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Infant feeding

Get advice and support with infant feeding from other users here.

Original poster

not looking for a row, but has anyone seen the new SMA logo? the one that looks like the mum is bf?

673 replies

harpsichordcarrier · 14/04/2007 21:39

here's the logo

you tube clip here

sma site

way to get round the new advertising rules, which forbid them from saying "close to breastmilk" &c
anyone like to complain? I would like them, very much, to have to change their logo and slogan again. especially as they have clearly spent quite a bit of wonga on it.

OP posts:
Original poster
harpsichordcarrier · 14/04/2007 23:57

anyway as you are all not having a row, I think I will go to bed
be nice, now

OP posts:
Twinklemegan · 15/04/2007 00:02

Oh dear, you sound disappointed HC!

hunkermunker · 15/04/2007 00:05

Harpsi, v good point re myths being passed on. My grandmother, I think I've posted before - she said my dad was weighed, given to her to feed, then weighed again. Quarter of an ounce gained. Had to give him bottles as she was told he'd never get enough from her. I could weep for her (and him), I really could. After a labour that went "legs in stirrups, waters broken, shouted at to push till he was born" and then he was taken away from her till about 4pm (born at 9ish am). She is amazed that I've had enough milk to feed the boys as long as I have. I do the "I'm just lucky, very grateful" thing with her

But I could have taken on board her experience and assumed it would be similar for me - I know people who have mirrored the experience of their own mother and grandmother because they were set up to fail

Twinklemegan · 15/04/2007 00:07

Yes, someone I know didn't even try breastfeeding because her mother says she couldn't breastfeed her (don't know why).

Original poster
harpsichordcarrier · 15/04/2007 00:11

I hear it all the time, seriously. it makes me want to weep.
thank god I come from a long line of cussed women who were very happy to tell the medical profession to piss off, en masse.
bless them, bunch of commies and agitators to a woman.

OP posts:
kiskidee · 15/04/2007 00:13

and hairy legged lentil weavers too, harspi? sorry i couldn't resist.

i thought you were off to bed. [mee too]

VeniVidiVickiQV · 15/04/2007 00:24

Sorry Twinkle

that chat forum makes me want to scream!

How can she know that her baby is going mad for food at 7 weeks age for crying out loud????

kiskidee · 15/04/2007 00:26

well, the same way i knew how my dd felt when she opened her dewy eyes and moved her lips at 2 wks old. i knew she just really wanted to say 'i love you mummy.' didn't yours do this, VVV?

Twinklemegan · 15/04/2007 00:26

I couldn't understand ANYTHING DS did at 7 weeks (not that I'm much the wiser now).

VeniVidiVickiQV · 15/04/2007 00:41

only when she was a week old and I cracked one off that really stank, but her eyes watering were a give away for that.

kiskidee · 15/04/2007 00:47

lol!

danae · 15/04/2007 00:51

Message withdrawn

VeniVidiVickiQV · 15/04/2007 00:54

ROFL at your totebag logo danae....

misdee · 15/04/2007 08:12

lol danae, i have a mums milk bar badge attached to my bag

FrannyandZooey · 15/04/2007 08:30

Have you still got your Milk Goddess badge, HC?

I think the thing about cultural expectations of failure is very interesting.

yellowrose · 15/04/2007 08:42

join Baby Milk Action, they oppose crap like this rather well, they know the international and UK law on this, they have done an excellent job on this one too !

Rosylily · 15/04/2007 09:21

Gosh, I'm forever saying formula milk is almost as good as bm nowadays maybe i have been brainwashed...i do manage to bf but my sis was traumatised by everything going wrong that could with bfeeding and her enormous guilt leads me to reassure her by playing up formula I suppose. Anyway reading this thread makes me 'think' ( a rare occurance!)

Incidentally, when I was born (I'm 40) In the hospital nursery I was fed water in a bottle for 4 days until my mothers milk came in. My mother said her colostrum was expressed and left to go off. It's really unbelievable isn't it?

