Frida worked with the network on a 30-second edit that blurs or covers nipples that are visible in the original 75-second ad — a “fairly robust editing process at NBCU’s insistence,” said Chelsea Hirschhorn, the company’s chief executive, in a statement.
She added that 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.”
On YouTube, the original ad, which was posted on Feb. 24, already has more than 1.4 million views.
The spot was created by the ad agency Mekanism, a San Francisco shop that has created campaigns for Ben Jerry’s, HBO and, famously, Peloton. It was directed by Rachel Morrison, who was the first woman to be nominated for a cinematography Oscar for her work on the 2017 drama “Mudbound.”
Last year, Frida produced an ad showing an exhausted new mother in diaperlike postpartum underwear plodding to the bathroom. The commercial, according to the company, was blocked from airing during the Oscars because it was considered too graphic.
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.
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/28/business/media/breastfeeding-ad-frida-golden-globes.html
