Following a social media outcry, McNeil Healthcare (the parent company) have issued an apology on the homepage of their website http://www.motrin.com/
As well as this, they have also issued apologies via email to concerned customers and pledged to remove all occurences of the offending advert as quickly as possible.
This apology seems to have been relatively well received:
http://www.ladybuglandings.com/2008/11/motrin-heard-the-news/
I'm sure there will be several commentators out there who will provide their opinion on this series of events, but here's my main bullet points:
- Following the backlash, McNeil Healthcare, and in particular its VP if Marketing, seem to have responded over the weekend and today (I guess time will tell how badly this has affected brand and revenues)
- Several Motrin names on Twitter have now been taken by 'concerned' individuals (I'll not post who they are, as I don't think they have acted entirely in the public's best interest)
- Brands can no longer afford to ignore social media and should take steps to monitor the mentions and sentiment all the time
Further reading:
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9120519
and
http://www.myfoxny.com/myfox/pages/News/Detail?contentId=7880169&version=5&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=3.3.1
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