WEEK 5: A Conversation with Guest Speaker Jessica Gottlieb by Shaena Gerald

By UCLA X469.21 Student Shaena Gerald

Shaena Gerald

It was such a pleasure to have ex-blogger Jessica Gottlieb speak with our class and share her experiences. With her years of blogging and large social media following, Jessica is a true online celebrity.

She started the discussion by talking briefly about her experience growing up in Los Angeles with a father who was an attorney and a mother who worked as a public school teacher in Watts. Both of her parents instilled a passion for free speech and protecting children that lead Jessica to start her own blog in 2007.

Jessica Gottlieb

Jessica has written posts regarding just about everything, from current events to corporate arrogance and scandals such as the infamous commercial from Motrin in 2008. The company decided to create an ad touting Motrin as the pain reliever for moms who carry their babies using a baby sling. Jessica (a mother of two) was very offended by the commercial, and spearheaded a campaign criticizing the company for how it suggested that mothers carry their babies as a fashion statement. As a result of her blog post, thousands of other angry mothers took to social media and sent emails and letters, which forced the company to pull the commercial.

Motrin was just the first such victory for Jessica. Another target she went after was The National Potato Council, which embarked on a deceptive campaign to keep french fries in public schools. When a woman named Hollee Alexander emailed Jessica from a Yahoo email address posing as a caring mother, Jessica did some research and found that the email was sent from a Potato Council email server, and Hollee was a Council employee based in Washington DC.

After years of writing and helping mothers around the country with her blog, Jessica has started a new company – Word of Mouth Women (WOM Women) – to connect female bloggers with brands for awareness campaigns. Over the last three years, the WOM Women has worked with Sprint, NETGEAR, Zorbit’s and a list of other national companies.

Check out her new company website at http://www.womwomen.com