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
