Finding the right voices
The campaign featured intimate, first-person stories from Lesley Anne Murphy, a double mastectomy previvor who could not breastfeed her baby; Tan France, a new dad via surrogacy who could not source donor breast milk; Kelly Stafford, a mom of four who chose to go straight to formula with her fourth baby to salvage her mental health; and Hannah Bronfman, a new mom who set a six-month breastfeeding goal but had to deal with the disappointment and guilt of not meeting it.
And then we took it one step further with our inaugural MotherBoard. The collective included Tan France, Laura Dern, journalist and author Elaine Welteroth, and supermodel Ashley Graham; these powerhouse parents helped build the advocacy plane as we flew it in year one. Graham created history on the first-ever combo feeding billboard and shared the internal struggles of trying to nourish twin boys from her breasts alone and the guilt she felt after being such a “successful breastfeeder” for turning to formula. It was one of her most engaged video posts to date.
Welteroth’s story came to life in real time. Her own birth plan took last-minute pivots; as a Black mother in America, she felt the implicit bias of the medical system, a factor many that attribute to the maternal mortality crisis where women of color are four times more likely to die from a pregnancy-related cause than white women. She evolved from TV host to staunch advocate for this issue, activating the internet, telling her story with Bobbie, advocating for midwifery care as a solution to the maternal crisis and hitting the Hill in Washington, D.C. with a team of lobbyists to reintroduce the Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act.
It’s since been put back on the table and, even after finishing her stint on the MotherBoard, Welteroth has stepped up to help us reach 100 million people across social media with a viral activism moment (#PassMomnibusNow). She helped us officially launch our social good and policy arm of the business, Bobbie for Change.
A natural extension of brand identity
Make no mistake—activism is woven deeply into our DNA, and none of this is pure happenstance. It is a natural extension of our identity as an activist brand and how we operate in the world.