New York Times over that period. Almost seven thousand articles.
Everything from world news and sports to health and technology, as well as
which articles made the Most E-Mailed list for those same six months.
Not just what one person shared, but a measure of what all readers,
regardless of their age, wealth, or other demographics, were sharing with
others.
Now our analysis could begin.
—————
First, we looked at the general topic of each article. Things like health,
sports, education, or politics.
The results showed that education articles were more likely to make the
Most E-Mailed list than sports articles. Health pieces were more viral than
political ones.
Nice. But we were more interested in understanding what drives sharing
than in simply describing the attributes of content that was shared. Okay, so
sports articles are less viral than dining articles. But why? It’s like saying
people like to share pictures of cats or talk about paintball more than Ping-
Pong. That doesn’t really tell us much about why that is happening or allow
us to make predictions beyond the narrow domains of cat stuff or sports that
start with the letter P.
Two reasons people might share things are that they are interesting and
that they are useful. As we discussed in the Social Currency chapter,
interesting things are entertaining and reflect positively on the person who
shares them. Similarly, as we’ll discuss in the Practical Value chapter,
sharing useful information helps others and makes the sharer look good in
the process.
To test these theories, we hired a small army of research assistants to
score New York Times articles on whether they contained useful information
and how interesting they were. Articles about things like how Google uses
search data to track the spread of the flu were scored as highly interesting,
while an article about the change in the cast of a Broadway play was scored
as less interesting. Articles about how to control your credit score were
scored as being very useful, while the obituary of an obscure opera singer
was scored as not useful. We fed these scores into a statistical analysis
program that compared them with the Most E-Mailed lists.
As we expected, both characteristics influenced sharing. More interesting
articles were 25 percent more likely to make the Most E-Mailed list. More
useful articles were 30 percent more likely to make the list.
These results helped explain why health and education articles were
highly shared. Articles about these topics are often quite useful. Advice on
how to live longer and be happier. Tips for getting the best education for
your kids.
But there was still one topic that stood out like a sore thumb: science
articles. For the most part, these articles did not have as much Social
Currency or Practical Value as articles from more mainstream sections. Yet
science articles, like Denise Grady’s piece about the cough, made the Most
E-Mailed list more than politics, fashion, or business news. Why?
It turns out that science articles frequently chronicle innovations and
discoveries that evoke a particular emotion in readers. That emotion? Awe.
THE POWER OF AWE
Imagine standing on the very edge of the Grand Canyon. The bloodred
gorge stretches as far as you can see in every direction. The canyon floor
drops precipitously below your feet. You feel dizzy and step back from the
edge. Hawks circle through rock crevasses so barren and stripped of
vegetation you could as well be on the moon. You are amazed. You are
humbled. You feel elevated. This is awe.
According to psychologists Dacher Keltner and Jonathan Haidt, awe is
the sense of wonder and amazement that occurs when someone is inspired
by great knowledge, beauty, sublimity, or might. It’s the experience of
confronting something greater than yourself. Awe expands one’s frame of
reference and drives self-transcendence. It encompasses admiration and
inspiration and can be evoked by everything from great works of art or
music to religious transformations, from breathtaking natural landscapes to
human feats of daring and discovery.
Awe is a complex emotion and frequently involves a sense of surprise,
unexpectedness, or mystery. Indeed, as Albert Einstein himself noted, “The
most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the power
of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can
no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead.”
More than any other emotion, awe described what many readers felt after
looking at science pieces from The New York Times. Take “The Mysterious
Cough, Caught on Film.” The photo of the cough was stunning both as a
visual spectacle and as an idea: that something as mundane as a cough
could produce this image and yield secrets capable of solving centuries-old
medical mysteries.
We decided to test whether awe drove people to share. Our research
assistants went back and scored the articles based on how much awe they
evoked. Articles about a new treatment for AIDS or a hockey goalie who
plays even though he has brain cancer evoked lots of awe. Articles about
holiday shopping bargains evoked little or no awe. We then used statistical
analyses to compare these scores with whether articles were highly shared.
Our intuition was right: awe boosted sharing.
Awe-inspiring articles were 30 percent more likely to make the Most E-
Mailed list. Articles previously judged to have low Social Currency and
Practical Value—Grady’s cough piece or an article suggesting that gorillas
may, like humans, grieve when losing loved ones—nevertheless made the
Most E-Mailed list because of the awe they inspired.
—————
Some of the Web’s most viral videos also evoke awe.
