The Borg :: Mommy Bloggers Assimilate Johnson & Johnson

McNeil Consumer Healthcare created an advertisement for MOTRIN®, a product of Johnson & Johnson (J&J). See the video below. It did not go over well with Mommy Bloggers. Not at all.

Thousands of Twitter tweets and hundreds of blog posts eventually added up to either crash the MOTRIN® servers or force McNeil / J&J to take the site dark. I’m guessing the server crashed. It is still not up as of this writing, hours later. The server went down almost 20 hours after the firestorm erupted.

Mommy blogger Amy Gates received an email from Kathy Widmer, VP of Marketing - Pain, Pediatrics, GI, Specialty - McNeil Consumer Healthcare. This after Gates wrote to Motrin:

Motrin’s new ad campaign targeting babywearing is offensive, disrespectful and wrong on so many levels. If a mom is experiencing significant pain from wearing her baby, then she needs to adjust her carrier/sling or try another one. Babywearing has so many proven benefits to both mom and baby and women have been wearing babies since the beginning of time. Stop disrespecting us moms, Motrin. Unlike our babies, we weren’t born yesterday and we will take our $ elsewhere.

Gates posted: Motrin’s email response to the onslaught of complaints over babywearing ad. Gates describes herself as a “mama of two living in Colorado, I’m passionate about home birth, natural living, and other “crunchy” things. I’m trying to change the world, one blog post at a time.” She helped have an impact on MOTRIN®. Amy and her fellow Mommy bloggers certainly have given Kathy Widmer, VP of Marketing for McNeil, a major headache, too. Well, actually - McNeil & J&J did it to themselves.

Let’s review. Johnson & Johnson is one of the most revered brands in all of consumer products. Their products for babies include JOHNSON’S® baby shampoo and powder (among many other baby icon products), BEBE® baby skin & hair care, PENATEN® skin care … the list goes on. J&J also operates BABY.com and BABYCENTER®.com, the latter a 4.2 million visitor per month Web site. How could they be so clueless? It is obvious this is one group that is not “Web aware” and paying attention. (See Compete.com for traffic stats. Note the spike of 69% for Motrin. If this is related to the controversy, I’m doubting it is the ROI McNeil was looking for - ya’ think?)

Katja Presnal posted a response video, Motrin Makes Moms Mad. In less than one day, 4,216 views. What will Monday bring? Bad mojo for Motrin. And, since Tylenol® is a J&J product … hello Bayer and Aleve®. Just sayin’ … it could happen.

Later, Presnal posted Motrin heard the news. Yes, but is their response good enough, fast enough and will it stem the tide?

“Strength is irrelevant, resistance is futile. We wish to improve ourselves. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service ours.” - The Borg

Why in the world would a marketer create the commercial below. It comes off as if it is making fun of mommies and certainly illustrates how clueless McNeil is about “the borg” and their power. “The borg”, you ask? Well, that’s what Peter Shankman (Shankman.com) compared Mommy bloggers to in a Web cast last night. Shankman appeared on Sarah Evans’ teleseminar. No link to a recording of the event, yet. (@PRSarahEvans on Twitter).

The analogy of Mommy bloggers to the borg is not too far-fetched, actually. Resistance is futile. J&J took down their ad. But, it took them quite awhile.

This is where one of the truest lessons from this kerfluffle comes into play. Some will say, “Robert, come on. They began dealing with it within 24 hours.” Nope. Sorry. Thanks for playing. No parting gifts for you.

Saying a response within 24 hours is good … hey, that’s old school. Welcome to the new world. Listening is the key, here. Listening before preparing the ad would have sent out warning flares galore. Listening after it was launched (24/7) would have alerted McNeil and J&J to the potential firestorm. They could have dealt with this faster. PR people, the protectors of reputation and brand, never sleep. Didn’t you folks at McNeil and Johnson & Johnson get that memo? More importantly, they should have dealt with it faster. If you’re going to be online and engaging the masses online … pay attention! Hello?

McNeil/J&J obviously do not have a Web server strategy for a potential flood of traffic. They did not have a simple page to put up (or, perhaps, an adequate number of servers) so that people would not see an error message. Sigh. The problems keep mounting and we’re barely into the second day.

Find more videos like this on PROpenMic

Auburn Student and Alumni Network :: WarEagle.me

Campaigns students worked very hard this summer.  They created a social network and pitched it to the faculty of the Department of Communication & Journalism, Auburn University.

Alana Wells, Sherry Namburi, Miles Duncan, Brett Pohlman, Lindsay McCormick and Whitney West were all members of the PR Campaigns class, Summer 2008. This site is their creation. Search for their resumes at PRProspects.com and hire them. ;o)

The mission?  Bring together students and alumni in an online community.

