Birds Eye targets mums with ‘Mumometer’ Facebook app
Ahead of Mother’s Day, Birds Eye has launched a Facebook app designed to highlight how hard mums work through the year.
The Mumometer app asks mothers to a number of questions in an attempt to establish: “how many hugs, sacrificed hours of sleep, bed time stories told and hearty meals served” to their kids.
It then presents the “Mumbers” as a infographic, designed to shared on social media.
The app was created by Hard Hat Digital and is aimed at expanding Birds Eye’s 80,000 strong Facebook fan base.
Sorry to be one of those people who go off at others for doing work that they’re passionate about but:
1. Since when does a brand launching a Facebook app warrent trade coverage? Do you know how many brands launch these things every day?
2. Virtually no apps gain any traction with audiences. Something like 99% of all apps receive fewer than 100 uses lifetime. Just because we can do things, in this case build apps, that doesn’t necessarily mean we should.
3. If the purpose of this app is to celebrate mums (I hope to Jesus it wasn’t simply to grow Birds Eye’s Facebook community) then is the creation of a metric by which we can measure mums – essentially pitting them in competition to see who is the most worthy of our adoration – a good idea? Doesn’t seem to be in the spirit of ‘community’ if you ask me.
Really? MUMBERS? Are you serious????
Really?… INFOGRAPHICS?…. Come on, are you even trying anymore?
BirdsEye – you should really questions the out of date rubbish this agency are selling you!
I do hope you didn’t pay actual money for this.
I know lots of mums who will be loving this! Great idea for engagement!!
@Rob, same name, same thoughts.
I don’t see the WOW factor here, or how this would translate into increase brand favourability.
Now if this reported on amazing # of downloads, linked to increase in sales, I’d be interested in reading it.
I bet a frozen dinner that Simplot are measuring the success by a % increase of FB likes… sigh..
There you go, ranters once more…
Anonymous comments are as pathetic as the amount of rubbish they write.
I find the news relevant to other practitioners (isn’t Mumbrella an enabler of content?) and very well produced.
Congratulation Dan and team and well done client.
If we want respect for digital we should be celebrating not condemn.
@Rob, Yes, I’d like to ask you if we just knew who you are.
@John, serious?
Oh. I thought this was a good idea. This seems like just the sort of ultra-annoying content that all the overly excitable mums would share on Facebook. They love this stuff!
Hi Lucio, my comment isn’t anonymous. My name is Rob. I run a blog called MediaManUnmasked and it is called that in response to trade trolls so I think your point is a bit off the mark. Look at it another way, if businesses are going to put out press releases to the trade then they should expect feedback, even if it is tough to receive. The points I made hardly qualify as a rant though. For example:
If you want clarification around the point I made about app take up then give Facebook a call. They’ll happily talk to you about what works and doesn’t work on their platform (apps rarely work).
If you want to test the point I made about mus’ potential reaction to this app then just take a look at Birds Eye’s Facebook page. Rather than supporting mums this app made some of them feel very uncomfortable!
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=565657236807208&set=a.335413876498213.83333.289428767763391&type=1&theater
@ Lucio Ribeiro – So we should continually high-five and pat each other on the back for below average work?
How is that going to help the digital industry gain respect?
It is work like this, a Facebook game that is only designed to ramp up brand “likes” (the digital version of telemarketing) that brings the industry to shame.
How about someone creates an app that celebrates mum’s who don’t spend their lives changing nappies, doing all the cooking and cleaning and being the only parent who looks after their kids. It’s no the 1950’s anymore. I find these types of campaigns patronising. I am a mother of 4 and work fulltime. I have a husband and as a family we look after the cooking, cleaning etc. I do not define my role of mother by the amount of time I cook, clean and change nappies.
The only issue I have is that this suggests dads don’t do any of these things.
@John – do you know the market? Do you know how many mums are constantly updating their facebook status with the latest thing they’ve done? Anyone I know who’s on FB with young children do it A LOT. So I think this app is spot on for them and for the brand.
I really have to disagree with the naysayers on this one. I am as over stoopid social ideas as the next guy but I think this is a nice bit of fun and applaud the client and agency.
I am also with Lucio. Anonymous commentators are wimps … use your real name, link to your website .. have the courage of your convictions
Opened this article just to see how many people would be tearing down this concept. I was not surprised at what I found. Come on guys, what doesn’t sound good to you will most likely work wonders with the target audience. Unless you are opening your rants with “As a busy mum”, I suggest you go back to your skim latte and move on with your day
Nice idea in theory… not so well executed I think. I agree with previous commenters that the insight is right, there are plenty of mums out there who are sharing these kinds of details with their social network on a regular basis. My thoughts – they are activating it in Facebook because that’s where mums are doing the sharing but they should have then made it social-by-design. Could they have incorporated some social / sharing elements – how could Birdseye show them what makes them similar to other mums (social story) or different to other mums (personal story). What about using Facebook permissions to gather some useful data about the mum to make their infographic more personalised? And finally what makes this idea uniquely Birds Eye versus any other mum-targeted FMCG community?
I don’t want to be the Campaign Brief guy and tear this down either, but my biggest issue with this is what insight said that infographics are appealing to Mums? Infographics get industry, designers,etc excited, but what is the emotional hook here?
All this work that Mums put in to their families, blood, sweat and tears and the big pay off is basically a pie chart?
What about if it was automatically turned in to a video, or a card that said “Thank You Mum”. For the 800 hours of changing nappies, Thank You Mum. For the 15,000 meals served, Thank You Mum. For the 750 hours of Maths homework, Thank You Mum.
Mum’s know how much they give. It’s everyone else we should be enlightening.
Just an idea.
@Lucio – respect doesn’t get earned from mutual celebration. It comes from amazing insightful work. Which sometimes comes from criticism.
To be honest, I think for too long the digital community has been self congratulating and this is part of the problem. We need to be strong enough to take criticism. And I think most of the criticism here is actually pretty mature and thoughtful.