The Rock Father finds himself embroiled in overinflated backlash between consumers and the marketers who love us
On Monday, I found myself front-and-center in a Huffington Post story about an “offensive” (their word — not mine) tweet that came from the Playskool twitter account last Friday. While the tweet in question certainly didn’t “offend” me, I found it to be curious and out-of-character coming from a public mouthpiece of a brand beloved by children and parents alike for generations. The public lashing that has followed deserves a little clarity to prevent it from becoming more overblown than it’s already become.
The tweet from Playskool asked: “Does Dad ever have a day where he’s in charge?” A screenshot of the tweet and the first few responses can be found below…
My response (quoted in the Huffington Post Parents article — which I sincerely appreciate) was : “Not sure where the question is coming from, but as a work-at-home Dad, I’d say every day – unless the kids are actually ‘in charge.'”
There was no real context surrounding the tweet, so I was just curious what was actually being asked. After dealing with brands and social media for quite some time, I could see an opening for a storm of criticism, and that’s exactly what they got. Indeed, the poor soul that happened to be running the Playskool twitter on Friday had unknowingly opened the gates to twitter Hell. I asked some fellow “Dad Bloggers” what they made of the tweet, and also fired off a quick email to my Playskool contact over at the PR firm who often handles the brand. I asked if they were handling the twitter account, and let them know that the tweet was starting to stir “Parent Bloggers” (Moms and Dads alike) in the wrong direction. They responded – thanking me for the alert – but also informing me that they “don’t handle social media for Playskool.”
The reality: The tweet from Playskool wasn’t/isn’t that big a deal.
If anyone was genuinely “offended” by it, they fall into that “overly sensitive” category that I’ve mentioned here in the past. At the same time, brands need to start addressing “PARENTS” and do away with this “Mom” and “Dad” stuff. All types of parents are involved with their kids, and all types of parents buy toys. I mentioned this previously when looking over some marketing materials from CRAYOLA out of Toy Fair, and I actually do have a response from CRAYOLA that I still need to post. The big difference here is that what I found from Crayola arrived in an official press release – what came from Playskool was a simple tweet. It wasn’t part of a larger ad campaign, nor was there some “Anti-Dad” company stance. Playskool has been good to Dads in the past, just as Canadian Dad pointed out when he linked to the image displayed to the right of this text. That was posted on the Playskool Facebook Page the day before the infamous tweet.
Where did Playskool’s social media folks fail? It was in how they responded to questions and criticism of the tweet.
In the circles of “Dad Bloggers” which I currently travel, the overwhelming thought is that Playskool should’ve just owned up to the fact that the tweet was weird, and said they’re sorry on twitter. One more simple tweet to put the audience at ease. Instead, what followed was a barrage of individual responses to a few dozen twitter followers, each giving a slightly different, and most certainly unfocused response. It was sloppy, and in some cases hastily tossed-out with typos in place. Some users were being asked to DM Playskool, while others were not. Instead of issuing one well-thought tweet to end it all, they allowed their public timeline to be consumed in an apologetic mess. Go back to the original tweet, and look at the first response, followed by a chipper retort by someone at Playskool. It just doesn’t make sense. What also doesn’t make a lot of sense is the reaction by some folks shaking their virtual fists while chanting “We’re never buying your toys again!” As soon as their little ones want a Sit ‘N Spin, they’ll be buying.
I’ve interacted with folks from Playskool via The Rock Father on Facebook on several occasions, and all of my dealings have been pleasant. Even looking at both of their profiles today, how they handle FB vs. twitter seems like two different “voices” entirely.