It launched last week.  In less than a week, members have looked at 2,673 pages on the site.  That’s 11.67 pageviews per visitor.  Members spend, on average, 9:49 on the site per visit.  We’re in the early stages of inviting members.  We have 141 signed up, as of Monday evening (six days into the site’s life).

I can’t let you in, as we’ve made this a totally private site.  I can, however, share a look at a screenshot. (Sorry, big file. 800kb)

Colleges and universities have their own alumni departments & programs, to be sure.  But, when you want to bring your niche group together in their sites, it isn’t always possible.  This site will help us connect with our best resources: alumni and students.

We aren’t trying to replace Alumni’s efforts, or thwart them, but we needed a way to engage your students and alumni directly.  I actually believe that our efforts will supplement Alumni’s work.  We can keep our alumni more engaged with the department.  That way, when Alumni contacts them … they still have a relationship with the university.  Cool idea, huh?

More universities should consider this.  Why not?  You have a built in workforce … students.  They can run the site and keep it active.  The site could even be worked in a course’s activities and exercise requirements.  If not that way, you could use your in-house ambassadors (if you have them) or the PRCA / PRSSA chapter could run it.  Hey, it’s good experience for the students.

The Department of Communication & Journalism at Auburn University is often the largest department on campus.  We’ve often had over 1,000 students.  And, in case you’re wondering, our PR program has a higher minimum GPA (than most any program on campus) to even be considered for enrollment.

We want to keep in touch with our alumni.  They are successful and so valuable to our current students.

I see this site as sort of a mini-PROpenMic.  It is a a Ning.com Web site.  Our site is, I believe, more dynamic than any other department social network I’ve heard of at any university.  But, I’m not familiar with all.  Surely, there must be more out there.  Does your program have such a site?

I believe these sites are the wave of the future for college and university programs that wish to keep in touch with their students in a way previously impossible for most departments to launch.  Ning makes that possible.  (Yes, I’m a big fan of Ning.com.)

Students will actually run the site.  Each semester, classes will be responsible for creating the content published on a weekly basis.  From videos to interviews with students & alumni, we will be able to keep the site fresh.

Ning’s various features help us keep the site rich with content, too.  Events and music players allow us to share podcasts and post upcoming events around the area, not just department events.  Groups allow us to share job and internship listings.  Alumni may contribute content, too.

Finally, the key to this type of site being successful is to have faculty buy-in.  That commitment of time assures that students will hear from the faculty.  Communication becomes open and more frequent.  Sure, I’ve heard some faculty (not necessarily at Auburn, either) say that they really don’t want more communication.  So, I’m happy that Auburn’s PR faculty bought into the project.

Other potential pitfalls?  The site will allow students to share their ‘issues’ with the program.  Well, OK.  Hey, if they aren’t complaining here … you can be sure they’re complaining somewhere.  Why not be aware of their feelings and opinions?  I don’t get those that want to avoid student input.  Sure, I understand why they feel that way, but the rationale just doesn’t sit well.

OK, that’s our new student network.  Your thoughts?  I was wary of posting about this, but the students worked hard on it.  We may have some people attempt to sign up (that dont’ belong) but I’ll just have to deal with that.  If nothing else, I love the domain name.  Thanks to Barbara Nixon (on Twitter) for letting me bounce ideas off her, too.  :o)

Yes We Can :: AlObama

Today is a great day.

I grew up in the era of segregation. Tonight brings tears to my eyes.

My sister tells me that Mother went to Selma for the second march, the one that ended in prayer - not violence.  I grew up seeing and hearing about these things.  Ugly things.

Segregation was an ugly period.

To be sure, there were some kind, caring and even fun times.  I remember being taken to the black high school’s football games by my baby sitter, Georgia. She was a wonderful woman and those were great times.

Still, there were ugly times, too.

Yet, some people came out of it all and taught us all lessons. There are many people from those days that I still look up to with reverence today.

My childhood friend, Keith Black (bio), is one of them.  He came out of it all pretty well, ya’ think?   He turned out alright.  But still, it was not a pretty era.  His parents moved away, so that Keith and his siblings could have a better life.

The world we lived in should not have made that necessary. They shouldn’t have had to leave in order to succeed. Do students today really grasp that such things happened - in this country, only 30 or 40 years ago?

Forgive me for sounding like a stodgy old fogey here, but I hope that the youth of today truly grasps the weight of this great evening … this great accomplishment.

We may not appreciate it just yet, but today is as powerful as (and the culmination of) 28 August 1963 - I Have A Dream.

