Friday
Oct022009
BlogHer Listens and Acts - Check out my WHO International Code Compliant Ads
Friday, October 2, 2009 
Some companies pretend to listen, but 30+ years of inaction and public relations spin demonstrates that those words fall on deaf ears. Other companies actively solicit input and act on that input. While Nestle firmly fits in the former category, I'm happy tonight to announce that BlogHer has once again demonstrated that it falls into the latter category.If you are a regular reader of my blog, you will be aware that I used to have BlogHer ads on my website and that I took them down on September 14, 2009 because of my inability to keep manipulative bottle ads from appearing on my site. While BlogHer would allow me to take down the ads that I found offensive, there was no way to guarantee that they wouldn't show up in the first place, which meant that often hundreds of people saw an ad before I could have it taken down.
During the period where my BlogHer ads were down, I replaced them with a series of breastfeeding pictures. I'm happy to say that while I worked things out with BlogHer, I was able to serve up 44,000 page views of breastfeeding imagery, helping to normalize breastfeeding and battle bottle imagery.Today I'm happy to announce that the BlogHer ads are back on my site. I got an e-mail from the BlogHer ads team today explaning that they had created a new opt-out category for members of the BlogHer ad network that would allow us to ensure our blogs are compliant with the WHO International Code of Marketing of Breast-Milk substitutes. The new category that BlogHer ads members can opt-in to reads:
- I do NOT want ads for infant formula, related companies, artificial nipples or pacifiers or bottles.
I would like to say THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU to BlogHer for listening and acting on my concerns. They demonstrated once again what a classy organization they are. In an ideal world of course I'd love them to refuse all non-Code compliant ads period, but in absence of that this is a significant and important change that gives the great bloggers who are part of the network the power to make their blogs Code compliant. I am extremely thankful for that, as are many others.
I've had the opportunity to have conversations today with several bloggers who also feel strongly about this issue and am happy to report that the following bloggers have committed to changing their preferences to ensure they are Code compliant:
- Deb on the Rocks
- Blacktating
- Strocel
- Dagmar's Momsense
- This is Worthwhile
- The Jet Set
- Dirty Diaper Laundry
- A Very Good Year
- Prairie Mama
- Cheaty Monkey
- Rancid Raves
- Stop, Drop and Blog
- Marketing Mama
- The Centsible Life
- Her Bad Mother
- Crunchy Carpets
- The Dayton Time
- Mama Saga
- Most Least
- McMama's Musings
- Frugal Babe
- 1ideal-life
When responding to my e-mail on this issue, Dagmar from Dagmar's Momsense said:
As a mother and avid breastfeeding advocate who frequently writes about her experience with breastfeeding on her blog, I want to honor the WHO International Code of Marketing of Breast-Milk Substitutes and don't want to promote infant formula and related products on my blog. While I do recognize that some mothers use bottles to feed their babies pumped breast milk, which is often the only option for working mothers, I have decided that I also won't promote the use of bottles. I want to thank Annie for her effort to bring attention to this issue.
I hope other bloggers will sign on to be Code compliant too. If you are going to make this important change to your BlogHer ads, please let me know in the comments and I'll add you to the list above.
Thank you to BlogHer for making this important change. Thank you to the other bloggers for opting-in to this important initiative. Thank you to my readers for your ongoing support.
Reader Comments (63)
I sure have!
@pamela: Great! Adding you to the list right now...
[...] of Nestle during their recent social media debacle, and why I was more than happy to support another blogger’s efforts to promote breastfeeding-friendly advertising on BlogHer blogs. The calculus was simple: anything that undermines efforts to help breastfeeding become an accepted [...]
[...] BlogHer agreed to create an opt-out category that would allow its bloggers to have Code compliant bl... Thank you [...]
[...] of Nestle during their recent social media debacle, and why I was more than happy to support another blogger’s efforts to promote breastfeeding-friendly advertising on BlogHer blogs. The calculus was simple: anything that undermines efforts to help breastfeeding become an accepted [...]
Thanks for blogging about this - I didn't know BlogHer had changed the options. I've have just changed my preferences.
@ella: Glad you found me! I'm adding you to the list of WHO International Code compliant bloggers.
Thanks so much for the heads up on this! I just updated my BlogHer account to block those ads - I'm glad you let us know that we could do that now.
@Frugal Babe: Thanks for opting in! I just added you to my list.
So happy to add these bloggers to the list too!
McMama’s Musings
1ideal-life
Thanks for explaining the difference between the two categories, because I had gone back and forth on that one because of the wording. I also had selected "no formula ads" but left the bottles one in for pumping mothers, but I've gone back in now and opted out of that one as well. Thanks for the heads-up on Google as well. I'm redesigning my site and that includes ad space. Thanks for giving some direction to my decisions!
[...] Annie from PhDinParenting challenged BlogHer ads to allow bloggers to opt out of displaying ads for bottles on their sites she said: I do understand that bottles are sometimes [...]
[...] Annie from PhDinParenting challenged BlogHer ads to allow bloggers to opt out of displaying ads for bottles on their sites she said: I do understand that bottles are sometimes [...]