№ 557. Happy Women's Month

 

A commercial from the parent products company Frida, to be broadcast during the Golden Globes, is part of a wider effort to show the struggles of the “fourth trimester.”

A commercial that presents a more realistic look at parenting will be shown during NBC’s prime time broadcast of the 78th Golden Globe Awards. The spot, from the parenting products company Frida, shows new mothers dealing with cluster feedings, applying cabbage compresses and, in a rarity for national TV, exposing breasts clogged and stretched by the effort of nourishing their babies.

In its first TV commercial, Frida shows real mothers caring for their children to showcase the often unglamorous and painful lactation experience. The commercial, accompanied by the message “Care for your breasts, not just your baby,” promotes the company’s Frida Mom line of nursing pillows, massagers, gummies and other products.

The point of the ad remained intact — “that the physical and emotional breastfeeding journey puts an unrivaled pressure on women to ‘perform,’ and no longer should women be expected to prioritize making milk over their own physical discomfort.”

As pregnant women form purchasing preferences that often extend for years after their babies are born, they become a highly desirable demographic to marketers. Janet Vertesi, an associate professor of sociology at Princeton who experimented with hiding her pregnancy from internet trackers, estimated in 2014 that an average pregnant woman’s marketing data is worth $1.50, while a regular person’s is worth 10 cents. This month, the diaper brand Huggies aired a commercial during the Super Bowl that cost millions of dollars to place.

Many of the ads encountered by first-time parents favor modesty over authenticity. Instagram ads tend to focus more on warm images of cooing babies cuddled by radiant, fully covered mothers and less on the agony of aggressive feedings and the mess of midnight cleanups.

The disconnect can leave first-time parents underprepared during a transitional period often described as the fourth trimester. And during the pandemic, the difficulties have been intensified for the families of the more than 116 million babies expected to have been born since March.