Cutline Speaks

A Pain in the …

posted by Megan on November 20, 2008

Social Media Lesson #1: Know your audience. This week's reminder comes to us courtesy of Johnson & Johnson. If you somehow missed the news coverage, the Tweets, the videos, or the endless blog commentary, I'll give a quick recap.

Johnson & Johnson, maker of the pain reliever, Motrin, posted a new ad on its website this past weekend. The ad, which was meant to reach new moms in need of pain relief, unfortunately did more than that. It struck a bitter chord, and those moms struck back. Their criticism: The makers of Motrin simply don't get new moms, and the ad belittled the pain associated with carrying babies in body slings.

Whether or not the ad was in some way offensive is not really the issue here. (Peter Shankman has some spot-on comments in this New York Times blog.) The bigger concern is that the makers of Motrin didn't do their homework. They launched an ad with a message that not only didn't resonate with their target audience, but actually offended that audience.

Social media gives companies the power to reach people all over the globe in seconds. It also gives consumers the power to turn on those companies in the same amount of time. That means the level of consumer research and testing that goes into traditional advertising must also go into online advertising. Just because the online medium is cheaper and faster for distribution, it shouldn't be considered less influential.

The good news is that McNeil, the division of Johnson & Johnson that makes Motrin, reacted fairly quickly. They pulled the ads and issued an official apology, but the damage has been done. If you have a few minutes to read some of the coverage, it's an interesting lesson in social media. And for the record, this 9 minute, 15 second video response was a little over-the-top for me (who as a relatively new mom wasn't offended by the ad and had an aching back for 6 straight months), but you be the judge.

Tags for this post: pr social networking megan