A San Diego teacher’s students surprised her with bouquets of flowers in a new Valentine’s Day ad from Teleflora.
Teleflora’s 2023 Valentine’s Day ad campaign diverges from the holiday’s amorous reputation, celebrating, instead, the treasured relationship between teacher and student.
“A Teleflora Love Story: Mrs. Miller” follows a San Diego elementary school teacher as she walks into her classroom, where her students are squirming with excitement. On her desk, she finds a bouquet and hand-written card. A student shares a thoughtful poem about what Mrs. Miller means to her. Then each student delights in gifting her a bouquet.
It’s not a typical love story, but it’s an authentic one — and a perspective that illustrates love’s broad reach and inclusive nature, says Danielle Mason, Teleflora’s vice president of marketing.
“Valentine’s Day has typically been defined as a holiday for women to receive gifts from their partner,” says Mason. “Although, when you think about your first Valentine’s Day experience, it doesn’t start with celebrating ‘romantic love.’ As children, we start celebrating the holiday by including everyone.”
For the past few years, she adds, more than half of Teleflora.com’s Valentine’s Day consumers have been women — a stat that encouraged a different marketing approach. “While men often purchase for romantic reasons, women purchase for so many different reasons and we wanted to celebrate that,” Mason explains.
The Wonderful Agency and Teleflora partnered with production company, Alkemy X, to find real, authentic stories that celebrated love, focusing the search in San Diego.
“From the onset, we knew Mrs. Miller was very special as she had previously won ‘Teacher of the Year’ in her school district. We also knew that she was deeply invested in her students —both current and former,” Mason says. “When we surprised Mrs. Miller, it was truly a magical experience because we could tell that her students cared so deeply for her. The ad was not scripted. In fact, the card and poem were written by her students during the shoot.”
At first, Mrs. Miller felt nervous when she entered her classroom and saw cameras, not knowing what was going on. But her apprehension quickly gave way to delight when she saw the flowers at the students’ smiles.
“The bouquet on my desk was gorgeous, and when the students pulled the bouquets out from under their desks, I was completely blown away,” she says. “The looks on their faces were priceless, and it brought me so much joy. I was showered with flowers — it was truly beautiful!”
Mrs. Miller encouraged the students to “share the love” by taking the bouquets back home to their families. “I was able to share some with other teachers to bring them joy, too,” she says.
The heartwarming experience, which will rank among her most precious memories, changed the way Mrs. Miller thinks about flowers.
“Receiving flowers has always been something special for me because it doesn’t happen often,” she says. “It’s been saved for a special occasion like a birthday or anniversary. I feel that flowers bring so much joy and love. We shouldn’t be waiting for special occasions to gift them.”
The ad launched on Jan. 27. It is featured on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok (Teleflora’s inaugural effort on this platform) in a variety of ways, including Feeds, Stories, Reels, Explore and more. Teleflora also added a gamified unit with Candy Crush, which is complemented with short-form video.
The campaign is an extension of Teleflora’s overarching “Love Out Loud” brand platform, which launched during Christmas 2017 with an 8- by 50-foot flower wall on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. It consisted of 1,000 bouquets, which were free to passersby. They disappeared to reveal the message, “Love Out Loud,” which Teleflora described as “a rally cry to overshare and a call to arms to stop holding back, to take a risk, and go beyond the expected when sharing your love with others.”
Katie Vincent is the senior contributing editor
