Mother’s Day ads avoid sentimentality

Mums are finally getting their due, with brands using the USA’s Mother’s Day to deploy humour and cultural marketing.

Open account

You can’t put a price on good parenting… but if you had to, then OpenTable's ‘Billboard’ by 2045 tots up the unpaid debt to mothers in fetching visual style.

The restaurant booking app has suspended a towering receipt installation inside a Melbourne shopping centre for Mother’s Day that tallies a lifetime of unpaid maternal labour... and arrives at a total of $0.00.

Celebrating mum’s invisible labour, the ad feels culturally attuned to the economic climate and provides a novel twist on a usually sentimental genre of campaign.

Efforts acknowledged

Mother New York takes a similarly reflective approach for True North Training NYC. Instead of spending, the focus here is on the physical toil mothers endure.

The ad pokes a bit of light-hearted fun at the alpha gym types, while taking a novel slant on the annual awareness day.

Teleflora erases doubt

Teleflora’s ‘If You’ve Worried’, created by Wonderful Agency, meanwhile, takes a much softer route, but the emotional target is just as on point.

Built from research showing that 91% of mothers experience “mom guilt”, the campaign rather cutely plays on some of the classic mothering tropes, culminating in a bit of bouquet gifting.

Media rollout includes CTV, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and parenting-focused outlets and podcasts.

A decidedly cliché-free Mother’s Day this year, then, we reckon.