The snickering started as soon as the plump, matronly woman walked
onto the stage. She looked more like a lunch lady than a vocalist. First, she
was too old to be competing on Britain’s Got Talent. At forty-seven, she
was more than twice the age of many of the other contestants.
But, more important, she looked, well, frumpy. The other competitors
were already dressed to be the next big thing. Sexy, ruggedly handsome, or
hip. They wore form-fitting dresses, tailored vests, and summer scarves.
But this woman looked more like an example of what not to wear. Her
outfit looked like a cross between an old set of drapes and a secondhand
Easter dress.
And she was nervous. When the judges started asking her questions she
got stuck and stumbled on her words. “What’s the dream?” they inquired.
When she replied that she wanted to be a professional singer you could just
see the thoughts going through their heads. That’s rich! You? A professional
singer? The cameras zoomed in on members of the audience laughing and
rolling their eyes. Even the judges smirked. They clearly wanted her to get
off the stage as soon as possible. All signs pointed to her giving a terrible
performance and being booted from the show, pronto.
But just as it seemed that it couldn’t get any worse, she started singing.
And time stopped.
It was breathtaking.
As the opening chords from “I Dreamed a Dream” from Les Misérables
wafted over the speakers, Susan Boyle’s exquisite voice shone through like
a beacon. So powerful, so beautiful that it makes the hair on the back of
your neck stand up. The judges were awed, the audience screamed, and
everyone broke out into wild applause. Some started tearing up as they
listened. The performance left people speechless.
Susan Boyle’s first appearance on Britain’s Got Talent is one of the most
viral videos ever. In just nine short days, the clip accumulated more than
100 million views.
It’s hard to watch this video and not be awed by her strength and heart.
It’s not only moving, it’s awe-inspiring. And that emotion drove people to
pass it on.
DOES ANY EMOTION BOOST SHARING?
Our initial New York Times findings brought up other questions. What about
awe makes people share? Might other emotions have the same effect?
There are reasons to believe that experiencing any sort of emotion might
encourage people to share. Talking to others often makes emotional
experiences better. If we get promoted, telling others helps us celebrate. If
we get fired, telling others helps us vent.
Sharing emotions also helps us connect. Say I watch a really awe-
inspiring video, like Susan Boyle’s performance. If I share that video with a
friend, he’s likely to feel similarly inspired. And the fact that we both feel
the same way helps deepen our social connection. It highlights our
similarities and reminds us how much we have in common. Emotion
sharing is thus a bit like social glue, maintaining and strengthening
relationships. Even if we’re not in the same place, the fact that we both feel
the same way bonds us together.
But these benefits of sharing emotion don’t just arise from awe alone.
They happen for all sorts of emotions.
If you send a coworker a joke that cracks both of you up, it underscores
your connection. If you send your cousin an op-ed piece that makes you
both angry, it strengthens the fact that you share the same views.
So would any type of emotional content be more likely to be shared?
To answer this, we picked another emotion, sadness, and dove back into
the data. We asked our research assistants to score each article based on
how much sadness it evoked. Articles about things like someone paying
tribute to his deceased grandmother were scored as evoking a good deal of
sadness, while articles about things like a winning golfer were scored as
low sadness. If any emotion boosted sharing, then sadness—like awe—
should also increase sharing.
But it didn’t. In fact, sadness had the opposite effect. Sadder articles were
actually 16 percent less likely to make the Most E-Mailed list. Something
about sadness was making people less likely to share. What?
—————
The most obvious difference between different emotions is their
pleasantness or positivity. Awe is relatively pleasant, while sadness is
unpleasant. Might positive emotions increase sharing, but negative
emotions decrease it?
People have long speculated about how positive and negative emotions
influence what people talk about and share. Conventional wisdom suggests
that negative content should be more viral. Consider the old news adage “If
it bleeds, it leads.” This phrase is based on the notion that bad news
generates more attention and interest than good news. That’s why the
nightly news always starts with something like: “The hidden health hazard
that’s lurking in your basement. Find out more, next, on the six o’clock
news.” Editors and producers believe that negative stories will help draw,
and keep, viewers’ attention.
That said, you could also make a case for the opposite: that people prefer
sharing good news. After all, don’t most of us want to make others feel
happy or positive rather than anxious or sad? Similarly, as we discussed in
the chapter on Social Currency, whether people share something often
depends on how it makes them look to others. Positive things may be
shared more because they reflect positively on the person doing the sharing.
