Tuesday
Dec152009
Bloggers: Help Moms Beat the “Booby Traps” with Best for Babes Ad Campaign
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
I’m taking a little bloggy vacation this week and letting you all be entertained by some of my favourite bloggers. This is a guest post by Bettina from the wonderful Best for Babes Foundation.
Some of you may remember the “Babies Were Born to Be Breastfed” public service ad campaign launched by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and the Ad Council in 2004. Intended to follow in the footsteps of previous successful PSAs by the Ad Council (such as “Friends don’t let friends drive drunk”) the original ads focused powerfully on the risks of not breastfeeding, after focus groups found that emphasizing the benefits alone was not impactful enough to change behavior. Unfortunately, due to the lobbying influence of the formula/pharmaceutical companies, the original ads never aired. The DHHS/Ad Council breastfeeding ads were diluted and rendered nearly ineffective, and a valuable meta-study conclusively linking breastfeeding and lower rates of disease was suppressed. At the same time, the formula industry nearly doubled its advertising budget to $50 million, and breastfeeding rates actually went down.
In May 2009, the Best for Babes Foundation launched an independent, privately-funded public awareness campaign to do what the government’s campaign could not. Visually stunning, the ads were designed to both improve the public perception of breastfeeding, and to take pressure off moms and put it on the many barriers—a.k.a. “the booby traps”—that keep moms from achieving their personal breastfeeding goals. The ads are humorous, but with a serious message: Expecting moms deserve more help, and need to be better prepared to overcome insidious and systemic barriers to breastfeeding that prevent them from succeeding. Mothers are urged to find a support group, get expert lactation help, and choose hospitals and physicians that are truly breastfeeding friendly. The six-figure ad campaign was donated completely pro-bono by Frank About Women, the nation’s leading marketing-to-women communications firm, and appeared in Fit Pregnancy and Mom & Baby Magazine.
Leading breastfeeding experts and celebrities endorse the campaign, including Ruth Lawrence, M.D., Founder of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine and Chair of the Breastfeeding Section of the American Academy of Pediatrics; Joan Meek, M.D. Chair of the United States Breastfeeding Committee; actress and best-selling author Marilu Henner, athlete and author Gabrielle Reece, and ‘Gossip Girl’ star and new mom Kelly Rutherford. The campaign is being backed by a growing alliance of corporate & non-profit sponsors, including Earth Mama Angel Baby, My Brest Friend, Hotslings, Pumpease, My Baby Experts, Be Nice Inc., the National Alliance for Breastfeeding Advocacy (NABA) and the Massachusetts Breastfeeding Coalition. Only organizations that comply with the World Health Organization’s International Code of the Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes are invited to participate in the campaign or donate to the Best for Babes Foundation.
Here’s where we need your help: The ad campaign is now being launched online! Forty-five blogs and/or websites have already put the ad up on their site. We are giving away a gorgeous Best for Babes magnet to everyone who participates! To join the hottest breastfeeding PSA campaign, click here, and follow the directions. Entries close by December 31, 2009.
Thank you so much to www.phdinparenting.com for leading the way by being the first to put up the ad on her blog and for giving us this opportunity to reach out to her readership. With your help, we can start to level the playing field for the 74% of mothers who try to breastfeed, and stand up for their rights: ALL moms deserve to make an informed feeding decision and to be cheered on, coached and celebrated without pressure, judgment or guilt, regardless of their feeding decision. ALL moms who want to breastfeed deserve full institutional and cultural support to achieve their personal breastfeeding goals.
Again: To join the Best for Babes PSA Breastfeeding Ad Campaign, go to: http://www.bestforbabes.org/2009/12/how-you-can-help-run-our-ad-campaign-on-your-blog-or-website-and-get-a-magnet/
Bettina (@BestforBabes) is the co-founder of the Best for Babes Foundation. Her personal struggles with breastfeeding motivated her to develop a cutting-edge social and business entrepreneurship hybrid to act as a catalyst in raising breastfeeding rates. A former Manhattanite, she is married with two young children, and lives in NJ.
