Baby Bottle Ads Targeting Men to "Reclaim" Their Wives Fall Flat

by Cassandra R. Elias

In the Spotlight: Baby Bottle Company's Ad Campaign Angers Breastfeeding Moms

This isn't part of a "Mad Men" script but it certainly could be! Couldn't you just see Don Draper and crew sitting around, smoking their cigarettes, drinking their scotch, when someone says, "Reclaim Your Wife!" and they all shout, "Yes!" and toast to that.

Baby bottle manufacturer Bitty Lab has tweeted the following message twelve times in the past few days, aimed at new fathers: "Reclaim Your Wife." This is part of their latest ad campaign hoping to inspire men to rush out and buy their bottles so that their wives will stop breastfeeding.

Clearly, the suggestion is that a woman's breasts belong to a man. It also creates a competition of sorts between the baby and his or her dad. Just when fathers should be supporting the breastfeeding mother and understanding that private time with his wife is scarcer when there's a newborn involved, these tweets seem to aim to alienate!

As one can imagine, this campaign set off a flurry of Facebook posts and tweets by many breastfeeding moms.

The company tried to do some damage control. Tried. They posted an apology that like their ad, falls flat:

"Ladies, we're really sorry about the Twitter campaign run last week. It was a huge miss understood [sic] and resulted in offensive messages. It was taken down yesterday. The messages had nothing to do with putting a husband [sic] needs before the baby's needs, it was more about having a little extra time for the rest of the family. Obviously the whole campaign was poorly executed. We apologize deeply for this miss understanding [sic] and assure you, from now on the campaigns will be closely monitored before they go out. Thank you for a second chance."

The messages, however, have not been taken down. They are all still visible at this time on the twitter account.

I don't know about you but how they tried to spin their message into spending more time with the rest of the family escapes me. I wonder how Don Draper would have worded an apology.

Do ad campaigns like this make you angry? Would you have given them a piece of your mind too? Do you buy into their backpedaling? Sound off!