November 18, 2008

Motrin campaign causes headaches


Maybe telling moms that their kids are a pain isn’t the best way to sell them a pain reliever.

Johnson & Johnson just pulled the campaign and issused this apology on their site.

You can read more in this Ad Age article, “How Twittering Critics Brought Down Motrin Mom Campaign”

1 comment:

  1. The stuff is bad for your liver, anyway.

    But this is the kind of concept a young buck would propose in creative meetings about 15 years ago, and we all knew the client wouldn't go for it, so it never got presented. Then a creative director fearing for his career and stature as things were starting to change would be "ballsy" and decide to show it. Then maybe he'd talk the client into it... and the ad would run. Today, the young buck is grown up and the creative director and there's another young buck that's grown up and is the client and they're like, "Hey, this IS sooooo cutting edge. We've got to do stuff like this. It's now. It's hip. It speaks to the new generation of moms" (or what have yous).

    Funny, but it's one ad in a sea of other ads with similar offensive value that's been pulled.

    Amazing.

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