I love it when my work and personal life serendipitously collide – as has happened today in a very interesting way.

I’m blessed with having a wonderful 7-month old daughter at home, and her equally wonderful mother taking care of her. The latter has some very strong opinions on parenting, and in particular when companies try to send messages that dissuade mothers from doing certain things that, say, thousands of years of history and an extraordinary number of experts indicate are good things to do. In turn, I don’t really have to imagine how she might have reacted to the growing Motrin Mom controversy. (Editor’s note: Said mom has since read this post and viewed the video, and the words “pissed off” were prominently featured in her response).

For those that might have missed it, the video ad (which can be seen on YouTube) presents the following text (bold added by me): Wearing your baby seems to be in fashion. I mean, in theory it’s a great idea. There’s a (whole bunch of different types of carriers), and who knows what else they will come up with. Supposedly, it’s a real bonding experience. They say that babies carried close to the body cry less that others, BUT what about me?  Do mom’s that wear their babies cry more than those who don’t?  I sure do. These things put a ton of strain on your back, your neck, and your shoulders. Did I mention your back? I mean I’ll put up with the pain because it’s a good kind of pain. It’s for my kid. Plus, it totally makes me look like an official mom. So if I look tired and crazy, people will understand why.

Motrin, of course, is pain medication. The message above is not-so subtly trying to indicate that carrying babies is a “fashionable”, badge-of-honor type sacrifice to make – perhaps like drinking a Starbucks Vente latte, but with, er, sacrifice. As referenced, I know at least one person that’s VERY well educated on this subject that would probably object to this message (two if you include me) – let’s just say we’d drop things like “supposedly” out of the sentences above. Based on the brewing reaction described in articles like this one, we are hardly alone. After a big PR disaster, the commercial has since been pulled from broadcasts, apologies have been issued, etc. Rather cutely, on the Motrin site the ad has been replaced with the message “we have heard you.”

If you read my posts over the last few months, the intersection with my work here is obvious – I’m keenly interested in how the world of social media is affecting advertising, and the role of particularly important “N-Fluencers” in driving community action. I also wrote about an AdAge story earlier today, and I was happy to find AdAge also has the best account of how a few influential bloggers and twitters suddenly galvanized to bring this ad down – amazing details of how the message and uproar spread, and interestingly quite a long time after the initial ad was launched. And the following quote from story speaks directly to the media question I was asking earlier:

“You don’t have to have thousands of followers to start something like this. Many people with small networks have just as much influence as a few people with large networks.”

I suppose I should also note that I first stumbled upon this story reading something called a “newspaper” over lunch – I’m telling you this thing was coming at me from all angles!

So I agree with all the articles and commentators who are noting that this is a great example of the power of social media, and how it’s becoming increasingly impossible for companies to ignore. Though I do find one other thing to be interesting here. In truth, we’ve been through a ton of different baby carriers at our house, that we both use all the time. In truth, a lot of them (but not all) actually do cause my back to hurt a bit, and I think the realities of strapping a 21 pound and growing person to my stomach and carting her around for hours will lead to a little more pain now and again. In turn, why on earth would a company promoting pain medicine want to run a sequence trying to position baby carrying as a “fashionable” thing you should “supposedly” do (i.e. stop doing it)?

Me thinks the mistakes on this campaign run quite deep, and a fair bit of damage has been done. But how much I wonder? And does a company that presents a poorly thought out ad, but retracts it and apologizes after a storm of responses (i.e. shows they are actually listening), end up better or worse off than before?