Friday, December 17, 2010

Too Many Windmills: My Epic Road From the Amazon and Back.

Here is the road that has led me back to Amazon. I'm no longer a member of Amazon Mom, but I'm back to buying my kids' stuff from Amazon. Unfortunately.

I'd had every intent of staying true to my principals and avoiding Amazon for ever because of their dumb Amazon Mom program, but in the end, this is not about me, but about my kids, and anyway, other places weren't any better.

After leaving Amazon Mom and Amazon in general, I was ready to find an alternative. The thing that made most sense to me at first was buying directly from Earth's Best. The girl was drinking Earth's Best organic formula, and eating Earth's Best organic meals. This was an organic, progressive company, which meant no more "Dads? What dads?" approach to marketing. I was home...

Then I found this featured prominently on their site:


Yep. The Earth's Best Parent section is called, "For Mom, From Mom."

So that was that, then.

I sent them a "Can you explain this logic" email, got a generic response, and moved on.

After looking around the Internet a little more and finding nothing, I realized that my last chance before caving in to Amazon was Diapers.com. I had a problem with that company in the past, mainly with the fact that every time I went to the site, I saw a giant banner telling me I could save 10% if only I were a first-time costumer. This got old after a while, so I moved to Amazon, but now it was time to move back.

I was even prepared to ignore the fact that Amazon was buying Diapers.com, and that I was only cheating myself... Until I saw this on Diapers.com:


And you know what? As if it weren't enough that Diapers.com was ignoring fathers, they were doing it with the most annoying spelling mistake in the English language.

So that was that for Diapers.com... And back to Amazon. Tail between my legs and all, a dad's got to do what a dad's got to do.
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7 comments:

  1. If there are biases in work, (most managers are male :) ) there are also biases in parenting. When people hear the word the parent, the first thing that comes to their mind is mom. Of course, this is just the usual thing. But I certainly believe that both parents must be valued equally. I hope those sites you've mentioned would just say parent/s and regard them as mom and dad. I definitely admire you bloggerfather. :)

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  2. Thanks. This ignorance just doesn't make any sense to me. I can't imagine one mother would be offended by a company using Parent rather than Mom, yet these companies must think that's a risk they won't be able to take... I know it's not the civil rights battle of the 21th century, but I wish things were different.

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  3. I love how you value yourself as a parent. There are only a few fathers that I know who is like you. You changed my perspective about guys. I often thought that all guys are not that in into becoming parents. Your wife must be so proud of you. I salute you bloggerfather. :)

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  4. Rome wasn't built in a day. In time we will change perception and eventually marketing along with it. Until then, it's ok to make decisions that are the best for your family.

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  5. Yup! Dads don't get no respect! Or marketing copy ;) I'm totally with you - good Dads are out there, and deserve recognition. We're an undervalued demographic.

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  6. James, thanks. I can't wait for the day I don't have to compromise about this stuff anymore, you know?

    Goodfather, thing is, from my experience, mothers love the idea of marketing fatherhood. I've seen a lot of positive reaction from moms to campaigns featuring fathers. And even when a campaign is aimed at mothers, I have no problem as long as it doesn't look like ignoring fathers was a conscious decision.

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  7. I really feel your frustration here. I know that at the end of the day its just marketing, it's just advertising. They are just trying to appeal to one segment and not another.

    But that doesn't excuse it.

    The good news is at least you can do something about it. You can take your money somewhere else. And at least, as consumers and as fathers we are better informed about the things we buy than ever before.

    Thanks for making me, and other dads aware of the issues.

    Adam from http://www.dadboost.com

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