5 Mother’s Day marketing tips

Customer-centric storytelling is a powerful tool for engaging audiences, especially around holidays and special occasions when shoppers want to make an emotional impact on their loved ones. So as Mother’s Day approaches, consider ways to humanize your brand by featuring real-life experiences that can help spark genuine connections with customers as they think about how they want to honor Mom.

Mastercard is an example of a prominent global company that weaves customer-centric storytelling into both brand and performance marketing initiatives. Recent efforts include an Amazon Live campaign during Black History Month as part of the company’s “She Runs This” program, helping raise awareness of the challenges facing Black women entrepreneurs while also building brand equity. The campaign showcased the origin stories behind eight Black women–owned small businesses alongside a special promotion for Mastercard customers.

Sustainability is increasingly becoming a top factor among consumers when deciding which brands and products to shop. This is particularly true in connection with retail holidays like Mother’s Day that focus on family- and community-oriented values, such as personal responsibility and service.

Brands can promote their sustainability-related efforts through low-lift advertising tactics, at no cost at all. For example, brands that create a Brand Store on Amazon can showcase Climate Pledge Friendly offerings in their own “aisle” to help customers easily discover products that align with their more-sustainable shopping preferences. Brands can also develop creative, high-touch campaigns that help them address key performance indicators. For example, Italian coffee roaster Lavazza produced a documentary film centered on the topic of sustainable development programs that increased aided awareness, brand favorability, and purchase intent.²

Today’s “luxury shopper” category is more diverse than ever. In fact, research by Amazon Ads and Vogue Business found that 84% of luxury shoppers have an annual household income that is less than $150K,³ suggesting that a broad group of consumers is purchasing multiple luxury items. This means that Mother’s Day is an opportune moment for even exclusive designer brands to expand their customer bases. As an extra bonus, luxury brands can use Mother’s Day ads to highlight relevant messaging that helps customers get comfortable with higher prices like, “Show your loved one how special they are.”

Importantly, brands should consider using all types of channels—both inside and outside of stores—to help drive discovery in connection with seasonal retail events. The aforementioned study underscores the importance of an omnichannel marketing strategy, finding that nearly half of all luxury shoppers reported seeing online marketplace advertising that had recently helped them discover new luxury brands or products.⁴

The shift from linear to streaming TV has created new opportunities for brands to connect with relevant audiences when they’re likely to be receptive to ads. Now, with the introduction of limited advertising on Prime Video shows and movies, advertisers can integrate themselves into a broader range of premium streaming content that appeals to all types of viewers. In particular, Prime Video is able to reach key Mother’s Day audience segments (including spouses, partners, grown children, and young adults) through a broad slate of programming that spans exclusive series, such as The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power; hit movies, like Barbie and Oppenheimer; and more.

Brands may want to reconsider which issues they do—and don’t—address in their Mother’s Day marketing, as they seek to resonate with a broader audience that craves authenticity. Even topics that have traditionally been seen as taboo in advertising (e.g., health, politics, and money) are becoming more prevalent in ads content. That’s because brands that address personal or controversial issues can gain the attention of media-saturated audiences and help meaningfully build brand trust with them if they do so in a sensitive, thoughtful, and sincere way.

Take Nyssa, a well-being start-up whose entire mission focuses on changing how we talk about women’s health. Before even bringing any products to market, Nyssa developed The Unmentionables—a podcast that debunks myths and unpacks research related to under-discussed topics impacting women, such as postpartum and period care. The company also used Substack as a base to post conversations ranging from podcast audio to video interviews that spoke candidly and directly to women’s needs. Building on this bank of authentic content, Nyssa was then well positioned to explore ad solutions such as Sponsored Products that helped move customers from awareness to the consideration and conversion stages.