Forrester Groundswell Award Submission: In the Motherhood
Please Click Image to see full size
"In The Motherhood" was conceived of as a way to give real moms a voice and the tools to interact with peers to share the universal experiences and challenges of motherhood. Through "In The Motherhood," Suave and Sprint tapped into the universal shared experiences of moms in a humorous and entertaining way and have emerged as the brands that understand real moms and give them a voice; allowing them to express themselves freely and openly without being "talked at."
"In The Motherhood" is a robust interactive community featuring chat forums, parenting articles and games. The core of the site is an original online comedy series created by moms, for moms, and about moms. This is the first time an online series has been created from consumers’ scripts. The series consisted of humorous webisodes centered around motherhood, created from scripts provided by real moms – an idea conceived and executed by the media agency, Mindshare, who partnered with LiveWorld for the community aspects of the site.
Strategic media placements encouraged moms everywhere to help us create the first-ever online series for moms, by moms, by submitting stories based on their funny, no-holds-barred experiences of motherhood.
More than 3,000 scripts were voted on by nearly 60,000 consumers, and the winners were brought to life by Hollywood screenwriters in the form of the actual webisodes, each one produced in two short weeks, starring movie actress Jenny McCarthy, popular American TV star Leah Remini and comedienne Chelsea Handler. Webisodes were distributed on all three screens – TV, Internet and Mobile – for moms everywhere to see.
This is the first time user-generated content has been taken to the next level through professional production and celebrity talent.
How does this entry accomplish business or non-profit goals?
"In The Motherhood" successfully united two brands, Suave and Sprint, with different messages and positions in the market and led them in a never-been-done before project to reach their target in a collaborative, non-intrusive way. The campaign tapped into the universal shared experience of motherhood and provided Moms with a forum to engage in dialogue, share their stories and be a part of social networks – giving them exactly what they were looking for. Results significantly surpassed goals:
- "In The Motherhood" trailer garnered more than one million video views in its first two weeks (Nielsen/NetRatings, campaign results, April – May 2007)
- Delivered 547 million total campaign impressions vs. goal of 450 million (Nielsen/NetRatings, Unilever data, campaign results, April – November 2007
- To date, achieved more than 16.9 million webisode views vs. goal of 900,000 (Nielsen/NetRatings, campaign results, April – November 2007)
- Delivered 6.4 million microsite visits vs. goal of 1.8 million (Nielsen/NetRatings, campaign results, April – November 2007)
- Average .62% click-through rate vs. goal of .20% (Nielsen/NetRatings, campaign results, April – November 2007)
- Suave’s share increased by .4% during the campaign (Unilever data)
- Brand awareness and favorability levels for Sprint rose significantly (AdIndex Advertising Effectiveness Study by Dynamic Logic, July 2007 )
- In The Motherhood was noted as best-in-class
- Kraft brand manager mentioned "In the Motherhood" as an industry benchmark.
- "Mothers Knows Tech" conference at Google’s Chicago office, which was attended by top CPG firms: "In the Motherhood is the gold standard on how to market online to moms."
Dates during which your entry was available to users: February 2008 through present