of the groundswell. I think you stopped short.

Of course you have every right to be completely disappointed in my analysis of your analysis! And I welcome it - and you- here at my humble blog any time. :-)

[Jeremiah Owyang]

Linda

Interesting point on leading, for sure Motrin should certainly be part of the dialog.

Regarding your mention of me, would you mind reading my post again?

I showed screen shots of it impacting searches in Google, YouTube, and Delicious.

To date, this has not impacted Google searches for "Motrin", and it may not, depending on what happens with news outlets.

One thing is for sure, this isn't as bad as "Dell Hell" or "Sleeping comcast guy"

Please go read again, should I be disappointed in your analysis of my analysis? Thanks for taking the time to read and link to me.