An Open Letter to Johnson & Johnson, Kathy Widmer, VP of Marketing
November 19th, 2008 | Author: Beth Harte
Dear Kathy:
You don’t know me from Adam, I know. And I recognize that you may never see or respond to this letter and that’s okay by me (really, it’s okay, especially after the headache you’ve been given). What I am about to blog about here is probably something you don’t want to hear about any more…but, please, I ask that you hear me out.
I came to learn about your situation on Monday morning and at first I thought, yes, these moms have every right to be annoyed and here we are again with another great case study on our hands. But, the more I read, the more I commented and the more I thought about it, the more annoyed I got with it all.
I think you and your team did an outstanding job in addressing the situation as it percolated, but I am disappointed in you too. Why? Because you took down your advertising campaign, a campaign that has been running successfully since September 30th (Source: AdAge). I am sure this was a well-thought out campaign led by a bright and experienced team. And it’s obviously a campaign that cost a lot of money.
This was not a social media campaign, but a traditional marketing campaign that was unfortunately brought down by a few moms that blog and that have voices stronger than the average mom because of their use of Web 2.0 tools. But, what about those other moms, the ones without an immediate and viral voice don’t they get a say? There are moms that don’t blog and that use baby holders, backpacks, slings, etc. because they are convenient and necessary for being hands-free. And, maybe, just maybe they do think they look like a ‘cool, hip mom.’ Maybe they were thinking “Finally! Someone who gets what I go through every day and knows my back hurts like hell at 8pm! I DO need relief.” Who knows…of course, that’s all pure speculation on my part.
But here’s the thing I really want to address. To me, what happened to your brand was akin to someone yelling fired in a theater and people getting trampled. And I really don’t want to see it happen again.
Companies are afraid to dip their toe in the social media waters as it is…now they are going to be afraid to do a traditional marketing campaign for fear of having to pull it all. How do you explain that to the Board in these economic times?
My thoughts, pure and simple, for what they’re worth…
- Yes, listen to your audience (and I am sure you do). But, when they come swarming out of nowhere like Africanized bees, question the motives before making any moves.
- After putting a lot of elbow grease, time, money and research into a campaign (traditional or social media), don’t pull it just to appease the minority over the majority; especially if your research tells you otherwise.
- Don’t use Twitter for primary research. While I respect Peter Shankman, I don’t agree with that bit of advice. Twitter is too limited, too slanted and too untested for research. It’s good for a pulse check, agreed.
- Don’t think that all of us bloggers are the same. There are some that abuse the power of their voice and that damages the credibility of the rest.
- Be confident enough to make a stand if you don’t agree with the backlash. Use it as an opportunity for conversation and a chance to have your voice heard too.
- Social media is indeed your friend during a communications crisis.
- Use this as a learning lesson; we all will be joining you.
And finally, I’ll end with this…if you are considering releasing staff or your agency from their contract over this snafu, PLEASE reconsider that notion. Think back and evaluate every step that the team made to get to September 30, the date when you were proud and excited about this campaign launching. Think about the last six weeks when this campaign was running without issue. (I mention this not because I think that’s what you will do, but as a marketer this situation strikes fear into my very core and I empathize with my fellow marketers).
Thank you for your time.
Best regards,
Beth Harte
P.S. It is not my intention to capitalize on this situation or to cause J&J more damage. In that regard I have not utilized any links, product names, tags, keywords or SEO with this post that relate to to topic at hand. As you know, I cannot control natural search, sharing or trackbacks/pingbacks. My sole intention was to provide support to you and your team and share my thoughts (with my community as well).
28 Responses to “An Open Letter to Johnson & Johnson, Kathy Widmer, VP of Marketing”
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The more I think about this little episode, the more I am reminded of the “kaffiya kerfuffle” that blew up over Dunkin’ Donuts’ use of Rachel Ray wearing a paisley print scarf that one conservative blogger claimed was a Palestinian kaffiya. It clearly wasn’t, but the mere allegation hurtling through the blogosphere was enough to get DD to pull the entire ad campaign.
