The Motrin Wave

I came across this ad while during some quick surfing while inhaling my taco salad lunch, and felt so passionately about it, I had to stop and write this.

What do you think...




The first thing I said to myself is, "Are you kidding me?!?!" I imagine this ad must have been put together by a couple of 22-year-old interns, and they somehow, got it past all senior leadership at Motrin and actually put the ad on TV, and magazines that are now on newsstands everywhere.

I get the point of the ad. "Babywearing causes backaches, so take Motrin.", but they way they go about it by saying "It makes me look like a cool mom", and suggesting that "Mom's that wear slings cry more..." What???

I think Connor lived in his sling until he was literally falling out of it. Having a 2 year old to chase around at the time, didn't leave me many options. I could do virtually anything with Connor in his sling, including grocery shopping (with both hands), cook supper, give Tyler a bath, go for a walk, or even, sit and read a book. Seriously, I would not have survived Connor's first 6 months without it.

After probably being attacked by thousands of e-mails (not to mention the hundreds of blogs that are discussing this now, including this one and this one), if you Google "Motrin Commercial", you come up with about a million hits, and just reading some of them from the first view - the titles include;

• "Motrin Commercial Angers Moms"
• "Motrin Faces Twitter Headache over new Commercial"
• "Motrin Learns, Hell hath no fury like baby-wearing moms"

I also learned that Twitter, a site many use to send instant messages to each other, reached it's 1200 post archive limit for a 12 hour period, with messages related to this topic.

Although one could argue, yes, there are more important things to be passionate about, but trying to suggest that I have to remember to "think about me when my back is hurting from lugging this burden of a child around with me all day" (okay, not a direct quote), is insane.

I can assure you, I needed LESS Motrin because of using my sling. Fewer arm aches, less headaches, and most especially, one of the happiest babies I had ever seen. I literally had strangers come up to me in every store and ask where I got my sling. It generated so much positive conversation, and the key to that story is - I was in stores. Shopping. With a 4 week, or 8 week or 16 week old baby, who wasn't fussing or crying. When I put Connor in his sling, he would fall asleep. I used to joke that it was my tool for an automatic nap.

So, Motrin has pulled the ad, thousands of moms are furious at Motrin. Hopefully, when I go back to school someday to get my MBA, maybe I can study the economic effect of poor advertising choices that corporations make. This would be at the top of my list.