Motrin's Viral Headache

YouTube BrandWatch analyzes the "Mom-Alogue" ad.

By Bernhard Warner and Matthew Yeomans

Posted Thursday, November 20, 2008 - 5:54pm

Name:	Motrin's "Mom-Alogue" Ad
Stats:	142,687 views in the first three days; 110 comments (three video responses)
What you see:	The ad opens with simple text on a beige background. "Wearing your baby seems to be in fashion," a frazzled young mom tells us, the words streaming across the screen as she utters them. She rattles off "the front baby carrier," "the Sling," "the Shwing," "the Wrap," "the Pouch." And guess what? They can be painful. But, of course, there's Motrin for that (though there's no mention of the actual brand in the ad). And besides, it's a good kind of pain, we're told. Plus, these contraptions deliver mommy cred. The narrator tells us they make her "totally look like an official mom."
Takeout/Takeaway:	Motrin launched the video to coincide with a series of magazine ads for the start of International Babywearing Week, Nov. 12-18, 2008. Its aim was to cash in on the YouTube effect: Create additional conversation online for Motrin and deliver brand awareness to a core market of young mothers.
Social Media Effect:	Cue outraged moms. The ad, which was meant to target women (presumably women with back pain from lifting small children), triggered a Twitter tempest, an angry blog storm and Facebook protest from mothers who object to Motrin's premise that carrying babies in a sling is some kind of fashion trend. Shortly afterward, the company pulled the video from the Web.

YouTube BrandWatch is The Big Money's exploration into how the world's best-known businesses, so adept at managing their images offline, are being perceived online, where control is harder to come by. Every week, The Big Money features a corporate-themed video that's had significant viewership on YouTube: some approved, some unapproved, some mashed-up combinations of the two. And we'll ask our readers to vote on how the video affects the brands. We think the responses will surprise you, and provide a window onto what is fast becoming the most important playground for corporate games. (Note: This feature has no official relationship to YouTube or its owner, Google.)