Marketers, communicators, and corporate executives need to take a deep breath and think about whether caving in to small, vocal minorities is the right approach. Unfortunately, the public markets are unforgiving of anything a company does or doesn’t do, and often managements do not have the luxury of being able to defend actions. It is easier, and less costly, to just (over)react to the howling mob.
Beth,
Good post Beth and spot on. Being loud on Twitter does not represent a groundswell. To me this event was a tempest in a tea pot. As a marketer who has been using communications tools for 35 years, if we don’t offend someone with every piece we produce, we aren’t doing our jobs.
People have a right to be unhappy about an ad and to speak about it on Twitter. Doing so doesn’t make them right and instead of surrendering to the outburst, we marketers need to do exactly as you suggest–analyze the marketing piece and decide if it is a good piece for the right audience at the right time.
“Don’t use Twitter for primary research. While I respect Peter Shankman, I don’t agree with that bit of advice. Twitter is too limited, too slanted and too untested for research. It’s good for a pulse check, agreed.”
Agreed. There is a use for Twitter, there is value to Twitter but using it as primary research. Yeah I’d say that’s a not so great idea. :/
I didn’t find out about this until Monday morning either. I read some tweets and a few blog posts and frankly I was a little surprised by the spread. And while no company wants to be in the position Motrin is in, it’s exactly what they fear when they pull a chair up to the table. We start thinking about how to pull companies into the conversation, not yelling at them when they walk into the room for their mistakes.
J&J – I hope you listen to Beth because she’s a pretty brilliant woman and has hit the nail on the head on this.
[...] • An Open Letter to Johnson & Johnson, Kathy Widmer, VP of Marketing [...]
Two thoughts after taking a step back from this for a day or two:
1 – I keep noticing that ‘groups’ of mommy bloggers seem to be upset, while many are referencing “I showed this to my mom/wife, and she had no problem with it”. Now I realize that many bloggers were sincerely offended (and I can see why they were), but I wonder how many bloggers were a bit miffed about it, and that grew to anger when they saw that several of their favorite mommy bloggers were so upset? Which is only natural, if I had mild feelings about an issue, and saw Lewis, Chel and Beth all offer impassioned pleas on one side of that issue, my feelings for Lewis, Chel and Beth would likely influence me a bit to see the issue from their POV. I wonder if that didn’t happen to some extent with the #motrinmoms uproar.
2 – Even if this was blown a bit out of proportion, it still makes a case for Motrin (and all customers) needing to interact with their customers online, whereever they are. And I agree that Twitter isn’t the single best source of monitoring, I think monitoring should be done anywhere where online customers are.
I think if Motrin had already been interacting with mommy bloggers (as pharma regs allow), then this entire issue would have likely never happened. So if the end result is that this gets Motrin to a place where they are more willing to monitor their online customers, and interact with them, then it’s a net gain for them.
BTW, great post and take, Beth.
great post, exactly the way i feel. i labeled it the twitter mafia at the beginning, changed it to twitter bullies later, but i like mack’s picture of actually being twitter-fed mass hysteria.
nice job… hopefully the twittersphere can learn from this to not over-react next time.
Beth
Well thought out and right on – the medium allows those with passion to have a hearing – it also allows those with nothing more to do than be vocal. This will continue to be an issue as social media becomes more ubiquitous however it should not dissuade anyone from the obvious direction of the Internet. How will it be policed as we move forward is a good question but needs to be attempted. But you do have one major point that should not be missed – the advertisers should not be making hasty decisions – they have the ability to defend themselves and be part of the conversation – pulling the program does not add to the conversation.
@SteveLubetkin, you know what the irony is about the kaffiya…they were sold by the dozen in the late 80s on South Street. Everyone had one because it was considered cool and cultural. And now they are a symbol of something entirely different and people got so crazed that they targeted Dunkin Donuts and Rachel Ray for being insensitive…amazing.
