For more than 70 years, the baby aisle has looked the same, even as the world has radically changed around it. When our clients asked us to help relaunch Babyganics, we could not have been happier for the opportunity to relaunch parenting as we’ve known it.

Long the domain of white, middle class mothers with towheaded toddlers, the parenting category has been remiss in peddling the old ideals and ignoring the obvious: that parenting is not just the domain of women, that parenting isn’t white, or middle class, or able bodied, or straight, or married, or biological, and very importantly, that parenting never was, and never will be “perfect.”

Our objective was, simply put, to dispel the toxic myth of perfect parenting and celebrate all the ways in which we are passionately and imperfectly parenting our amazing kids.

Parenting in the midst of Covid left most parents struggling in one way or another, or in all the ways and then some. We (especially women) were forced to make impossible choices for kids, life, and careers. Since 2020, women lost over 5.4 million jobs; many parents had to become educators overnight; childcare needs skyrocketed, as many parents-to-be suffered the anxiety of Covid complicating their pregnancies. As safety nets like welfare and parental leave are in no way guaranteed for Americans, families with special needs were especially affected. Meanwhile, Instagram overflowed with perfection: lunch recipes for homeschooled kids, pastel baby bedrooms, and professionally home-baked cakes that raised the unfair bar for all of us. For all but the super rich, the pandemic pushed every parenting button, leaving many of us fraught, exhausted, and dispirited. We felt abandoned and alone.

We set out to kill the myth of parenting perfection–as our manifesto apology piece says “There is no perfect. There never was!”

Our idea was to get visceral with the joys, and the hardships, of on-the-ground parenting in all the homes and families we don’t always see in ads or on social media, to bring a generous regard to the hard and relentless work of parenting, and to normalize the zig zags of stress and joy and meltdowns and boundless love that constitutes another day of raising children the best you can with what you have in the moment. Bonding with families and kids, working in their homes with minimal crew and lighting allowed us to connect and be as invisible as we could to allow all the complexity and absurdity of human parenting shine bright.

Our strategy for 'Here’s To Perfectly Imperfect Parenting' was to do deep research and assemble a team of real parents–from adoptive to disabled, gay, trans, single and divorced, immigrant, caregivers, and across age and class– so that we could understand more deeply the experience of raising a human person in the 21st century. Babyganics is primarily a drugstore brand with dozens of products, so we wanted to be sure we talked not only to expecting and new parents, but those with multiple needs and growing kids.

We felt strongly about taking a documentary approach that would not only reflect real, perfectly imperfect parenting, but also give some actual real life struggling families some extra money during a belt tightening time.

And we made sure to have parents represented not only in front of the camera, but behind it.

A launch apology, “Sorry” takes responsibility for how the baby-industrial complex has gaslit families for ages, a brand film called “Wheels” reflects real parenting, and with online, in-store, radio and social we got the message out. We featured real life families in their real life homes, and asked them to contribute videos to stir conversation and community.

Shot in and around Portland, Oregon during the height of Covid and directed by two working moms, our film, “Wheels” was created by a diverse crew including a Latinx DP and LBGTQ+ editor.

As part of the collaboration, SC Johnson reviewed its internal policies concerning childcare, parental leave, and its external commitments in order to challenge perfect parenting, advocate and educate for systemic change, and align with like-minded partners. We were also able to donate all our Babyganics product to needy families.

-331 M. Paid Media Impressions

-139 M Paid Media Reach

-4x Organic Social Engagement

-9x Babyganics.com Site Traffic

-With positive increases in Brand awareness, Brand Consideration and Action Intent

-On social media, we increased comments by 2238% and doubled our average engagement rate.

Most meaningfully, we garnered incredible warmth and gratitude from parents, like this comment:

“5 weeks ago my 3rd child was born. His twin sister didn’t make it, and passed before it was time to give birth. Perfect pregnancies with perfect bumps and perfect stories were hard to hear while I was in the middle of such turmoil. Now that my son is here, the fake idea of perfect parenting is something none of us need. So thank you for recognizing that it’s toxic and demoralizing and for trying to do better.”