After all, no one wants to be Debbie Downer, always sharing things that are
sad and gloomy.
So which is it? Is positive information more likely to be shared than
negative, or vice versa?
We went back to our database and measured the positivity of each article.
This time we used a textual analysis program developed by psychologist
Jamie Pennebaker. The program quantifies the amount of positivity and
negativity in a passage of text by counting the number of times hundreds of
different emotional words appear. The sentence “I loved the card; that was
so nice of her,” for example, is relatively positive because it contains
positive words like “love” and “nice.” The sentence “That was so nasty of
her; it really hurt my feelings,” on the other hand, is relatively negative
because of negative words like “hurt” and “nasty.” We scored each article
based on its positivity or negativity and then examined how that related to
whether it made the Most E-Mailed list.
The answer was definitive: positive articles were more likely to be highly
shared than negative ones. Stories about things like newcomers falling in
love with New York City were, on average, 13 percent more likely to make
the Most E-Mailed list than pieces that detailed things like the death of a
popular zookeeper.
—————
Finally we were feeling confident that we understood how emotion
shapes transmission. It seemed like people share positive things and avoid
sharing negative ones.
But just to be sure that we were correct that negative emotions decrease
sharing, we gave our research assistants one final task. We asked them to
score each article on two other major negative emotions: anger and anxiety.
Articles about things like Wall Street fat cats getting hefty bonuses
during the economic downturn induced lots of anger, while articles about
topics like summer T-shirts evoked no anger at all. Articles about things
like the stock market tanking made people pretty anxious, while articles
about things like Emmy Award nominees evoked no anxiety. If it were true
that people share positive content and avoid sharing negative content, then
anger and anxiety should, like sadness, reduce sharing.
But this wasn’t the case. In fact, it was the opposite. Articles that evoked
anger or anxiety were more likely to make the Most E-Mailed list.
Now we were really confused. Clearly, something more complicated than
whether an article was positive or negative determined how widely things
were shared. But what?
KINDLING THE FIRE: THE SCIENCE OF PHYSIOLOGICAL
AROUSAL
The idea that emotions can be categorized as positive or pleasant and
negative or unpleasant has been around for hundreds if not thousands of
years. Even a child can tell you that happiness or excitement feels good and
anxiety or sadness feels bad.
More recently, however, psychologists have argued that emotions can
also be classified based on a second dimension. That of activation, or
physiological arousal.
What is physiological arousal? Think about the last time you gave a
speech in front of a large audience. Or when your team was on the verge of
winning a huge game. Your pulse raced, your palms sweated, and you could
feel your heart pounding in your chest. You may have had similar feelings
the last time you saw a scary movie or went camping and heard a weird
noise outside your tent. Though your head kept saying you weren’t really in
danger, your body was convinced otherwise. Every sense was heightened.
Your muscles were tensed and you were alert to every sound, smell, and
movement. This is arousal.
Arousal is a state of activation and readiness for action. The heart beats
faster and blood pressure rises. Evolutionarily, it comes from our ancestors’
reptilian brains. Physiological arousal motivates a fight-or-flight response
that helps organisms catch food or flee from predators.
We no longer have to chase our dinner or worry about being eaten, but
the activation arousal provides still facilitates a host of everyday actions.
When aroused we do things. We wring our hands and pace back and forth.
We pump our fists in the air and run around the living room. Arousal
kindles the fire.
Some emotions, like anger and anxiety, are high-arousal. When we’re
angry we yell at customer service representatives. When we’re anxious we
check and recheck things. Positive emotions also generate arousal. Take
excitement. When we feel excited we want to do something rather than sit
still. The same is true for awe. When inspired by awe we can’t help wanting
to tell people what happened.
Other emotions, however, have the opposite effect: they stifle action.
Take sadness. Whether dealing with a tough breakup or the death of a
beloved pet, sad people tend to power down. They put on some cozy
clothes, curl up on the couch, and eat a bowl of ice cream. Contentment also
deactivates. When people are content, they relax. Their heart rates slow, and
their blood pressure decreases. They’re happy, but they don’t particularly
feel like doing anything. Think of how you feel after a long hot shower or a
relaxing massage. You’re more likely to relax and sit still than leap into
another activity.
HIGH AROUSAL
LOW AROUSAL
POSITIVE
Awe
Excitement
Amusement (Humor)
Contentment
NEGATIVE
Anger
Anxiety
Sadness
Once we realized the important role that emotional arousal might play,
we returned to our data. Just to recap, so far we had found that awe
increased sharing and that sadness decreased it. But rather than finding a
simple matter of positive emotions increasing sharing and negative
emotions decreasing it, we found that some negative emotions, like anger or
anxiety, actually increased sharing. Would physiological arousal be the key
to the puzzle?