If corporations started embracing social media, this conversation would be so much less painful. I don’t know, maybe it’s all of my years of crisis communications training and implementation. I just don’t see this conversation as a big deal and definitely not so big that an entire campaign needed to be pulled. But eventually, companies will be forced to be involved in conversation.
@LewisGreen, well said! It is NOT a groundswell. Yes, companies make mistakes, but I really have a feeling that this campaign has some research and testing behind it. A lot of moms weren’t bothered by it. I was telling my friend about this situation and without even finishing the story; she said “those things kill your back.” I am betting she is the majority.
@Michelle, Twitter is just not there yet. You are spot on with this “it’s exactly what they fear when they pull a chair up to the table. We start thinking about how to pull companies into the conversation, not yelling at them when they walk into the room for their mistakes.” (Stating it again for good measure!). And thank you for the kind words…brilliant, not so much. Practical and passionate, yes.
@MackCollier, I am sure that had a WHOLE lot do with it…defending the emotions of others and then being afraid to call them out or not support them lest they lose their position in the Queen’s court. And I agree, companies do need to engage their customer, but who’s to say J&J, as a company, doesn’t? We don’t know that for a fact. The irony to all of this is that the normal mom market has no clue it even went on.
@EstebanKolsky, We all need to be cognizant that blogging without all of the facts just adds fuel to the fire…and it’s harder to apologize afterwards.
@RickSimmons, I am honored! I can’t get you to Twitter, but you stop by THoM, excellent! Great addition to the conversation here…” the medium allows those with passion to have a hearing – it also allows those with nothing more to do than be vocal.” I just wish there were do-overs, I would have strongly counseled against pulling the campaign over the weekend.
Beth, great post.I also agree with your comment about the moms outside of Twitter not knowing about this. I’m the only one in a group of friends who is on Twitter and none of them knew about it until it hit the news. I think the mommy bloggers took it a step too far and while I want to understand their issues (I’m a mom too) I felt as if the more people they got on their bandwagon the more entitled they felt (and behaved).
My first thought was do we really believe that Motrin didn’t put some market research behind this ad? I’d venture to say there was a whole team behind it and months of research. To say that they didn’t just makes people sound silly.
As for me, as a mom who didn’t carry her babies in slings because it was too painful and because I had strollers
the ad was tongue-in-cheek but not offensive. And I’ll go out and totally hang myself here but a lot of moms I know do stuff for the “cool factor”. That’s why $500 strollers still sell. I grew up in a small town in Honduras, women carried their babies on slings because they had to as soon as one could afford a stroller (used, donated from the Red Cross, whatever) they gave up the slings.
Excellent letter!
“@MackCollier, I am sure that had a WHOLE lot do with it…defending the emotions of others and then being afraid to call them out or not support them lest they lose their position in the Queen’s court. And I agree, companies do need to engage their customer, but who’s to say J&J, as a company, doesn’t? We don’t know that for a fact. The irony to all of this is that the normal mom market has no clue it even went on.”
Exactly, we don’t know what was happening behind the scenes, apparently someone at Motrin was emailing some of the mommy bloggers?
Problem is, when passion and emotions get stirred up, calm and rational thinking is sometimes a casualty.
Beth,
I think this would make a good case study for when social media is NOT the end-all, be-all tool. The social media world does great things when combating issues that are wrong, but this wasn’t one of those issues. (Disclaimer: I’m a mom with a child and carry her quite a bit.)
Beth I am really diggin this post and really like the angle. You are taking a VERY different approach here, which is different than the same old same old think re-hashed. Thanks!
So, um, what happened?
@Jami, thanks for sharing your perspective. Totally agree, J&J and the Motrin brand team had to have put diligent research behind this campaign. It’s always been my understanding that’s the norm for consumer marketing. You are totally right about the “cool” factor…I have friends who look to see what all the celebs are doing and then go out and hunt down the latest baby gear…no matter the cost. And I would venture a guess that J&J/Motrin uncovered the same mindset.
