Teleflora created several versions of its 2017 Mother’s Day video: two roughly two-minute versions (one for Teleflora and one to be used by Teleflora florists) and shorter 15-second edits.
Teleflora’s new Mother’s Day video is playing up the strong bond that exists between adult children and their moms.
“Just Like Her” begins with a narrator telling viewers, “You are not your mother but you are just like her,” before moving into a series of heartfelt scenes between mothers and their children that underscore the importance of those relationships — and the emotional resonance floral gifts can have on Mother’s Day.
The video comes on the heels of other similar Teleflora ad series in recent years, including “Generations of Love” and “What is Love?” along with “One Tough Mother” last year, which featured Society of American Florists member (and real-life mom) Clara Gonzales of Tiger Lily in Charleston, South Carolina.
“As flowers are a gift that carry great emotional sentiment, our current and previous campaigns use storytelling to capture the many heartfelt emotions behind a floral gift, while celebrating the beauty of the hand-arranged artistry of a bouquet that Teleflora partner florists create and deliver,” said David Dancer, Teleflora’s chief marketing officer. “The campaigns have celebrated love and heartfelt emotion in many forms.”
Teleflora created several versions of the video: two roughly two-minute versions (one for Teleflora and one to be used by Teleflora florists) and shorter 15-second edits. The company does not plan to air the ads on TV but has posted them to its social media pages, including YouTube and Facebook, where Teleflora expects it to garner more than 30 million views alone through its focus on digital advertising.
“Our media strategy is to hit consumers when they are online,” Dancer explained. “Through a highly targeted, programmatic digital buy we are able to share our message with flower and gift shoppers at the moment they are online, which is very effective. And due to high engagement with our consumers in our social channels, we also promote our video there, which often drives many great responses via comments and sharing of the video as well.”
For the video, Teleflora joined forces the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) Alliance for Family Entertainment (AFE)’s #SeeHer campaign, which aims to “increase the accurate portrayal of girls and women in media.” The video earned a “Gender Equality Measure” score of 117, ranking well above-average.
Dancer said the reception to this year’s ad so far has been “very positive.” At press time, the video, which was uploaded a week ago had almost 3,000 views on YouTube. It’s been widely shared and commented upon on Facebook. (The company’s most popular Mother’s Day video, “Ryan’s unforgettable Mother’s Day delivery to Mom,” which tells the story of a military service member reuniting with his mom, remains the blockbuster of recent efforts, with more than 11.9 million views on YouTube. That video was created in 2015.)
“Many of our Facebook fans are sharing all of the wonderful (and quirky) traits that they share with their moms,” he said. “Our florist partners are also quickly embracing the version we created for them and many of them are utilizing the ad in their social media.”
While all of the people featured in this year’s ad are paid actors, Dancer noted that Teleflora purposefully featured one actor, Linda Bond, in the commercial after hearing her story of living with breast cancer; in the ad, viewers see Bond getting a tattoo to commemorate her survival.
“Linda’s story was incredibly inspiring to us and we knew that we wanted her in our ad from the moment she shared her story about her battle,” he said.