It was.
Understanding arousal helps integrate the different results we had found
so far. Anger and anxiety lead people to share because, like awe, they are
high-arousal emotions. They kindle the fire, activate people, and drive them
to take action.
Arousal is also one reason funny things get shared. Videos about the
aftereffects of a kid having anesthesia at the dentist (“David After Dentist”),
a baby biting his brother’s finger (“Charlie Bit My Finger—Again!”), or a
unicorn going to Candy Mountain and getting his kidney stolen (“Charlie
the Unicorn”) are some of the most popular on YouTube. Taken together
they have been viewed more than 600 million times.
But while it is tempting to say that these things went viral simply because
they are funny, a more fundamental process is at work. Think about the last
time you heard a really hilarious joke or were forwarded a humorous clip
and felt compelled to pass it along. Just like inspiring things, or those that
make us angry, funny content is shared because amusement is a high-
arousal emotion.
Low-arousal emotions, however, like sadness, decrease sharing.
Contentment has the same effect. Contentment isn’t a bad feeling. Being
content feels pretty good. But people are less likely to talk about or share
things that make them content because contentment decreases arousal.
—————
United Airlines learned the hard way that arousal can drive people to
share. Dave Carroll was a pretty good musician. His group, Sons of
Maxwell, wasn’t a blockbuster act, but they made enough money from
album sales, touring, and merchandising to pull together a decent living.
People weren’t tattooing Dave’s name on their arms, but he was doing all
right.
While traveling to a gig in Nebraska, Dave and his band had to take a
connecting flight through Chicago with United Airlines. It’s hard enough to
find overhead space for even a small carry-on, but musicians have it even
tougher. Dave’s group couldn’t fit their guitars in the overhead, so they had
to check them with the rest of their baggage.
But as they were about to deplane at O’Hare Airport, a woman cried out,
“My god, they’re throwing guitars out there!” Dave looked out the window
in horror just in time to see the baggage handlers roughly tossing his
treasured instruments through the air.
He jumped up and pleaded with the flight attendant for help, but to no
avail. One flight attendant told him to talk to the lead agent, but that agent
said it wasn’t her responsibility. Another employee gave him the run-around
and told him to take up the matter with the gate agent when he landed in his
final destination.
When Dave landed in Omaha at 12:30 a.m., he found the airport
deserted. No employees in sight.
Dave made his way to baggage claim and carefully opened his guitar
case. His worst fears were confirmed. His $3,500 guitar had been smashed.
But that was only the start of Dave’s story. He spent the next nine months
negotiating with United for some kind of compensation. He filed a claim
asking United to fix the guitar, but it denied his request. Among a long list
of justifications, United argued that it couldn’t help him because he had
missed the brief twenty-four-hour window for claiming damages described
in the small print of his ticket.
Furious with the way he’d been treated, Dave channeled his emotions the
way any good musician would: he wrote a song about it. He described his
experience, put it to music, and posted it as a short clip on YouTube entitled
“United Breaks Guitars.”
Within twenty-four hours of uploading the video, he’d received almost
500 comments, most of them from other angry United customers who’d had
similar experiences. In less than four days the video had more than 1.3
million views. Within ten days, more than 3 million views and 14,000
comments. In December 2009, Time magazine listed “United Breaks
Guitars” as one of the Top 10 Viral Videos of 2009.
United appears to have felt the negative effects almost immediately.
Within four days of the video being posted, its stock price fell 10 percent—
the equivalent of $180 million. Although United eventually donated $3,000
to the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz as a “gesture of goodwill,” many
industry observers felt that it suffered permanent damage as a result of the
incident.
FOCUS ON FEELINGS
Marketing messages tend to focus on information. Public health officials
note how much healthier teens will be if they don’t smoke or if they eat
more vegetables. People think that if they just lay out the facts in a clear
and concise way, it will tip the scales. Their audience will pay attention,
weigh the information, and act accordingly.
But many times information is not enough. Most teens don’t smoke
because they think it’s good for them. And most people who scarf down a
Big Mac and large fries and wash it down with a supersized Coke are not
oblivious to the health risks. So additional information probably won’t get
them to change their behavior. They need something more.
And that is where emotion comes in. Rather than harping on features or
facts, we need to focus on feelings; the underlying emotions that motivate
people to action.
