OAA Apologise for "Career Women Make Bad Mothers" Campaign

[OAA]

The OAA are running a campaign to demonstrate the power of outdoor advertising to drive people online. This is being done in conjunction with a new website called ?Britainthinks.com? which encourages debate amongst the people of Britain.

We regret any misunderstanding that led to feelings of offence on the part of members of the Mumsnet community.

The intention of the website is to generate debate by posing questions that are deemed to be socially relevant by members of society.

We did not intend to cause any offence and we would stress that the questions posed were not the opinions of the OAA or any of its members.

Three posters were designed to initiate the debate using sport, life and politics and these are supported by dozens of other questions on the website itself.

Regrettably the question relating to ?career women? has caused offence and the OAA unreservedly apologises to anyone who has been offended. This was not our intention and, to ensure that this misunderstanding does not persist, instructions have been given to remove this poster.

Subject to the vagaries of the weather, all copy will be removed as soon as possible. The sites currently carrying this poster will be either blanked-out or carry one of the other designs. The poster will also be removed from the ?Britainthinks.com? website. All Digital posters have already been removed.

Surely this is just playing onto Beta's hands? It would be an amazing coup for them to be able to say to clients "look at all this publicity we got! And we got the fools to agree to use our advertising!!"

I think whilst its great to think we could have that sign up in RL, surely with all the traffic MN is getting here we should have a banner across the top of the MNpages saying
"Sexist advertising damages us all" or similar, and cut BETA out of the loop entirely?

• we have 800K users and goodness knows how many lurkers, far more power than OOA on this topic! Anyone interested will be coming to MN to look, not driving round london searching for a billboard.

-it would totally take the power from them. Then we can all promise to stop making comments regarding his manhood, end of saga?

Cider - I agree, it sounds like MNHQ is getting pressure to agree to this from them...

or just flip it entirely and say

Career men make bad fathers

equally silly, but makes the point blazingly clear

it's its

well, given their cheeky apology letter to Beta, I see no strong arming.

I think MNHQ are right. Lets not overthink this, and use it as an opportunity to get a great message out at zero cost. So what if they get a bit of good press as a result?

It would do good

MadameD - yes, that's possibly the one they should have put up in the first place.

'Career men make bad fathers' I mean

I have Rita the Riveter VERY BIG on my stairs

I LOVE her

And regardless of Beta's own agenda here it's a pretty empty offer. Digital outdoor sites only account for 20% of advertising sites at most, so 20% of 11,500 is only 2,300 sites. There's not that many buses with digital boards either .

Let's step away and see what they come up with on their own. See first of all they wanted us to come up with something. When we refused, they started feeding potential slogans our way. When we ignored them, they extended the deadline. Then fed us three slogans to choose from ... and some of us are falling for it... like another poster said, give people enough rope...

I trust Justine on this, and much as I'd like to ignore this, if it's going to happen then I want a say in it too.

Still like 'Sexism isn't sexy'. 'Career men make bad fathers' just sounds too 'oh let's all us wimmin have a go at dads'. Sorry.

I will be really sad to see MN cooperating with this. I thought the joke apology was MNHQ poking out their tongues at Beta and meant that they would leave Beta alone.

I'm too depressed about it to say any more. Have fun with your slogans girls.

sorry crazy, but do you have any idea of how much 2,300 sites would cost?

I think its a good time to be pragmatic. a tactical alliance for the greater good.

i think

We were wrong - Sorry

CrazyCatLady I am with you (and others of the same view)

People who use Mumsnet (and doubtless a lot of other people) were [furious/appalled/irritated/disappointed] by the silly 'career women ...' campaign.

People who use Mumsnet took action of various sorts. As a consequence both the OAA and Beta have issued an apology and the ads have come down/are to come down - great.

Meanwhile, Beta is desperate to salvage some reputation (and possibly their fee - if I ran the OAA I would be tempted to withhold payment for this campaign).

Yesterday Beta were making noises about corporate loss and libel.

Today they've embarked on some damage-limitation activity, having either taken some some external PR advice or worked out a plan of action for themselves.

Too late.

They should have thought about likely reactions to the 'career women...' statement a bit harder when they planned the campaign. They knew it would be controversial - that's why they briefed it to the press as they did. They just weren't prepared for the sheer volume of protest and the speed with which it moved offline, turned into phone calls to the OAA from big company's media buyers, turned into phone calls from the OAA to Beta, and turned into a threat to the Beta corporate reputation.

IMHO Mumsnet has nothing to gain by associating itself with the BritainThinks brand (and please remember, everyone, that this Beta offer comes with a BritainThinks sticker attached). Free adspace from OAA for Mumsnet, with no strings attached, great - but this is not what's on the table.

Would you really like Mumsnet to be a Beta 'success' case study in the next issue of adland magazine Brand Republic entitled 'how we turned those mums around (subtitle: it was easy - their brains are full of milk)'?

Or would you prefer that this whole thing became quite another type of case study, called 'why adland should give up on sexist advertising - and court Mumsnet'?

Please also remember that we have already made ourselves accountable to Beta (in the spirit of fair play, rather than of necessity), by acknowledging their apology. There's no need, as someone put it, to now roll over and get our tummies tickled.

There is, however, a need to drink more white wine. It's Friday night, after all

So, no thanks, Beta. Save your own skin. There's not a chance I'm going to help do it for you.

Sex discrimination is costing you more than you think:

Research by Catalyst found that Fortune 500 companies with 3 or more women on the board an 83% higher return on equity than those with minimum representation

When UK women represent 30% of Board of Directors, profitability of the company increases threefold (Gavurin, 2008)

Certainly more than any of us could afford madame and I recognise that, but it's not enough sites to make it worth collaborating with Beta and risking MN's reputation at the same time.

Any alliance that goes with a statement such as 'sexism isn't sexy'/'sexism damages us all' will just be such a damp squib and make us all look like idiots. It doesn't say anything new, different, surprising or controversial. Pointless IMO and not worth getting into bed with the 'enemy' for.

I feel the same as SnowWorm .

MN is a strong, independent online community. Lots of people visit here, post here, and plagiarise from here every single day. We can say brilliant and wonderful things HERE.

ah you see, now I am swayed by Mrs B [shallow, easily-swayed emoticon]

"We take your point about playing into (Beta)'s hands ... but from our perspective we'd rather that than an ongoing battle"

Put those aren't the two alternatives are they Justine?

The battle has ended. The two alternatives are to leave Beta alone or to lend them the MN name to claw back their campaign.

Put But

Yes, actually I agree with Snowworm, catlady et al, it is all so wrong. Getting into be with Gaz..............No no no no no

It is win:lose

Yes! mrsb I'll raise a glass to everything you just said

MrsBaldwin

I agree with you totally.

MN have had plenty of publicity with this, we do not need to form an alliance with them for any more. Point made, move on, and leave them to flounder on their own. To aid them will be hypocritical.