Good Mothers and Baaaad Mothers Rule the RSJI this Week
It’s no surprise that retailers catering to moms dominated the week. Media Logic’s Retail Social Juice Index (RSJI) scored ProFlowers, Shari’s Berries, FTD and 1800Flowers in the top 15 most socially-engaged brands as of Saturday, May 12. But what would Mom say about the fact that sitting at the top of the list was not a flower or candy merchant, but an ammo dealer with the survivalist bent, Cheaper Than Dirt? Is there something about flowers and bows that sends one class of guys running to their bunkers with 365.2 gallons of gasoline and 5,000 rounds of hollow points?
The week also saw other male brands score big. The slightly-less-angry-but-equally-unsentimental J&P Cycles got big likes by posting more tongue-in-cheek aphorisms, like a bike rider’s POV photo captioned, “I pledge to spend more time behind bars.” And Cabela’s (which is not quite as much male a brand as you might think) hooked 14,000 likes with a simple fly-fishing giveaway.
And while the guys were having fun shootin’, ridin’ and fishin’, over on the “girl sites” there was complaining. A quick scan shows that sentiment among “fans” of all the major Mother’s Day gifters previously mentioned was almost entirely negative. In a repeat of what happened in the run-up to Valentine’s Day, Facebook pages for FTD, 1-800-Flowers and ProFlowers were not places where people shared loving memories of fresh baked cookies and tucked in blankets, but instead forums for complaints from dissatisfied customers.
What does this battle of the sexes mean? That’s a question perhaps best left to Freud. But Father’s Day is coming right up, and we’re looking forward to seeing which retailers start mining the RSJI for ideas on how to gain more traction.