Some products or ideas may seem better suited than others for evoking
emotion. It seems easier to get people excited about a new, hip lounge than
logistics management. Pets and babies seem to lend themselves to
emotional appeals more than banking or nonprofit financial strategy does.
But any product or service can focus on feelings, even those that don’t
possess any obvious emotional hook.
Take online search engines. Search engines seem like one of the least
emotional products you can think of. People want the most accurate search
results in the least time possible. And underneath those results is a tangle of
confusing technology: link weighting, indexing, and PageRank algorithms.
A difficult product to get people fired up or teary eyed about, right?
Well, Google did exactly that with its “Parisian Love” campaign.
—————
When Anthony Cafaro graduated from New York’s School of Visual Arts
in 2009, he wasn’t expecting to become a Googler. No one from Visual Arts
had gone to work for Google before, and the company was known as a
place for techies, not designers. But when Cafaro learned Google was
interviewing graphic-design graduates, he thought he’d give it a shot.
The interview was a blast. By the end, the interviewers seemed less like
examiners and more like old friends. Cafaro turned down a slew of offers
from traditional ad agencies to join a newly formed Google design team
called the Creative Lab.
After a few months, though, Anthony realized that the Creative Lab’s
approach wasn’t exactly in line with the company’s overall ethos. Great
graphic design is visceral. Like art, it moves people and evokes their
innermost feelings. But Google was about analytics, not emotion.
In a telling story, a designer once suggested using a certain shade of blue
for the toolbar based on its visual appeal. But the product manager resisted
using the color, asking the designer to justify that choice with quantitative
research. At Google, colors aren’t just colors, they’re mathematical
decisions.
The same issues came up in one of Cafaro’s first projects. The Creative
Lab was asked to create content to highlight the functionality of Google’s
new search interface. Features like finding flights, autocorrect, and
language translation. One potential solution was a little tutorial on how to
search better. A how-to of the different functions. Another was “A Google a
Day,” an online trivia game that involved using search features to solve
complex puzzles.
Cafaro liked both ideas but felt something was missing. Emotion.
Google had a great interface and useful search results, but an interface
doesn’t make you laugh. An interface doesn’t make you cry. A demo would
show how the interface worked, but that would be it. Cafaro wanted to
humanize the interface. He wanted not only to show features, but to move
people. Build an emotional connection.
So together with the Creative Lab team, Cafaro developed a video
entitled “Parisian Love.” The clip tells a budding love story, using Google
searches that evolve over time. No images of people, or even voices—just
the phrases entered in the search bar and the results that emerge.
It starts when a guy enters “study abroad Paris France” and clicks on one
of the top search results to learn more. Later he searches for “cafés near the
Louvre,” and scans to find one he thinks he’ll like. You hear a female laugh
in the background as his next entry is “translate tu es très mignon,” which
he soon learns is French for “you are very cute.” Quickly he then seeks
advice on how to “impress a French girl,” reads up on the suggestions, and
searches for chocolate shops in Paris.
The music builds as the plot unfolds. We follow the searcher as he
transitions from seeking long-distance relationship advice to job hunting in
Paris. We see him tracking a plane’s landing time and then searching for
Paris churches (to the accompaniment of church bells in the background).
Finally, as the music crescendos, we see him asking how to assemble a crib.
The video ends with a simple message. “Search on.”
You cannot watch this clip without having your heartstrings tugged. It’s
romantic, joyous, and inspiring all at once. I still feel tingles every time I
see it, and I’ve watched it dozens of times.
When the Creative Lab presented the clip to the Google Search
marketing team, everyone loved it. Google’s CEO’s wife loved it. Everyone
wanted to pass it on. In fact, the clip did so well internally that Google
decided to release it to the larger public. By focusing on feelings, Google
turned a normal ad into a viral hit.
—————
It doesn’t require a costly ad agency or millions of dollars in focus
groups to get people to feel emotion. Cafaro created the clip with four other
students who had been brought in from design programs across the country.
Rather than simply highlighting the latest gee-whiz feature, Cafaro’s team
reminded people what they love about Google Search. As one Creative Lab
team member put it, “The best results don’t show up in a search engine,
they show up in people’s lives.” Well said.
In their wonderful book Made to Stick, Chip and Dan Heath talk about
using the “Three Whys” to find the emotional core of an idea. Write down
why you think people are doing something. Then ask “Why is this
important?” three times. Each time you do this, note your answer, and
you’ll notice that you drill down further and further toward uncovering not
only the core of an idea, but the emotion behind it.
