Winning Mother’s Day in the supermarket sector is an escalating battle, with retailer ad spend up 35% YOY. Sainsbury’s knew their competitors would focus on the price points of typical Mother’s day products (the usual suspects of flowers, chocolate and prosecco) as well as meal solutions around the Sunday Roast. So we went looking for a better way.

The research revealed that 80% of Mums spend a substantial proportion of ‘their special day’ washing up and cooking the Sunday roast.

Indeed, only 9% of mums have ever had a meal cooked for them by a member of their family on Mother’s Day.

Most telling, however, was the research output that told us that most Mums consider their Mother’s Day to be over by 10.22am.

Once they’ve been given a card and a present, things go back to normal pretty quickly.

Background and objectives

Insight

Mother’s Day is supposed to be ‘day off’ for Mum. However, research by NetMums commissioned for Sainsbury’s showed that reality is quite different.

Executive Summary

Through research that discovered that Mother’s Day is over for most Mums almost before it starts, we used newspapers to ‘hide’ a Mother’s Day recipe that would help make her day – or, at least, her morning!

We focused heavily on the Friday and Saturday, hiding our idea in predominantly male environments such as the sports sections of key national press titles, offering Dad some last minute inspiration and time to keep the surprise tucked well away from Mum.

We successfully managed to minimise exposure to the campaign from Mums, and more importantly, inspired Dad and the kids to cook pancakes with a twist.

These revealing insights didn't just lead the media strategy, they actually influenced the products that would be featured in the campaign. There would be no last-minute gift ads from Sainsbury’s.

Instead, the focus would be on breakfast /brunch so that Sainsbury’s could make a difference on Mother’s Day while Mum still felt special.

The plan

The execution of this insight came in the guise of a little twist on a recipe for brunch pancakes, -adding jam to the traditional mix. But whilst we had the recipe to equip Dad and the kids to deliver a pleasant surprise - because Mum’s expectations were probably pretty low - a tactical media plan was needed to make sure it stayed a surprise.

We successfully managed to minimise exposure to the campaign from Mums, and more importantly, inspired Dad and the kids to cook pancakes with a twist.

With Sunday opening hours meaning that Sainsbury’s stores were only open from 10am, (22 mins before our ‘deadline’) we focused heavily on the Friday and Saturday, hiding the pancake twist idea in predominantly male environments such as the sports sections of key national press titles offering Dad some last minute inspiration and time to keep the surprise tucked well away from Mum.

Results

‘We amplified this across our digital display campaign for a cross platform presence across the newsbrands’ for maximum impact.

Client Quote

“With an increasingly competitive market, we needed to ensure we planned our Mother’s Day campaign smarter than ever to cut through – this meant a customer

insight led creative execution and media plan! With clear male skewed environments available in national press, it was a clear lead channel for us to execute the tactical strand of our campaign. Sports sections enabled us to “hide” the brunch twists from

Mum, arm Dad with a real surprise and remain in line with the real rhythms of modern families lives as Sainsbury’s continually strives to do.”

Mike Neilson, Campaign Manager, Sainsbury’s