Some of you may remember the “Babies Were Born to Be Breastfed” public service ad campaign launched by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and the Ad Council in 2004. Intended to follow in the footsteps of previous successful PSAs by the Ad Council (such as “Friends don’t let friends drive drunk”) the original ads focused powerfully on the risks of not breastfeeding, after focus groups found that emphasizing the benefits alone was not impactful enough to change behavior. Unfortunately, due to the lobbying influence of the formula/pharmaceutical companies, the original ads never aired. The DHHS/Ad Council breastfeeding ads were diluted and rendered nearly ineffective, and a valuable meta-study conclusively linking breastfeeding and lower rates of disease was suppressed. At the same time, the formula industry nearly doubled its advertising budget to $50 million, and breastfeeding rates actually went down.
In May 2009, the Best for Babes Foundation launched an independent, privately-funded public awareness campaign to do what the government’s campaign could not. Visually stunning, the ads were designed to both improve the public perception of breastfeeding, and to take pressure off moms and put it on the many barriers—a.k.a. “the booby traps”—that keep moms from achieving their personal breastfeeding goals. The ads are humorous, but with a serious message: Expecting moms deserve more help, and need to be better prepared to overcome insidious and systemic barriers to breastfeeding that prevent them from succeeding. Mothers are urged to find a support group, get expert lactation help, and choose hospitals and physicians that are truly breastfeeding friendly. The six-figure ad campaign was donated completely pro-bono by Frank About Women, the nation’s leading marketing-to-women communications firm, and appeared in Fit Pregnancy and Mom & Baby Magazine.Leading breastfeeding experts and celebrities endorse the campaign, including Ruth Lawrence, M.D., Founder of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine and Chair of the Breastfeeding Section of the American Academy of Pediatrics; Joan Meek, M.D. Chair of the United States Breastfeeding Committee; actress and best-selling author Marilu Henner, athlete and author Gabrielle Reece, and ‘Gossip Girl’ star and new mom Kelly Rutherford. The campaign is being backed by a growing alliance of corporate & non-profit sponsors, including Earth Mama Angel Baby, My Brest Friend, Hotslings, Pumpease, My Baby Experts, Be Nice Inc., the National Alliance for Breastfeeding Advocacy (NABA) and the Massachusetts Breastfeeding Coalition. Only organizations that comply with the World Health Organization’s International Code of the Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes are invited to participate in the campaign or donate to the Best for Babes Foundation.
Here’s where we need your help: The ad campaign is now being launched online! Forty-five blogs and/or websites have already put the ad up on their site. We are giving away a gorgeous Best for Babes magnet to everyone who participates! To join the hottest breastfeeding PSA campaign, click here, and follow the directions. Entries close by December 31, 2009.
Thank you so much to www.phdinparenting.com for leading the way by being the first to put up the ad on her blog and for giving us this opportunity to reach out to her readership. With your help, we can start to level the playing field for the 74% of mothers who try to breastfeed, and stand up for their rights: ALL moms deserve to make an informed feeding decision and to be cheered on, coached and celebrated without pressure, judgment or guilt, regardless of their feeding decision. ALL moms who want to breastfeed deserve full institutional and cultural support to achieve their personal breastfeeding goals.
Again: To join the Best for Babes PSA Breastfeeding Ad Campaign, go to: http://www.bestforbabes.org/2009/12/how-you-can-help-run-our-ad-campaign-on-your-blog-or-website-and-get-a-magnet/
Bettina (@BestforBabes) is the co-founder of the Best for Babes Foundation. Her personal struggles with breastfeeding motivated her to develop a cutting-edge social and business entrepreneurship hybrid to act as a catalyst in raising breastfeeding rates. A former Manhattanite, she is married with two young children, and lives in NJ.
Reader Comments (3)
[...] accomplished much to set this ball into motion–our innovative celebrity interviews and our groundbreaking ad campaign are gaining steam (80 blogs are now carrying it!). We are getting our message and our CREDO out [...]
[...] We’ve received wonderful feedback on our ground-breaking ad campaign, and have gotten a lot of interest from bloggers and websites who would like to run the ads as a public service. We’re thrilled that others love the positive, provocative and humorous approach of the ads and want to join us in cheering on, coaching and celebrating ALL moms without pressure, judgment or guilt! For what motivated the campaign, see the guest post we wrote for PhDinParenting. [...]
[...] We’ve received wonderful feedback on our ground-breaking ad campaign, and have gotten a lot of interest from bloggers and websites who would like to run the ads as a public service. We’re thrilled that others love the positive, provocative and humorous approach of the ads and want to join us in cheering on, coaching and celebrating ALL moms without pressure, judgment or guilt! For what motivated the campaign, see the guest post we wrote for PhDinParenting. [...]