Take online search. Why is search important? Because people want to
find information quickly.
Why do they want to do that? So they can get answers to what they are
looking for.
Why do they want those answers? So they can connect with people,
achieve their goals, and fulfill their dreams. Now that’s starting to get more
emotional.
Want people to talk about global warming and rally to change it? Don’t
just point out how big the problem is or list key statistics. Figure out how to
make them care. Talk about polar bears dying or how their children’s health
will be affected.
KINDLING THE FIRE WITH HIGH-AROUSAL EMOTIONS
When trying to use emotions to drive sharing, remember to pick ones that
kindle the fire: select high-arousal emotions that drive people to action.
On the positive side, excite people or inspire them by showing them how
they can make a difference. On the negative side, make people mad, not
sad. Make sure the polar bear story gets them fired up.
Simply adding more arousal to a story or ad can have a big impact on
people’s willingness to share it. In one experiment we changed the details of
a story to make it evoke more anger. In another experiment, we made an ad
funnier.
In both cases, the results were the same. More anger or more humor led
to more sharing. Adding these emotions boosted transmission by boosting
the amount of arousal the story or ad evoked.
Negative emotions can also drive people to talk and share. Marketing
messages usually try to paint products and ideas in the most positive light
possible. From razors to refrigerators, ads typically show smiling customers
who extol the benefits they derive from using the product. Marketers tend to
avoid negative emotions out of fear they could taint the brand.
But if used correctly, negative emotions can actually boost word of
mouth.
BMW kindled the fire beautifully in a 2001 campaign. The German
automobile company created a series of short Internet films entitled The
Hire. Rather than being typical feel-good commercials showing BMWs
driving down various idyllic country roads, the movies were riddled with
kidnappings, FBI raids, and near-death experiences. While the fear and
anxiety they evoked were far from positive, the clips so highly aroused
viewers that the series racked up more than 11 million views within four
months. Over the same period, BMW sales increased 12 percent.
Or consider public health messages. It’s often hard to put a positive spin
on things when you’re trying to get people to realize that smoking causes
lung cancer, or that obesity reduces life expectancy by more than three
years. But certain types of negative emotional appeals should be more
effective in getting people to spread the word than others.
Think back to the “Man Drinks Fat” public service announcement we
talked about in the Triggers chapter. A huge glob of white fat plopping
down on a plate? Gross! But because disgust is a highly arousing emotion,
it encouraged people to talk about and share the PSA. Designing messages
that make people anxious or disgusted (high arousal) rather than sad (low
arousal) will boost transmission. Negative emotions, when used correctly,
can be a powerful driver of discussion.
And that brings us to babywearing.
BABYWEARING, BOYCOTTS, AND BLUNTING BAD BUZZ
The year 2008 had many firsts. The first time China hosted the Olympics,
the first African American elected president of the United States, and one
that you might not have been aware of. The inaugural celebration of
International Babywearing Week.
The practice of carrying your baby in a sling or similar carrier has been
around for thousands of years. Some experts have even argued that the
practice strengthens the maternal bond, improving the health of the baby
and the mother. But as strollers and other gadgets have been popularized,
many parents have moved away from this practice. So in 2008, a
celebration was held to raise awareness and encourage people around the
world to reconsider the benefits of babywearing.
McNeil Consumer Healthcare, the maker of painkiller Motrin, saw this
swell of interest as a perfect opportunity. Motrin’s motto at the time was
“We feel your pain.” So in an attempt to show solidarity with mothers, the
company created an ad centered on the aches and pains mothers can suffer
from carrying their babies in slings. The ad noted that while babywearing
can be great for the baby, it can put a ton of strain on the back, neck, and
shoulders of the mom.
The company was trying to be supportive. It wanted to show that it
understood mom’s pain and Motrin was there to help. But a number of so-
called mommy bloggers saw things differently. The mom’s voice-over in
the ad said babywearing “totally makes me look like an official mom. And
so if I look tired and crazy, people will understand why.”
Deeply offended on two fronts—by the implication that they wore their
babies as fashion statements and that they looked crazy—mothers took to
their blogs and Twitter accounts. The anger spread.
Soon thousands of people were involved. “A baby will never be a fashion
statement. How outrageous is that thinking!” one cried. The posts
multiplied. Many of the writers said they would boycott the company. The
topic started to trend on Twitter, and the movement got picked up by The
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