Teleflora Drops a Mother’s Day Ad Celebrating the Whole Person, Not Just the Caregiver

Mom wasn’t always a mom, you know. She had a life before childbirth, and it might well have included singing in a band, jumping out of an airplane and traveling the world.

What if Mother’s Day advertising highlighted those pre-maternal wild hairs and personality traits, which might be long buried but could still be very much intact?

Teleflora, a brand that’s made its marketing bones in recent years with its unconventional love stories, has created a two-hankie ad centered on the women—the adventurers, the rule breakers, the stigma busters—who at some point added “mother” to their many dimensions. 

“MotHER: A Teleflora Love Story” comes from in-house creatives at The Wonderful Agency, who parsed some data to come up with the concept.

According to a Pew Research Center survey, being a parent is a key part of most moms’ identity, with 85% of moms saying that being a parent is the most or one of the most important aspects of who they are as a person.

The ‘HER” in mother

Not that there’s anything wrong with that, per Teleflora, but as a result, “American moms feel lost in motherhood,” Danielle Mason, vice president of marketing at the brand, told Adweek.

“The demands of motherhood can be all-consuming at times, making it challenging to have a sense of personal identity,” Mason said. “This campaign reminds us to reflect on and celebrate every magnificent part of Mom—who she is now and the past that shaped ‘her.’”

The hero 60-second ad relies on user-generated content for some of its key scenes, similar to the tactic Teleflora has used in the past to dramatic effect. Creatives asked employees and others to share footage of their mothers or other extraordinary women “being wild and free” before they became moms, Mason said.

Though UGC can be challenging to source and use, the team felt it was the right approach because “these are real stories, real feelings, real emotions,” Mason said, “and we felt that we wouldn’t be doing these women justice, nor would we be able to capture the same emotion, through actors.”

‘The hardest part’

The campaign is a heart-tugging successor to the brand’s Mother’s Day 2023 work, which also looked at the holiday through a different lens than the category norm.

“The Hardest Part: A Teleflora Love Story” celebrated the bonds between mothers and their children, but turned the focus to the bittersweet feeling of loosening the parental grip. The hardest part isn’t “the day-to-day mess, stress and exhaustion” of raising children, per the brand, it’s letting go so they can grow up.

“MotHER: A Teleflora Love Story,” which continues under the ongoing #LoveOutLoud banner, will get distribution on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, as well as connected TV, digital and mobile. The brand is encouraging consumer participation via a template on Instagram Reels. Those who highlight their mothers as individuals, not just caretakers, have a chance to win a free bouquet.