I mean, in theory, it's a great idea...

I think that the reason the Motrin ad to-do has crawled under my skin as it has is because it is disheartening to see that some people simply do not get it. I have children in college and high school in addition to the SuperCat, so this isn't my first spin around the block. So, while things are better today that they were 20 years ago, and much better than when I was a child myself, we aren't quite there yet.

My children range in age from 20 on down to toddler, and I would like to think that my daughters won't ever face a culture that devalues their decisions and decision-making. But that probably isn't so.

It's still see as acceptable to make fun of women and their choices. I'd like to see that change, and for me, avoiding products from companies whose culture allowed this sort of ad makes sense.

An update, of sorts: The people at McNeil Consumer Healthcare, makers of Motrin, have placed an apology in the spot where the ad once ran on their website. The apology contains the line: We are parents ourselves and we take the feedback of moms very seriously.

Now, aside from the weak apology, which trots out the thread-bare phrase "taking _____ very seriously" which is somewhat of a joke over at Consumerist(^), that sentence begs a question:

Whose bright idea was it to make fun of mothers and marginalize their decisions? If you'd like me to be a customer so much that you target an ad at my demographic, whose bright idea was it to make fun of that same demographic? And that goes double since, as you say, you are parents.

Finally, a parody of the original Motrin ad. It is everything the original wasn't (funny, smart, and sharp). It's from Motherhood Uncensored(^) and The Imperfect Parent(^).



Namaste.