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Original poster

BREAKING NEWS: P&G win gold on the mumsnet family awards (which they sponsor)

612 replies

iloveberries · 03/11/2011 14:25

Anyone else a bit cynical about this and think that P&G have basically 'bought' the award. My best friend and husband used to work there (how i met him) and I can guarantee they are anything BUT family friendly to work for!!!

OP posts:
MNHQ
Vickimumsnet · 04/11/2011 13:37

Oh definitely TFI Friday.

ALways nice to know the weekend is So close. Just wanted to say take your point on statistician EverybodysScaryEyed :)

josephinebonaparte · 04/11/2011 14:28

Were there any companies that were audited that didn't get an award?

redlac · 04/11/2011 14:39

This thread should go in Classics!

LeBOF's comments have made me spray coffee out of my nose!

WallowedInFlies · 04/11/2011 14:39

oh so they pay to enter the 'competition'. hmm.

btw i didn't say anything against mnhq so not sure why i'm getting sworn at?! Confused

WallowedInFlies · 04/11/2011 14:41

so the entrants are those who sign themselves up and are willing to pay to be in the running? that's a weird old contest isn't it?

so basically, in terms of getting any real meaning out of what this award means, the gold winner is at best just the best/least bad contestant out of a small group of self selected, fee paying contestants?

not saying that's a bad thing but obviously it puts a different slant on the level of meaning attached to being a gold winner.

MNHQ
Vickimumsnet · 04/11/2011 14:57

Hi, yep, everyone got an award - the thinking was agreeing to work with us to try to get better was worth something and letting us in to talk to their staff and dig about in all their policies was a pretty big darn ask. The folks that got bronze or silver were all told where they were weak and what they could do to improve and that's a lot of what they were paying for. Being audited, getting the results and getting recommendations. I guess we could have done it without awards but we thought the public element - the naming in awards - was important because hopefully that will up the public debate and show parents that they can and should expect family friendly work experiences. And it's definitely generated some debate :)

josephinebonaparte · 04/11/2011 15:07

Can we have 'everyone's a winner' in all mumsnet competitions please?

Mouseface · 04/11/2011 15:09

Grin at josephine my kinda thinking!

CalatalieSisters · 04/11/2011 15:10

I think one of the lessons of this is that we shouldn't really feel very relaxed about our participation in an an advertising industry body's (Mumsnet) pursuit of social objectives (family friendly policies) in a context that is heavily commercially structured (i.e. where the context is that all companies involved, including Mumsnet itself, have to be acting at least partly to increase profile and sales).

I know that most businesses these days advertise themsleves partly through the support of social/ethical objectives (and I'm sure that Mumsnet does this with more sincerity and commitment to those objectives than very many other businesses). The difficulty for me is that MN has often presented itself more as a community group/social enterprise than a business, and so the blending of commercial and alleged non-commercial objectives in something like the Family Friendly programme risks co-opting posters into commercial activity when they perceive themselves as supporting non-commercial lobbying/campaigning. It is almost like an MNHQ insourcing of those pesky viral marketers. Instead of having lone undercover paid-for posters pushing a company, schemes like Family Friendly (as with the the paid-for product threads) skew the board into creating a viral buzz for a company. That's ok up to a point, but not when it exists alongside social campaigning that is claimed to originate wholly from the MN posting community (but which is also somewhat commercially influenced -- by the objective of publicising the site and so forth). The water seems too muddy.

It is an example of a problem that exists across the board on the internet: our discussion spaces are typically privately owned and funded by advertising; and advertisers know too well the value of using that as leverage to burrow into the conversations on sites.

CaptainNancy · 04/11/2011 15:18

So, if I were a company with ropey HR practices then all I'd need to do would be bung MNHQ a 'fee' and bob's your uncle- I'm approved 'Family Friendly' and can use their logo on all my publicity?

Hmm Really how it works?

or have I misread/misunderstood the process here Vicki/Justine?

LeninGrad · 04/11/2011 15:22

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

CaptainNancy · 04/11/2011 15:32

Oh stop being so reasonable Lenin! Grin

CalatalieSisters · 04/11/2011 15:35

I'd take issue with the "we" in your post, Lenin. I imagine there are any number of "socially conscious" advertising industry awards, which aid product marketing and exist for that reason. I don't really want the advertising industry to be doing politics for me. We are already seeing the state surrender several of its regulatory functions to marketers of food, alcohol, etc. Do we really want to surrender civil society functions like campaigning too?

Original poster
iloveberries · 04/11/2011 15:39

This is really informative. So all the entrants paid a fee and all the entrants won a family friendly award of varying colour.... wow, who knew it was that simple!

I didn't realise P&G weren't a big advertiser and had only advertised once with mumsnet though, apologies for the wrong information folks, but don't worry - i'm sure they'll be partnering advertising a lot more with mumsnet in the future.

