Late April, early May brings a certain incessant MD marketing madness.
Serenity now, right?
Curious to know your frame of mind as we approach the second Sunday in May this year. It could range from fragile to numbingly indifferent to WTF awful. All or none of the above or anything in between. There is no wrong answer. This year I am going to do my best to be zen.
As I have written many times over, it can take fierce fortitude to power through this time of year. The message that not all “special occasions” are ‘special’ for a large number of us is slowly (glacially you could say) starting to catch on in a few places. For instance, I was positively blown away, in a good way, when one company proactively asked recently if I wanted to opt out of MD marketing (yes, thank you!):
However, I was blown away differently — shocked actually — to read the response New Legacy Institute’s Christine Erickson’s MD marketing education effort elicited:
I’ve now been called insane, told to get therapy & to not be bitter, in response to a tweet asking a retailer about having an opt out choice for MD marketing. I was also told to opt out. I can’t. That is the point.
— New Legacy Institute (NLI) (@NLInstitute) April 22, 2022
Ugh, right? Let me check the calendar to see what century we’re in. 2022??? Sigh. There remains so much work to be done.
Yoga For the Rest of Us May 8
Well, let’s look out for each other, shall we? First, self care all around! For me, this can include yoga. Happily, Sarah, friend and fellow blogger, has organized an online yoga session this Sunday, May 8 at noon ET. She has designed the session with care.
If you’re also seeking a little zen, I hope you can join in. Learn more and register for this tailored online yoga session here. Since Sarah brings life experience childless-not-by-choice folk will deeply appreciate, you can expect compassionate instruction. To illuminate that point further, Sarah describes one MD a few years back when she gifted herself some yoga. This yoga decision, she recalled, was a particularly good way to work through the emotional heaviness in her body:
“Mother’s Day can feel as though triggers are coiled around your rafters and bundled up in every possible crevice ready to pounce.”
Been there, felt that!
This year, I know that for one hour on Sunday, I will be at peace as I flow through a nourishing shared yoga practice.
I too have been simultaneously heartened and horrified at the MD marketing conversation this year. The most heartening for me so far was the opt out notice from the DNC. Not only did it give me the choice to opt out of MD emails, it assured that one would still be kept in the loop with everything else. This was so symbolic for me as for so many years now I (and WE) have been forced to choose between our mental/emotional health and being part of any group. Which of course makes no sense as the two go hand in hand last time I checked. Anyway, thanks for this lovely post and I’m so looking forward to teaching on Sunday!!
It used to be I could just ignore Facebook for the days leading up to and following MD. But now I am bombarded with emails to both my personal and business accounts. The special offers, the perfect gifts, the suggestions for how I can treat myself (because of course I must be a mom). I, too, greatly appreciated the Open Table message. So easy for retailers to do similar. So easy. We’ll get there. Thanks for speaking up (again).
That tweet is crazy, when so many are making efforts to be more sensitive it sounds like the marketer she encountered went way the other way. I had to laugh when I went to amazon and they had a “perfect gifts for every Mom” section, and I was like, “oh, I wish I could get sunglasses and hair oil, but those are for moms…” So weird how marketing works. Great post, I’ll have to join in on the yoga another time — it sounds lovely!
I mentioned this story on my blog but I’ll add it here, since we’re talking MDay marketing. I actually had an email pop into my inbox around 10 p.m. late Sunday/MDay evening from a Canadian women’s clothing chain. The header read “Lori, did you forget about Mother’s Day?” FAT CHANCE, right?? — “I’m trying!! But YOU WON’T LET ME!!” lol I’m still shaking my head!