Mother’s Day is for celebrating our biggest supporters and showing appreciation for everything they do. It’s also an important date in a marketer’s calendar and has been the focus of some truly touching ad campaigns. Who could forget this tear jerker from P&G?
Why should marketers consider a Mother’s Day campaign?
It’s celebrated across the world, in more than 50 countries. Although confusingly, not all countries celebrate it on the same day. On Sunday 9th May 2021 45 countries will celebrate, including Australia, Singapore, the USA and Canada, while the UK celebrated their Mother’s Day back in March.
Spending has been rising steadily over the years and beats Father’s Day spending (sorry Dad!). $26.7 billion was expected to be spent on Mother’s Day in 2020, significantly more than $17 billion expected to spend on Fathers Day 2020. The highest spenders are in the 35-44 age bracket, splurging $296.35 on their mums.
Gifts cover a lot of categories. While flowers remain the most popular gift choice with 64%, the highest average spend was on jewelry at $40.38 per person. 35% of sons and daughters were interested in getting their mums a subscription box for Mothers day, while 25% were planning to give them an experience gift. But are we really listening to her? Results also showed that 35% of mums actually want to be treated to a nice dinner and 28% want gift cards!
In light of the pandemic, it’s set to be even more significant as some of us will be separated for the second year in a row. Last year, 78% of those surveyed by the NRF said that celebrating Mother’s Day is important to them because of the coronavirus.
What are the Mother’s Day marketing trends to watch?
Female empowerment. Recent Mother’s Day campaigns have challenged the traditional femininity – characterised by flowers, fairy cakes and the colour pink – with something more modern. In 2018 Pandora’s social ads showed a mother changing a tyre before jumping back into the car with her daughter. The message was “my strong mother” and “celebrate who she is this Mother’s Day”.
Real women, real stories. Nothing is more engaging than storytelling telling – and real stories always win on Mother’s Day. Brands know that by featuring real people, they’ll be able to convey the sometimes messy side of motherhood and pull on their customers heart strings. Jewelry brand Alex and Ani even went so far as to show the set and outtakes in their ad, to land their ‘realistic’ approach.
Empathetic opt outs. For some people, receiving Mother’s Day marketing emails can be a painful reminder. In the UK Tory MP Matt Warman called for advertisements to adopt opt-out policies, allowing people to have the ability to opt out and not be sent marketing material in the run up to Mother’s Day. Brands including Boots, Tesco, Waitrose, Oliver Bonas, The Body Shop and Marks & Spencer have been praised for their opt out options.
How can brands run a successful social media campaign?
Tell authentic stories. Asking your customers to share user generated content is a way to bring authenticity to your campaigns. But many brands are opting for creators instead. Expert storytellers, they’re a more reliable alternative who can deliver high-quality content to help your brand stand out during a busy sales period.
Target the right people. Rather than mass awareness, focus on reaching the feeds of people interested in your product (and avoiding the feeds of those who aren’t). Our strategic paid media campaigns are designed to deliver maximum return on ad spend because they target with precision and focus on conversion.
Deliver a smooth checkout process. If you don’t take the paid media route, make sure your customers can still access a clear call to action and reach an ecommerce page quickly. Instagram has plenty of features you can take advantage of to turn an inspired browser into a buyer, discover them here.
But don’t forget you can drive store footfall too. If it’s more valuable for your business to get customers in store, then use your social campaign to deliver on that objective. From store locators to product sampling, there are plenty of ways to do this in the run up for Mother’s Day. Get some inspiration here.
Best practise in action
Driving lockdown purchases for Evodia
Objective
Evodia wanted content that would showcase their products as the ideal Mother’s Day gift while celebrating in lockdown, drive website traffic and online sales.
Strategy
15 Aussie lifestyle influencers interpreted the brand’s creative idea, ‘Experience the essence of Australia’ in their own unique way. They shared content on Instagram along with a link from Evoida, to track and drive online sales.
To drive additional awareness of the brand’s Mothers Day products and increase website traffic, Vamp boosted the posts, amplifying the content into the feeds of Evoida’s target audience.
Results
- 462.9k total impressions
- 1.3% boosting engagement rate, 91.2% higher than the industry average
- 523 website link clicks
Swarovski storytelling
Objective
Swarovski engaged Vamp influencers to create beautiful social content that showcase the brand’s seasonal Mothers Day pendant and to celebrate the unique bond between mother and child.
Strategy
15 Malaysian lifestyle influencers created an Instagram post showcasing the product. By featuring their mums in the images and stories within their captions, they shared what the mother-child bond meant to them in an authentic and engaging way.
Results
- 191.9k+ impressions
- 21k+ post engagements
- 4.6% engagement rate, 187% higher than industry average
