To be disgusted at Dove for their breastfeeding advert 'put them away!

[LadyTennantofTardis]

www.google.co.uk/amp/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/40478372

Usually on ads when they quote statistics they quote the source, e.g., 2016 Gallup poll

This ad just smacks of amateur. Like it was a learning activity given to interns but got published by mistake.

God, yes, ExP, the team on this have completely fucked it. I really doubt it would have happened if it wasn't a product aimed at mothers for their babies, though. Possibly a young team might be tone deaf towards an older demographic, but this is a spectacularly bad campaign.

This ad just smacks of amateur. Like it was a learning activity given to interns but got published by mistake. Quite!

Have Dove/Unilever not made any comment?

Unilever responded to the criticisms in a statement, saying: "We believe there are many ways to be a great mum or dad.
"Our campaign simply aims to celebrate the different approaches and opinions around parenting, including whether or not mums choose to breastfeed in public, recognising that it's ultimately what works for you and your baby that matters the most."

www.bbc.com/news/uk-40478372

I've not seen any response. I wouldn't use Dove anyway, because of animal testing and I should have been avoiding Unilever really - I think it's only marmite, hellmans and Ben and jerrys that I'd be giving up, though so not a massive dint in their sales.

X post, Shadow, and I had read that, but missed the Unilever comment because it is so bland it didn't register.

'Put them away' is not something anyone says about themselves. It's said about other people. It is not about preferring to bf in private.

Completely went off Dove when they started banging on about "beautiful underarms".

FUCK THE FUCK OFF. [wafts hairy pits at them]

This is beyond vile, though.

Deliberately controversial. Very unimpressed. Agree I will avoid buying Dove.

How they have gone from the positive body image campaigns to this drivel is baffling.

They are seriously dim. This is how they justify it:

""Our campaign simply aims to celebrate the different approaches and opinions around parenting, including whether or not mums choose to breastfeed in public, recognising that it's ultimately what works for you and your baby that matters the most.""

If that was what their campaign did, fine. They could have said something like "X percent of mothers breastfeed, Y% do not, both are fine." Instead they chose to make it about breastfeeding in public, and to suggest that the "Put them away" view is a valid one. And plainly it isn't.

Breastfeeding is the most natural thing in the world, unlike Dove's products (which by the way are part of the Unliever group.

I think I know what they were trying to achieve. In line with their 'love your body and all of its bumps and freckles and wrinkles' shtick, this seems to be TRYING to say that it's ok however you feed your child. However, trying to whip people into a frenzy about public breastfeeding- which by the way is a legally protected action in this country- is absolutely indefensible. It is a completely moronic 'survey' to hold as a way of trying to open up debate around the feeding issue. Which rather begs the question- why do we need to have this debate AGAIN, and why is their place to bring to up? It's the preserve of prudes and the anti-BFing lobby to get worked up about this shit.

I despair sometimes, and the fact that they continue to defend its idiocy instead of pulling it and apologising for being a bunch of big stupid idiots makes me despair even further.
What other legal activities shall we try to open up to debate next- oohhh, how about lesbians holding hands in the street! What do we think about that, beauty readers? Ridiculous.

I think it highlights a misconception about breastfeeding in that you choose where and when to do it. Obviously with older babies you can distract if you are trying to drop feeds, or delay if necessary, but for the first few months I didn't choose to feed in public so much as choose to be in public.

Nobody IS saying that they're not allowed to breastfeed in public!!

What else can "Put them away" mean? It's directly contrasted with public breastfeeding, i.e. either you feed in public or you don't. There is no suggestion that there is a halfway house where you breastfeed in public but keep your breasts "put away".

Even the phrase "put them away" is horrible isn't it? Really objectifying and just, I dunno, nasty and misogynistic

Basket: "I think it highlights a misconception about breastfeeding in that you choose where and when to do it."

This is one of my bugbears too. Whenever I've engaged in the inevitably-pointless arguing online with people about public breastfeeding, they tend to say things like "You should feed the baby before you go out" when we all know that if you're breastfeeding, you can't feed a baby who isn't hungry - any more than you can successfully withhold food from a baby who is hungry. They also come up batshit ideas about expressing milk and putting it in bottles - well, who can be bothered with all that faff? Attaching a pump to yourself, expressing, sterilising the bottles, cooling them down, packing them in a bag, heating them up - the biggest advantage of breastfeeding is that you avoid all that. Baby's hungry, stick it on the breast, job's a good 'un.

The whole campaign is about outside judgement. 'Put them away' isn't something you think about yourself. A schedule feeder might try and distract before the next feed but they won't look at a crying baby and think 'I am passionately against feeding you when you cry'. That implies if they are crying at 4 o'clock when they are due a feed you wouldn't feed them because they are crying!