Playskool is a division of Hasbro, and they know better. There’s larger and far more important battles out there to be fought, and the Playskool tweet is a prime example of how something small (that was probably supposed to be silly) can be pushed to a totally different level. Sure, Parent Bloggers responded via twitter, but none of them took the time to write any kind of “outraged” blog about the situation. It happened on a Friday and would’ve been a memory by Monday had it not gotten a big media push to put it in front of an audience that would’ve otherwise missed it. It even got a segment on the Huffington Post Live Show:
The internet trolls are having a field day while poking at the pseudo fiasco, and this probably isn’t the last we’ll hear about this situation. Five days out and other sites and blogs have started picking up on it. Meanwhile, an odd silence took place on the Playskool twitter account. They started off the week in a “business as usual” fashion, but went ominously silent after the story made headlines. By Tuesday night, the silence had broken and normal tweets started slowly rolling out once more. Then, a DM from Playskool arrived in my inbox: “Hi James, we’d like to apologize for our tweet on Friday. Could you please send us your mailing address so that we can get in touch?” I shared my contact information, and added that I thought the entire situation had escalated far beyond what it ever should have. On the other end, the person represented by the bright red oval typed two words and a smiley: “Thank You “
For more on corporate backlash, read this take on Amazon Moms
—this article appeared in an earlier form on The Rock Father/Flickr
I have to say that I find the question that Playskool asked a welcoming one. I’m not a follower of @playskool on Twitter and until this morning whilst doing research for my next “Daddy Blog” I stumbled upon (hey, that’d make a great name for a website) this story here. I wrote a blog about dads being left out of many things which was published on a “parenting website” only 2 weeks before their tweet. http://www.babyhintsandtips.com/dads-are-parents-too/ Now I use inverted commas for “parenting website” as, like most parenting websites I visit, it is 99% for mothers and 1% for fathers.… Read more »
This tweet was 100% right. Just look at the difference between Father’s Day and Mother’s Day. Moms get long speeches about how wonderful they are. Dads get long screeds about how irresponsible they are — despite the fact that most ‘absentee’ dads were thrown out of their kid’s life, and didn’t choose that at all. Look at Valentines day — Where once again, the wife and mother is in charge. She gets the nice gifts. She gets the fancy dinner. He gets, maybe, some small trinket and a very large bill. Women are given too much power in this legal… Read more »
I tweeted the following:
Mark Greene @megaSAHD
@Askagreatdad @playskool About the question, “Does Dad ever have a day when he’s in charge?” Why does anyone have to be? Cooperate. #DadsRT
https://twitter.com/megaSAHD/statuses/309372330071691265
A day later I got an email to my personal email account. (That took some digging.) From a PR firm hired by Playschool. The email read, “On behalf of Playskool we’d like to apologize for our tweet on Friday.”
Mark – Do you mind sharing (either here or privately) which PR firm and who the contact person was? I’m curious, as I’d reached out to a firm on Friday afternoon (noted in my article above) and was told that they don’t handle the social end of things.
I was disappointed by the Playskool tweet. I wasn’t offended. Many dads called them out on it. I think most of the Tweets were respectful, some even a little humorous. I think Playskool could have said “our bad,” more or less, and we all would have moved on. Then the Huffington Post and other media began talking about it and, frankly, making it out to be more than it is. What really surprised me were the comments on the Huffington Post article. A lot of people got on there and told us “whiney dads” to “grow a pair,” “get over… Read more »
It is strange that Playskool’s Twitter and Facebook pages have such different voices. Scrolling through their posts on Facebook, you can see that the company frequently highlights the role of dads. The tweet wasn’t the company’s finest hour, but it feels like the reports of “outrage” are overblown.
I come from a weird position here. On the one hand, I agree that it wasn’t a big deal. Unlike Amazon Mom, the bane of my existence, here we don’t have a company policy, but just a misguided tweet followed by an apology. Maybe it wasn’t the right kind of apology, but it was still an apology. On the other hand, I may have become the poster boy for the “angry overly-sensitive” people you mention, James. It’s funny, because my fake-angry tweet was immediately followed by another, saying it was a joke, but readers of HuffPost won’t know that… Here’s… Read more »
It’s definitely a fine line, and yes – the “Amazon Mom” thing is stupid, especially since you’ve established that they have an “Amazon Family” program elsewhere in the world. The “overly sensitive” realm is easily entered into, and when you have people threatening to stop buying toys because of a tweet… overblown. I’m all for coming “from a place of strength,” but as we’ve noted here, even that can be easily misunderstood.
What was misguided about it? What is so horrible about a man/dad being in charge? Why such an negative reaction?
It’s a sad state of affairs when the mainstream narrative is that a man or father being in charge, or being a leader is something awful and offensive.
Oh my gawd. That first tweet you sent IS funny.
Thanks! I just saw everyone on Twitter was getting an apology, and I thought I wanted a piece of that!
I can’t help but notice that (at least in this portion that is shared in this post) that when the question was asked someone jumped right to a 50s reference. Why is it that even the slightest hint of men being in charge of anything causes people to conjur images of a worst case scenairo? Are men of today the same as men of the 50s? Of course not. So why is the idea of a man in charge of something today being instantly likened to a man being in charge of something in the 50s? (To answer Caroline Fernandez’s… Read more »
No, but invocations of the 1950’s are all they have. None of us were out of diapers then — most weren’t even born back then — but if they had to keep this issue on today’s ground, they know they would lose. So they chose just about the only decade in all of American history where women were noticeably more oppressed than men.
Go back any further, and men get treated like crap, too. Go into the future, and women are lionized, while men are still treated like crap.
So they chose just about the only decade in all of American history where women were noticeably more oppressed than men. Regardless of who was treated worse in what era its still quite messed up that any attempt at a man speaking up is instantly likened to that era. Apparently men, past present and future, are one hive mind like monolith meaning that any man at any point in history that wants to be in charge of something means that he has the same motives and intentions as those of some the bad acting men in history. (On a side… Read more »