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Infant feeding

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Original poster

Was Tesco a bit thoughtless in choosing this Image for newborn nappies packaging?

126 replies

Bigmouthstrikesagain · 07/01/2010 09:57

There has been some debate on the Politics of breastfeeding facebook group regarding and I am not sure if I want to raise it with Tesco. Or dismiss the issue, as likely to raise resentment from some quarters about oversensetive 'wimmin' whining on about breastfeeding and making other women feel bad about their choices etc.!

Still I don't know how long Tesco have used a picture of a woman bottle feeding a newborn on this nappy packaging so maybe it's old news!??

I would be interested in other views on this, cheers.

OP posts:
Original poster
Bigmouthstrikesagain · 07/01/2010 10:00

Sorry posting from my phone and the link went a bit wrong there

www.tesco.com/superstore/xpi/8/xpi51478468.htm so let's try that again!!

OP posts:
GhoulsAreLoud · 07/01/2010 10:00

I don't know really, probably better to have no image of feeding type at all.

I think an image of a baby breastfeeding would be just as thoughtless.

GhoulsAreLoud · 07/01/2010 10:01

(I'm not coming back for a lecture about how breastfeeding is the physiologically correct way to feed a baby before anybody decides they want to take that up with me btw)

nickytwotimes · 07/01/2010 10:02

Agree with Ghouls.
Better just to have a baby, not a baby feeding.
As a post-partum Mum I was very hormonal sensitive to anything like that.

MrsSantosloves2010 · 07/01/2010 10:03

Other than that a baby needs to feed in order to fill its nappy, I see no relevance to the sale of nappies. Why not do what everyone else does and put a (predictably and depressingly stereotypical) blue eyed baby on the front? Maybe because Tesco also sells formula milks so any normalisation of their usage is good? Dunno - just a thought?

Original poster
Bigmouthstrikesagain · 07/01/2010 10:03

I agree - you could just have an image of a baby - Tesco are thoughtless I don't imagine they are pushing a formula selling agenda.

OP posts:
Poledra · 07/01/2010 10:03

Be more honest to have a picture of a baby with a stinky bum and a parent (dad, for a change?) with screwed-up face, really.

MrsSantosloves2010 · 07/01/2010 10:05

You don't see pix of people having a cup of tea and a sarnie on the front of loo roll packaging to you?!

PuppyMonkey · 07/01/2010 10:06

What Poledra said!

Poledra · 07/01/2010 10:06

Now I'm getting silly - am imagining loo roll with a picture of someone having a curry on the front.....

Original poster
Bigmouthstrikesagain · 07/01/2010 10:06

Crossed posts Santa :-) I am trying not to go down the Tesco as evil capitalist route but I suppose '-an agenda' could be considered along those lines.

Thank you for your thoughts.

OP posts:
MrsSantosloves2010 · 07/01/2010 10:07

Having read the Politics of Bf and not being a fan of the rather aggressive way in which Tesco acts in this country, I wouldn't put it past them - but, equally, it could just be that bottlefeeding is so normal in this country that however the packaging was designed, it was just a "oh baby + bottle" thought with no evil conspiracy intended

LOL at the father screwing up his face - much more realistic. Or a radioactive symbol - if my DD's nappy was anything to go by this morning!!

mazzystartled · 07/01/2010 10:08

tesco don't give a toss about anything other than making money so it is probably cleverly and very thoughtfully designed as the image that they calculate will help them sell the most stock

it's unrealistic to expect them to be interested in positively promoting bf, or even to engage in the debate at all

CarmenSanDiego · 07/01/2010 10:10

I honestly wouldn't buy them and if I was in the UK, I would write to Tesco, but I feel very strongly that women need to see breastfeeding as the norm. So yes, I would want to make them aware they had lost a customer and why.

I actually wrote to a big US corporation who had a bottlefeeding mother in their tv adverts and said I couldn't identify with those adverts. I got a great reply from them too and haven't seen the ad since.

Original poster
Bigmouthstrikesagain · 07/01/2010 10:11

Yes I thought about that Poledra but nappy selling is as sanitised as 'feminine hygiene' (bleurgh hate that phrase) so images portraying the brutal reality of poo explosions all the way up the back of newborns White babygro ain't gonna happen!

OP posts:
Dumbledoresgirl · 07/01/2010 10:14

For that matter, that baby isn/'t a newborn either.

Meglet · 07/01/2010 10:14

yep, they shouldn't have that picture on there. A snotty e-mail will be winging it's way to tesco fromr me.

Dumbledoresgirl · 07/01/2010 10:17

And the directions for use aren't that explicit either. In fact, they make no mention of putting the nappy on a baby's bottom.

Original poster
Bigmouthstrikesagain · 07/01/2010 10:18

Actually scrap that f course Tesco is an evil capitalist! But I wonder what would come out of complAining - maybe I need to find out. I do endorse the phrase 'change that which you cannot accept (and accept that which you cannot change)' - no harm in sending a letter.

OP posts:
hocuspontas · 07/01/2010 10:20

I don't like it and I think I will email them. The pack says 'Newborn'. The subliminal message is a happy mum and baby is a bottle-fed new-born baby.

I can't think of any other nappy packs that have a picture of a baby being fed. I think it's a back-door way of marketing formula.

CarmenSanDiego · 07/01/2010 10:24

I actually do find companies like to know what their customers think and how they react to packaging or advertising. Not that many people take the time to write in and they do respond when you do. Who knows, you might even get free nappies

BecauseImWorthIt · 07/01/2010 10:25

I'm more concerned about the picture of the mother, tbh. She looks slightly unhinged. I know that new motherhood does that to us, but I'm a bit about showing that on the pack ...

MarineIguana · 07/01/2010 10:25

Rofl at Santaloves and the cup of tea and sarnie. No, on bogroll you get pictures of puppies - an even weirder connection...

What will have happened here is someone (I'll bet a youngish, childless, male designer) will have been charged with getting a nice new baby pic for the packet and looked through lots of baby pics from stock photo suppliers and chosen the one that to him says "happy baby". He'll have seen breastfeeding pics and because he is a Nuts/FHM reader, he'll have thought "Ew no not that one". He'll have seen babies on their own and thought "boring, try something a bit different". Et voila.

amialoneinthisone · 07/01/2010 10:28

Thoughtless? I very much doubt it was thoughtless, more like thought out.

I'm going to say it and be flamed, given that no one else has. They look like cheap nappies to me, and they're probably aimed at the demographic of young mums on benefits for whom bottle feeding is normal and breastfeeding is not.

MarineIguana · 07/01/2010 10:29

I so agree about nappy adverts in general - when are they going to leave the dark ages. I dream of one that instead of a delighted mum waving her spotless baby around her cream living room, we see knackered mum snoring in bed while a competent, not comedically clueless, dad takes newborn to the supermarket, where he buys nappies, changes the baby in the toilets and goes for a quick coffee, picks up some flowers and gets nice cleaned-up baby back to mum in time for a breastfeed.

Do it advertisers!