Today is more than a great day, it is a momentous day. It is earth shaking. And that’s a good thing.

With all our problems, we truly are a great nation.  It may take us time, but we can grow.  We can learn.  We can change.

Let’s remember that and use this moment in history to build upon … for the better.

I don’t write a lot of personal posts here.  I hope you’ll appreciate that I just felt a need to let a little out.  This is a tremendous day.  We should all be happy and proud and grateful … to be Americans.  Think of this as a snapshot of my feelings. Trust me, there is a lot more welling up inside.

Interesting :: Sproutbuilder & uStream Webcast - Political Response to Sarah Palin

This tweet by by B.L. Ochman (@whatsnext)caught my eye. I clicked. Pretty cool.

Women Against Sarah Palin live webcast today 1-9 pm - http://tinyurl.com/62ew52 reading from 200,000 letters about how we feel about her

I’m sharing this because we just covered SproutBuilder in class.

Click the link and you’ll see that they used SproutBuilder to create the conduit (link) to get the embed code to share the conference in your own blog. Think viral.

Real Women Respond to Sarah Palin

Then, you get the embed code for their uStream.tv Webcast.

Again, viral!

But, we had to go through three sites.  Twitter to find the note from B.L.  Then, we went here Women Against Sarah Palin: Host Today’s Live Webathon on Your Website and here Embed | Real Women Respond to Palin Webathon.

My thought … why not just embed the Webcast code into the SproutBuilder and then you skip all those steps while getting immediate posting of the Webcast.  I’ll check SproutBuilder to see if you can, indeed, embed uStream code in a Sprout.  OK, now I know why … it seems that SproutBuilder supports Seesmic & YouTube, but doesn’t yet allow embedding of code.  Well, they’ll get to that, I’m sure.

Setting politics aside, and not offering critques of their style & layout, this is a pretty interesting use of multiple free resources to help spread a meme.

I will share this.  It is a slow, slow moving presentation.  You have to really want to see it to become involved.  Fewer long pauses in their transitions would make this a more compelling event.  Right now, I fear they are only preaching to the choir.  This won’t likely pull in new people.

Just thought I’d share.

Students: The Council of PR Firms asks, “What is the most dangerous idea in PR today?”

Cross-posted from PROpenMic.

Reformed PR practitioner B. L. Ochman writes a review of the recent Council of PR firms (CPR) critical issues forum in her blog, What’s Next.

Read the Council’s take on the event in Dangers Equal Opportunity for Smart Marketers, PR Firms, Lively Annual Public Relations Council Critical Issues Forum Addresses “Most Dangerous Ideas” for Future of PR.

The conversation has actually already become an old one. The paradigm shift caused by the advent of social media software (both free open source and paid platforms) has given voice to the masses in a way never seen before. Word of mouth (WOM) is now digital and spreads like wildfire, or creeps along where no one can see it - then achieves a Groundswell of reach people in PR only dreamed of just 10 years ago. 

Look at PROpenMic, for example. In less than 7 months, we’ve brought together almost 2,700 students, faculty and practitioners from around the world. The site actually achieves greater traffic and participant involvement than sites funded by multi-million dollar corporations. Some call this smart mobs or the power of mass loyalty (by individuals) to an issue and they become loosely joined together in one Web site. Whatever it is called (buzzwords fly faster than sound these days) the reality is that Web sites can now challenge what some call traditional media: newspapers, TV stations & radio.

I look at most of these discussions from the standpoint of an educator. I’m curious what the students think about all these discussions. Education was briefly addressed in the video below. I don’t know if it came up much in the overall discussion described in the Council’s article above.

I’ve seen students leave school and become the teachers - quickly. I’ve seen students leave school and begin to challenge the old school thinking of their PR managers by standing up against blast email pitches, randomly choosing media entities in markets (rather than a targeted approach to individual journalists & bloggers) and the other old school practices so dominant just one or two decades ago.

Change truly can began at the bottom and lead to even more radical shifts in practice. We’re seeing that today with the influx of savvy students essentially having a better take on the consumer’s WOM landscape than their bosses.

Read the two posts above and watch this video. Students, this could make for an interesting blog part on your part. Tell us what you think about the changes being presented to you today. Do you feel you’re going to be ready for this new landscape? Is your ‘emerging digital experiential education’ giving you some level of confidence, or is it still too early to tell?

We don’t get enough of this feedback from students. Oh, we might not want to hear some of the things you have to say … but, I do know that we need to hear them. Tell us what you think. We’re trying to help you. I’d love to see more students posting to their blogs here in PROpenMic and/or elsewhere online.

Do you have a “dangerous idea” just waiting to be expressed? We can learn from you, too.

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