JediMom Blog

A new Motrin ad attempted to tell moms, “we feel your pain,” but moms have reacted with a furor that is giving the brand a headache. An organized protest tagged #motrinmoms cropped up on Twitter and was further spread by mommy bloggers. Tonight, the ad along with the entire Motrin website is down and an ad agency VP has issued an apology to one mommy blogger.

How did Motrin’s message misfire so completely? This advertiser forgot the concept of respect. The ad attempts to be in the voice of a mom, but just falls flat. Unbelievably, this is International Babywearing Week. In that context especially, I just can’t believe how wrong the tone of this ad is.

At last check, the Motrin ad was still available YouTube and transcribed here. It’s a rather low-budget looking ad that is just text and graphics with a female voice over.  Like many other moms, I feel that the ad discounts the benefits and experience of babywearing with subtext that says, “moms wear their babies in slings simply to look fashionable and to look like ‘official’ moms, plus a sling can help explain that crazy look in your eyes.”

So Motrin belittles our parenting choices, then calls us crazy and approval seeking and still expects to sell more pills? Ha! I guess they didn’t count on moms being tech savvy and organized. Guess what brands? The days of condescending advertising fed to housewives during soap operas are over. Now moms speak back with VOLUME.

Personally, I wore both my babies in a sling. This ancient invention allowed me to calm my babies and gave me an extra pair of hands. I never had any pain from wearing a sling. My youngest is now five, but I have fond memories of wearing him close to me. My son had numerous surgeries in his first few years of life. The sling was a godsend. Even today he demonstrates that his “love language” is touch. I enthusiastically recommend one to every new mom.

Motrin was bought by Johnson&Johnson last year. I can remember some  J&J ads that ran for Mother’s Day that made me weep. Those ads celebrated and respected mothers. Perhaps J&J needs to send the Motrin advertising team a memo titled, “Respect the Mom!”

Sydney’s Morning Herald reported this week that members of the Australian Food and Grocery Council have agreed to self-regulate and commit to responsible marketing to kids under 12.

The cereal aisle | Photo by Walsh on Flickr

It’s certainly encouraging that Australian parents and health groups pushed and got a commitment from the AFGC with no support from Australia’s government. In August, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) released reports claiming there was little evidence of a link between junk food advertising and obesity levels in children.

Perhaps Australians will benefit from big food self regulation, but I don’t think it’s worked out so well in the US. Since 2005, US food manufacturers including Kraft, Kellogg’s, McDonald’s and General Mills have been pledging to clean up their act regarding advertising poor nutritional choices to children. Honestly, I have not noticed a difference. Have you?

Self-regulation is completely at the convenience of big food. They have pledged change in order to avoid lawsuits and bad publicity, but there’s no legistation with teeth to make sure those promises are fulfilled. The FTC reports that in 2006, big food spent $1.6 billion marketing products to kids 17 and under. While the FTC and big food patted themselves on the back for the success of self-regulation, child advocacy groups like CCFC were not so impressed.

These same companies have agreed not to advertise in elementary schools, yet in the last year Ronald McDonald has shown up at both my local elementary and preschool. Also in the last year, McDonald’s was blasted for promoting Happy Meals on school report cards.

Kellogg’s has pledged not to advertise cereals with more than 12 grams of sugar when the audience is primarily under the age of 12. So what did they do? They reformulated their products to have 12 grams of sugar, continued with their marketing plans and as a bonus started putting meaningless health claims like “lower sugar” on the box to win over moms. But who decided that 12 grams of sugar is good for kids? They did. Interestingly,  a recent Consumer Reports study of cereals classified cereal with 4 grams of sugar or less as healthy.

So how do they get away with it?

We let them. We give in to our kids’ plea to buy the cereal positioned at kid-eye level with the colorful character on the box. Clearly self-regulation of the food industry is not in the best interest of our children. But here’s what I think. Moms have more power than we realize. The weapon that makes big food tremble is our wallets. We can leave the junk food on the shelves. We can also support groups like Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC) who help amplify our voices and influence legislation.

Photo Credit: Flickr/Beketchai

Shocking news hit the press this week. Many kids’ cereals are loaded with up to 50% sugar by weight. OK, nobody is surprised by this. But what did surprise me was that Consumer Reports survey found that the sugar contents of the same cereal brands are less in other countries. Does this mean that the parents of children in other countries won’t buy it? Or that the children in other countries have less of a sweet tooth?

While I know the packaging changes by market, I had no idea that cereal manufacturers adjust their formula by country. Wow! Am I naive. I’ve been concerned with big food’s $1.6 billion marketing budget to target kids, but I was overlooking the fact that they have dialed up the sugar content to keep the American kid’s sweet tooth strong.

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Texting Lifestyle - Photo Credit: Flickr/Sintex

A new national survey on teens’ cell phone habits confirms what most parents already know, teens consider cell phones at the top of their hierarchy of needs. Maybe that’s why at my own house I completely caved to my middle school daughter’s pleas for a cell phone.

According to the Harris Interactive/CTIA study, a majority of teens consider their cell phone essential to their social life and an indicator of their social status, second only to clothing.

Teens are passionate about texting and 42% claim to be able to text blindfolded. I marvel how fast conversation snippets fly from my daughter’s fingers. Of course, she has a newer and much cooler cell phone than I do.

Teens and parents consider the cell phone a mobile safety net. Teens report having a cell phone for security on the go — to get a ride, to get important information and to help someone in trouble. Safety was definitely a factor in our decision to buy our daughter a phone. Perhaps this reflects a parent’s wish to keep our kids within reach in an increasingly dangerous world?

On the negative side, stories abound of teens texting while driving, surprising their parents with sky-high cell phone bills, using text-speak in homework assignments and loss of sleep due to their texting obsessions.

Does your child have a cell phone? Is it way cooler than your own phone? What limitations have you set? Is the cell phone a sense of stress in your relationship with your child? Is there a positive side to this technology?

If you’ve strolled a mall recently, you likely encountered a number of stores with pastel overload. Inside you’ll find display racks and aisles jammed full of everything from Hannah Montana room decor to jewelry, cosmetics and hair accessories. Many of the items in these stores cost just a few dollars — conveniently in the price range of the average pre-teen’s allowance.

Taking my daughter shopping to spend her allowance has led to some nice mommy-daughter time. She might think I’m lame, but she’s not quite confident enough to shop by herself yet. I’ve bitten my tongue just a few times about some of her choices. I console myself with the knowledge that I’ve worked in a few teachable moments about budgeting, saving and the concept of sales tax. But I’m begining to fear my exposure to Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana and High School Musical has reached near lethal levels.

I do find this system a bit ironic. Parents fuel this industry by providing their tweens with allowance. Tweens spend their parents’ money on relatively cheap, heavily-branded products. At least one survey put tween spending at $40 billion. Power shops in this category include Claire’s, Justice for Girls/Limited Too and Libby Lu.

Tween Brands which owns Limited Too and Justice for Girls announced plans in August to rebrand 600 Limited Too stores as Justice for Girls. Justice is the discount brand in the group. So perhaps a recession will pinch this market too.

But honestly, I’d give up my lattes before I’d stop bribing rewarding my daughter with allowance.

What do you think? Is allowance the ultimate in parental leverage? Do you give your tween guidance on how to spend their allowance or let them learn those life lessons?