Snaf · 15/04/2007 09:26

You can complain to the Baby Feeding Law Group which is part of Baby Milk Action. They have a form to fill out re: violation of the Code, under the link 'report aggressive baby food marketing' on the left hand side of the homepage.

DaisyMOO · 15/04/2007 10:24

My Grandmother is 90. She still remembers and talks about how the midwife told her 'you'll never feed that baby' and how useless it made her feel when she couldn't - not surprising when she was only allowed to feed every 4 hours and the baby was taken away at night

tiktok · 15/04/2007 10:26

The logo and the slogan are brilliant marketing - utterly brilliant. It's easy to see the thinking behind it. In the UK, manufacturers are not allowed to use real babies on their packaging, which is supposed to 'idealise' formula, I think, and they are not allowed to make health claims, though they do both in their advertising direct to healthcare professionals. This is why you see rabbits and ducks and baby toys on the packs, but very often, pictures of babies in the ads in professional journals.

This logo and slogan are a departure from trying to make the best of these restrictions - take the branding far away from a direct and obvious comparison with breastmilk, and do something else that hijacks the 'feelings' people have about breastfeeding, and link them with breastmilk and breastfeeding, without making any claims or even saying anything about the product at all.

So you get the intimacy and protective love that are associated with breastfeeding, applied to an infant formula. You say nothing - literally nothing - about the product, its use or its contents. Instead you create a feeling around the brand.

Tobacco manufacturers did this as the restrictions on tobacco advertising grew ever stricter - nothing about the actual content of the fags themselves, and no claims about what the product could do. Instead, you got a stylish piece of purple silk being cut (just one example), and heavy use of the brand's own colours and typeface on other products.

It's very important for formula manufacturers to place themselves alongside breastfeeding in some way - mothers of infants are their only customer, and they have the product right there, free and on their chests Breastmilk is the major competition which has to be silently acknowledged (because they cannot say 'close to breastmilk' any more) with a powerful graphic and a very strong slogan, both of which package and sell back to mothers the same warm fuzzies that breastmilk possesses.

This logo and slogan will be everywhere it is legally (and sometimes illegally) possible to be.

I wonder how many millions it cost them to develop it?

Twinklemegan · 15/04/2007 10:36

Just to play devil's advocate here (because I understand what you're saying and agree to a point) are we saying that the image of formula feeding which would be more correct is a baby in a bouncy chair with bottle being held by its mother while she chats away to her mates? Bottle feeding (as we all know) can be just as warm and fuzzy as breastfeeding (think this came up on another thread recently?).

That doesn't excuse underhand marketing though, but then I still can't get over how daft so many women seem to be when it comes to believing the claims (says the woman who got taken in by the prebiotics thing, although DS's poo did stay nice and soft so they must do something).

yellowrose · 15/04/2007 10:54

i actually don't have any objections to someone saying that bottle feeding gives mum and baby a warm fuzzy feeling, or even advocating this, i used to curse (not out loud !!) when i had thrush and was in bloody agony (not many warm fuzzy feelings when you have that sort of pain !) or was woken up for the 8th time in the middle of the night by ds and had to bf, so it ain't always that marvelous for a bf mum, HOWEVER i do object to companies pretending that formula is anything remotely like bm, it doesn't have the same contents, the same look or smell nor the same taste as the consumer, the babies will tell you

i agree that this is extremely clever marketing, there is a head on the mum's chest that looks like bf, i doubt they spent millions coming up with the idea though, it just needed a few clever graphics/branding/marketing people to put it all together, think of the money they will be racking in as a result !

yellowrose · 15/04/2007 10:57

oh and the M not only looks like a heart, it also looks like boobs, brilliant !

yellowrose · 15/04/2007 11:08

oh sorry, only just started reading the thread from the bottom up, i see everyone has been through the arses and tits stuff already...

yellowrose · 15/04/2007 11:12

"Gosh, I'm forever saying formula milk is almost as good as bm nowadays" - rosey my own brother kept saying the same thing until i gave him some facts.

his wife - a nurse - came home a week post c-section birth, with my nephew in her arms and announced that she would be ff, didn't want to continue to bf, and he said, oh ok then, that's fine, it's the same thing, isn't it ?