Liz Strauss at Successful Blog

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November 17, 2008

Epilogue: Motrin, Take Two and Don’t Wait ‘Til Morning

ME Liz Strauss wrote this at 3:29 pm

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The Headache Rx

relationships button

The folks on the Motrin team are suffering from a sefl-induced headache today. It was caused by being focused on the wrong things in their “WE FEEL YOUR PAIN” AD CAMPAIGN.

Now they’re at a crossroads where the social media sphere is watching for how they’ll respond. Will they apologize, explain, and move on? Will they love their ideas or love learning about their customers? Were I the healthcare practioner on this case, I’d suggest that they take two …

  1. Step away from the the clever ideas — build relationships not campaigns. Send out an actual human being to talk with your customers. They’re your heroes.
  2. Trust that human being, trust your customers, and give people every reason to trust you. Trust is the currency of lasting relationships.

Don’t wait until morning.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
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8 Comments to “Epilogue: Motrin, Take Two and Don’t Wait ‘Til Morning”

  1. November 17th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
    Julie Roads said

    Hey Liz! Hasn’t this been something! They did apologize - it’s up on their site (that was taken offline yesterday completely!) I also took it upon myself (a mom of two that wore her babies everywhere!) to write them the ad that wouldn’t have pissed everyone off! In case anyone wants to read it, so far the Moms have been thrilled: http://writingroads.com/blog/if-i-had-written-the-motrin-ad/520

  2. November 17th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
    Lucretia Pruitt said

    I’m wondering why the folks at Johnson & Johnson (Motrin’s parent company) didn’t get the fact that you should engage the mom community *before* you try to market to them rather than after it goes kablooey after the Camp Baby thing.

    But at least they had the backbone to pull the ad and apologize.

    Shows they aren’t totallly clueless! :)

  3. November 17th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Yeah, Julie,
    Though I’m with Seth, a person didn’t write that apology, a committee did. I’m delighted with your ad. That’s one thing that came out of this. So many looked at what they would have done differently.

  4. November 17th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi Lucretia,
    I think what happens next is truly important. It will show what their apology is made of. So far it sound like a statement of regret. They’re not really saying that they did anything wrong.

  5. November 17th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
    Lucretia Pruitt said

    I’d agree Liz - but I was also raised by Lawyers (I know, always sounds like ‘raised by wolves’ to me too) and there’s no way an apology that implies any wrong doing on the company’s part would’ve made it by Legal on a Sunday.
    I’m pretty impressed that they got the ad pulled and any kind of apology issued before Monday given that it’s corporate America.

    Still - we’ll wait to see if they get the message that you need to respect the Groundswell or if they just keep repeating history.

  6. November 17th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Yeah, Lucretia,
    I understand the movement and the need to stay “legal,” especially in a big Pharma environment. What worries me is how many folks think they received an apology and are feeling as if they did.

    If we can’t discriminate between a legal form and an apology, we’re in trouble.

  7. November 21st, 2008 at 9:15 am
    BDiC | Social Media - Build Community - Increase Business Profits said

    [...] the whole thing to learn more, and see what Liz had to say about it here. If you found this post useful, please Subscribe and share it with your friends on Twitter using [...]

  8. January 26th, 2009 at 11:02 pm
    Cluetrain-a-Day 2009: Companies that assume online markets are the same markets that used to watch their ads on TV are kidding themselves : dangerouslyawesome.com said

    [...] to provide this information, or better information, for free. On the other hand, as the “Motrin” and “The other white milk” episodes prove, companies can get vociferous and very [...]

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