It's basically saying oh look a load of things other people judge you for as a parent. No parent needs reminding that other people are judgy fuckers! Got that loud and clear already thanks Dove you shits.

I think the whole thing treats mothers like they're thick.

Agree. And presents the buying public who they hope will respond to the ad (I guess they are aiming at mothers here) as though they are thick.
I don't need any validation by Dove that it's OK to exercise my legal right to breastfeed whenever I need or want to in public, thanks. Or to have a female body or whatever.

Also I don't want Dove to validate a misogynistic point of view ('put them away!') as if it were equally valid to my legally sound position. Because actually it can be really stressful breastfeeding in public till you grow a thick skin. And making a mental adjustment so you can do something which very normal, outside the home, at a time when many of us are quite vulnerable to social isolation, shouldn't be a requirement for making sure your kid is fed.

The 65% not feeding a hungry child one is disgusting - I don't have a clue what they are getting at. who the fuck doesn't feed a hungry child? Why would Dove want to support child non-feeding? That's not some equally valid morally equivalent difference of opinion. It makes no sense.

I wonder how long we're allowed or if the house for hackmum. As if I didn't feed her immediately before leaving for anywhere. She would usually then fall asleep at the end of the feed, or in the sling when I walked somewhere. If she woke up while I was out I would have to feed her as soon as she did, whether that was 2 hours or 15 min later. Sometimes I shockingly visited my mum, meaning a train journey of a few hours. I assume the rest of the passengers would not have been 'passionately against' me feeding her on those occasions.

If you're not ok with breastfeeding mothers breastfeeding in public, what you're actually saying is you're not ok with them being in public.

The 65% not feeding a hungry child one is disgusting - I don't have a clue what they are getting at. who the fuck doesn't feed a hungry child? Why would Dove want to support child non-feeding?

Nobody's saying they're supporting starving kids.
I think this thread is getting to be full of hyperbolic hysteria.
There's the more widely used "feed on demand" technique used now, and then there's the older fashioned way to feed every couple of hours or so and not constantly.
To me Dove is saying whichever way you decide to parent, we're behind you.

But that isn't what they are saying, Tequila, it may have been what they intended to say, but the words they're using don't mean that. If they're talking about feeding on demand vs a schedule then they could say that. Either they don't know their subject enough to know these basic phrases, or they have chosen to avoid them for language that is much closer to 'hyperbolic hysteria' than anything in this thread. The whole idea that mothers are having passionate disagreements about schedules and on demand feeding is rather exaggerated isn't it? I've never had an argument about it.

This is a massive failure on their part. Dove are a very standard brand - they're the kind of thing you buy on your weekly shop, not for a treat or gift. They don't really want to be controversial.

I agree. I think they had marketing people who thought,

1. Young people buy a lot more cosmetics than older people including mums
2. "Put them away" is snappy, youth and 'fun'
3. The demographic we want to attract likes the statement
4. It's just about choices and therefore fine

They fucked it up because,

1. What @BasketOfDeplorables said
2. It's not, it's just sexist, nasty and misjudged
3. Possibly so
4. Absolutely not

Must be helpful to have your insight into what these adverts really meant Tequila.
Unfortunately the rest of us have had to make do with just looking at you know, the wording that the advertisers have actually put in the advert.

Must be helpful to have your insight into what these adverts really meant Tequila.
I don't have any insight. Just not following pack mentality and expressing my own opinion.
People are allowed to have different outlooks you know, although you wouldn't think it sometimes.

Tequila the exact wording is

36% are for feeding him when he cries, 64% are passionately against it.

What is 'it' in this sentence?
The previously referenced 'feeding him when he cries'

The ad essentially says '64% are passionately against feeding him when he cries.'

No context or reference to who they asked, what the question was, how it was framed. Just '64% are passionately against feeding him when he cries.'

If they MEAN 'some people stick to feeding schedules while others prefer to feed on demand' they should make that clear. Before I had a baby I had no idea about these options so I would suggest that most people who read that ad and don't have children will take it at face value, and at face value it's fucking weird.

Disgraceful! . I will certainly be boycotting from now on.

If they MEAN 'some people stick to feeding schedules while others prefer to feed on demand' they should make that clear.

Yeah, that'd be a lovely "snappy" advertising campaign to fit onto a poster and get everybody talking about it.
I can see the billboards now. "Whatever methods of parenting you choose to follow, whether you're for or against b/f or feeding on demand, we're with you every step of the way."
You'd need one the size of a small street.
Plus, it wouldn't get everyone talking, would it? Just yawning.