It's been several weeks since Rebel Dad announced his boycott of Pampers for their four-years-and-counting insistence on calling him a mom in all their mailings and marketing campaigns. And guess what, P&G has utterly caved in the face of this massive commercial onslaught.
In a groundbreaking investigation, The New York Times discovered that diaper companies are slowly realizing that dads not only change a diaper now and then, they even buy them occaisionally. And so they threw a celebrity diaper promotional event last week that involved famous dads on "diaper duty."
And while there are still no marketing campaigns, commercials, direct mail, or product designs that acknowledge the existence of dads, Pampers did snag Drew Brees from the New Orleans Saints as a spokesmodel. And then they uploaded a Brees-related video to YouTube.
And as if that weren't enough, P&G even asked Rebel Dad Brian Reid to friend them on Facebook. So if you need Brian for anything, he'll just be out back, soaking in a giant Gunite poolful of his awesome, activist power. Viva la Pampers Revolucion!
Getting Dad To Do Diaper (Buying) Duty [nytimes]
[1] and yes, it would be important even if I wasn't quoted in it.
Funny stuff! And there’s more breaking news Mr. Allen. It seems Pampers, after weathering Rebel Dad’s embargo, now has a dad responding online to blogs like this one. From deep inside Pampers headquarters, he has posted comments with Rebel Dad as well as BloggerFather. On the latter’s blog, he related a story on a subject near and dear to you, the lack of changing tables in Men’s bathrooms. Who is this mysterious emissary? Why, it’s me! My name is Patrick and I work at Pampers. I’m a father of two, a former SAHD, and now an advocate for dads. Times and attitudes are indeed changing, and I’m here to be a liaison of sorts, for my fellow dads. Let me know how I can help the cause. Remember the old proverb, revolutions never go backwards. :-D
I complained to a couple of companies (Giant Food and diapers.com) around Mother's Day for their terrible emails that they sent addressing me as a mom. I got them to admit that their practices were not perfect and they were passing the info on to the marketing team.
My willingness to push back at them was because of you and RebelDad, so keep fighting the good fight.