Am honestly shocked by this! Even i (mrs cynical) wouldn't have expected you basically paid a fee and got an award....

OP posts:
josephinebonaparte · 04/11/2011 15:53

Yes, how bad would your family policies have to be to not get an award.

I'm annoyed that the reality of the award scheme had to be eeked out of MNHQ. Transparency is needed if this type of award scheme is to have any credibility

I totally accept that mumsnet is a business and that HQ can do what they want but I can't help but feel that this award scheme doesn't have a lot of integrity , and that is surely damaging to the mumsnet brand.

Are the products of the year and so on administered in the same way?

Greythorne · 04/11/2011 16:06

It was noted upthread in the Marketing Week post that it was P&G's refusal to enagage in peer to peer marketing that had bagged them the award.

In what way is this family friendly?

WallowedInFlies · 04/11/2011 16:11

yep. however cynical it may sound every one of those companies 'bought' the right to use an mn logo and call itself a prize winner of family friendly blah blah blah.

does the person seeing mn stamped on a product know that it is there because it was paid for?

because essentially everyone who was willing to pay won a prize. however it's explained essentially a financial transaction has taken place whereby private industry company pays, private industry company gets called a family friendly prize winner. they bought them.

either this wasn't brilliantly thought out as to how it looks or we really are assumed to be so stupid we wouldn't ask q's or fill in the gaps.

hoping not to get sworn at again or banned for stating opinion.

WallowedInFlies · 04/11/2011 16:13

so when they gave away olay products on here for testing and got us to post about how we found it - was that not peer to peer marketing? forgive me - it's not my field but i won a pot of some 7 effects plus artificial tan stuff if i remember rightly (not won, was selected to try). what's that if it's not peer to peer marketing?

WallowedInFlies · 04/11/2011 16:15

sorry took so long i cross posted with loads. yy to the product of the year - is it the product of the year or the best of 5 companies products who paid the entrance fee to be judged?

it's a valid question really.

KatieMiddIeton · 04/11/2011 16:24

I think MNHQ were brave to try to combine both a customer service and HR aspect. I'm not sure it's come off quite they way they had hoped but the two are intrinsically linked (it's no coincidence that the head of HR at Sainsbo's is also head of customer service) but maybe there needs to be a separation of the two when looking at awards? Good practice can be recognised and championed and poor practice can be identified and remedied. It's basic consulting stuff but with a sweeten of association with the MN brand.

I have spent hours and hours of time over the last year trying to get access to organisations to do research for free and it is still a nightmare. Even when you're in people don't do what they say they will and get the information they promised they would - even when you're working on what they asked you. It sounds like there have been similar problems here.

MNHQ have found an in. That is a good thing. Many of the points raised here are valid and will no doubt be taken on board for the future... but with this type of endeavour you have to get people on side in the first place.

There is definitely milage in the idea and a social need (remember the TalkTalk thread??).

KatieMiddIeton · 04/11/2011 16:25

Apols for typos Blush

BiscuitNibbler · 04/11/2011 16:39

The whole of their Supersavvyme stuff is about peer to peer marketing, they have a whole structured set-up! As I said upthread, they recently sent me a full-size bottle of Bold.

FWIW it smells like sick.

MNHQ
Vickimumsnet · 04/11/2011 16:55

Hi, I am now going to have to smell a bottle of Bold - can't say I ever have but I'm going to now.

I've been thinking long and hard about all the discussion points today because I can totally see the issues. For what it's worth, as a money making activity these awards barely covered their costs. It wasn't about making money. It wasn't about selling a badge - there are squillions of awards that are about that and nothing more and this wasn't set up to be that. Yes companies paid but they also agreed to let us take a close look at how they treated families internally and externally and it was a massive amount of work. We can improve next year because we are learning a lot as we go and I think we're the first people to try to do something like this and we can improve but to be honest I think we gave it a pretty good go and we achieved some things. For example, we stimulated one member to create a whole new working contract for families which I'm pretty proud of.

How bad would a company have to be to not get an award? Well one company was interested and we couldn't have them because they weren't even on the starting blocks when it came to FF so we did say no to people.

WallowedInFlies · 04/11/2011 16:59

that's interesting that their was stipulations to getting the badge for one company.

do see your points about uniqueness, by the sounds of it, of gaining access. i guess this is where unshared info looks like hidden info. because the notion of being a gold winner family friendly award is so different to the notion of being the best of a bunch of paying, self selected entrants doesn't it.

gawd knows.

KatieMiddIeton · 04/11/2011 16:59

Was that the O2 contract Vicki? I've posted this before but that was truly innovative.

I also posted Pizza Express customer service in Richmond was still pants