For curious onlookers, this short-lived but notable incident raised several questions:

• How “typical” was the response of these Twittering moms? Did non-Twitter-using consumers respond to the ad as violently? And what did they think of the protesting Motrin moms?
• How was Johnson & Johnson’s response to the outcry perceived?
• What can Johnson & Johnson (and any other company/brand) do differently to prevent mini-crises such as this one?

To answer these questions, Communispace ran a survey in its proprietary communities. The responses from 172 female consumers indicated that while most were underwhelmed by the ad’s content and creative, they were very polarized on the question of whether it was offensive to women. Among those who were not offended by the ad (the majority opinion), there was a pervasive view that the Twitter moms were overly sensitive and atypical. And regardless of their response to the ad, the overwhelming number of respondents was neither aware of nor used Twitter (with the majority of awareness and usage coming from among the 18–24 year-olds).

So should Motrin have withdrawn and apologized for the ad? No, not if the decision was based solely on the power of these Motrin Moms to broadly influence public opinion. Indeed, the skepticism about the Twittering moms on the part of our survey respondents is preliminarily borne out by a new study indicating that Twitter users have a small number of friends, i.e. people with whom they directly interact, relative to the number of followers and followees. Since it’s the network of friends that’s the more influential one in driving Twitter usage–and past studies by Communispace indicate that a personal knowledge of the “influencer” enhances that person’s impact–Twittering moms are not necessarily influential moms. However, if you’re of the view that it’s never worth offending a segment of your customer base, regardless of how small, then Motrin certainly made the right call.

But ultimately, the question of how Motrin reacted is less relevant than the question of how they might have averted this problem in the first place. On this issue our consumers displayed remarkable consensus that Motrin should have proactively gotten more input from moms both before the ad was released and after. And that is perhaps the biggest moral of this short but feverish story: to develop products and messaging that resonate with customers, brands must hardwire their voices into every facet of their business on an ongoing basis.