As the voice of the industry, SAF contacts companies that belittle floral gifts and asks them to reconsider their approach.
A chain of seafood restaurants, a GPS navigation developer, a home security system maker and a popular group of jewelry stores. These are just some of the companies that have tried to sway shoppers in their direction by disparaging flowers in the run-up to Mother’s Day.
As the negative publicity watch-dog of the industry, the Society of American Florists has contacted the following companies so far this Mother’s Day season and asked them to reconsider their approach:
- Eddie V’s Prime Seafood, a restaurant chain with 12 locations in six states, sent an email with the subject line: “Far superior to flowers.”
- Garmin, a developer of GPS navigation and wireless devices and applications, sent an email that included the verbiage: “With Mother’s Day around the corner, forget flowers — give her the gift of an active lifestyle!”
- Nest Labs, a producer of Wi-Fi-enabled thermostats, smoke detectors and other security systems, distributed an email with the subject line: “Better than a bouquet.”
- Shane Co., the largest privately owned jeweler in the United States, with locations in 14 major metro areas, including St. Louis, Atlanta and San Francisco, has radio commercials that say flowers die.
“Shane Co. is the one I’ve heard about the most this year, from about a half dozen SAF members,” said SAF Director of Marketing and Communications Jenny Scala. Scala urges these companies to promote their products on their own merits, rather than disparaging other products. At press time, SAF had not received a response from any of them.
Scala said persistence can pay off when it comes to getting companies to change their approach. Case in point: SAF contacted the collectibles and jewelry marketer Danbury Mint each year beginning in 2005 about its Valentine’s Day campaign that disparaged flowers. It took a few years, but the company removed all of the flower-bashing language from its Valentine’s Day jewelry catalog in 2015 and it has yet to reappear.
“If companies don’t get the message the first, second or even fifth year, SAF doesn’t give up,” Scala said.
SAF also responds to inaccurate editorial coverage. Prior to Mother’s Day 2015, for instance, The Washington Post published an essay by an author who urged readers to avoid flowers for Mother’s Day. SAF CEO Peter Moran wrote a letter to the editor, pointing out outdated facts and misinformation, which the paper published online and in print.
“It’s still early in the Mother’s Day season,” Scala said. “We expect to hear about even more ads next week.” Members should report negative portrayals of flowers to SAF’s Jenny Scala at jscala@safnow.org.
