2017 Winners & Shortlists

The Campaign

‘I recommend Mom’ – a campaign that turned the concept of the recommendation letter on its head with children vouching for their moms and all they have achieved in their time away from the business world. Mother’s Day a globally recognized holiday where moms and the efforts and sacrifices they make are brought to the forefront and celebrated. We believed this to be an opportune occasion to recognize the skills and aptitude that they developed and executed in their roles as ‘Mom’ and emphasize their transferability to the corporate world. We conceived and developed a tribute to Moms across with an online campaign video that featured kids as spokespeople for mothers who were on a break from their careers. The emotive content highlighted the fact they were never really on a break in the first place, and played testament to their initiative, creativity, resilience and determination.

Creative Execution

To make the content as credible as possible, we asked a group of kids between the age of 5 to 10 to write essays about a day in the life of their mothers. We then stitched together their stories and spontaneous reactions along with shots that were inspired by the same to create this moving piece of content. The video was launched on International Mother’s Day on the HSBC Facebook Page and on YouTube. The call to action at the end of the video invited Mothers on a break to free workshops conducted with a third party recruitment agency on resume making, confidence building and interview skills. 5 of these workshops saw full attendance.

The content video achieved a reach of 1.5 million, and a 27% amplification rate. Engagement jumped from 6.6% to 10.3% after going live, with market benchmark for the category being 0.6%. The quality of engagement was also proof of the campaign’s resonance: with a total of 10,000+ mentions, shares and likes. The key emotional sentiment expressed was ‘joy’ with 72% of users who had an active engagement. We received 1000+ requests from mothers to participate in the follow-up workshop. 300 women attended the first 5 workshops, with more workshops planned to accommodate the overwhelming response. Almost 50% of the women who attended have managed to make a career comeback. A majority of them chose HSBC as their banking partner.

A majority of the communication that’s directed towards women focus on their aspirations and struggles as mothers. We applaud them, we cherish them, but whats largely ignored is the career sacrifices that a woman makes in order a better home. ‘I Recommend Mum’, became the first content video that touched upon the topic of motherhood penalty. It resonated immediately with the intended target group. It also managed to cut the clutter on Mother’s Day among a sea of other videos, while starting a conversation that’s been overdue.

Our strategy was simple yet powerful. It started with a recognition that Facebook has replaced the daytime soap operas of years past: it is now the primary medium and window to the world that our core audience of Stay at home moms engage in. The campaign kicked off with a video on Mother’s Day, which addressed the challenges mothers face when looking to re-enter the business world, with children as the spokespeople, providing recommendations and vouching for mothers who had taken a “break” from their careers. This was complemented by on the ground activities and free career re-entry, resume making and confidence building workshops.