@MackCollier, “when passion and emotions get stirred up, calm and rational thinking is sometimes a casualty.” Agreed. I guess we will never know until J&J/Motrin step up and decide to have a conversation about this whole situation. At this point, I am wonder why they haven’t. Lawyers still have their tongues I s’pose.
@Susan, that’s exactly my point. Yes, I firmly believe in social media and its value but this might just be a case where the target market is no online to the extent that some other moms are. I don’t know that for sure, but I would venture a guess in that direction. I sure would love to have some stats around how many moms have Internet connections vs. the amount that belong to social networks. That might help to clear up a few things too.
@WilReynolds, thanks Wil, that means a lot!
@Amy, thanks for that angle too. If you weren’t on Twitter and caught up in this whole situation as it went down, you’d have no clue as to what my letter was referring to. I think by not describing the details, it could possibly demonstrate a few things: 1) Not all moms were on Twitter calling for a banning of this ad and 2) That companies shouldn’t pull campaigns based on the backlash of a minority that is online.
To answer your question, Google “Motrin Twitter” and you’ll get the low down.
great post. too often we (as individuals, as marketers, as a country) fall for the false positive that the voice of the vocal minority speaks for the majority.
2) That companies shouldn’t pull campaigns based on the backlash of a minority that is online.
This is a KEY point, people become very self-important online – and while a small group of people made their voices heard it was on twitter, which is the overly connected, highly opinionated talking to others who are also highly opinionated.
That is NOT to say that this should be ignored, but twitter is not close to mainstream and while those of us that use it are often REALLY into it when I spoke with 100+ college freshmen none of them knew what it was.
Companies have to also realize that if the twitter sphere goes crazy over an issue they have to weigh that feedback with the feedback of the other 99.99999 percent of people who think twitter sounds like a dirty word
If you were the mccain/palin ticket and you used twitter as a barometer for campaign success you would have thought the whole world was democrat.
The twitter demographic does have its “leanings” and coupled with the fact so few people use it – makes it the wrong place to base a reaction entirely.
Thanks Beth, for opening our eyes to the other take of this debacle! The notion of how loud the small number of “loud” voices really are is an important one and will continue to be in the future.
@sawinkler Very true! As more voices become prominent on the Internet, companies and their campaigns will be targeted more and more. They need to be able to differentiate the false positives from the true positives.
@WilReyonolds, Excellent additional points, thank you! Funny enough, the second AdAge article (http://tinyurl.com/6e2eh6) notes that Twitter ‘attracts about 0.15% of the world’s internet users each day.’ 0.15%!! That means the mommy bloggers are an even smaller amount. This is exactly why Twitter shouldn’t be used for primary research.
@TimJahn, thanks Tim. I just really felt it was important for someone to come out on the side of Motrin.
Beth, thank you for your very thoughtful summary.
I was literally sitting in my kitchen on Twitter that Sunday, both scared and amazed by what I was seeing.
My first responsibility is to moms, and it’s just not okay to insult even a small group of them. So I did what came instinctively and pulled the campaign. Maybe it was the right thing to do…maybe not.
What I’ve said before and truly believe, is that all new instincts must be learned…by me, and by all of us who invest in this powerful medium.
Onward.
Happy Holidays.
Beth,
An excellent post. I hope someone at J&J or Motrin finds it and calls you. Well reasoned counsel could have helped them.
-Tom Martin
@KathyWidmer, thank you so much for taking time to respond to my letter. It’s insightful to hear your reaction to the situation as it was occurring. I believe it is a case of new instincts and we are all learning together.
@TomMartin, look above your comment.
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Excellent perspective, Beth, as always.
It looks to me as if Motrin did research to uncover the nature of the problem, and to develop the vocabulary, but did NOT do a check on the final ads. While the message was undoubtedly “on”, I don’t think the general tone would have survived a check.
Don’t you just LOVE marketing??!!
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