How Kraft Heinz plans to give moms a break for Mother's Day

Dive Brief:

The Kraft Heinz Company debuted two campaigns ahead of Mother's Day — one for Kraft and another for Maxwell House — that recognize the hard and often underappreciated work moms put into supporting themselves and their families, according to separate company news releases.
The effort from Kraft asks moms to take a "Mother's Day Away" and enjoy "me-time" activities they often can't when handling parental duties, like dining out at "kid-unfriendly restaurants" or sleeping in on the weekend. To support that break time, Kraft will foot the bill for up to $100 in babysitter fees. Participants in the campaign, who are encouraged to share their ideal holiday plans on social media, can submit their receipts to a dedicated microsite on Mother's Day to receive their compensation.
Maxwell House is spotlighting the "invisible" labor of moms through a video that features expectant parents receiving surprise advice from their own mothers while attending a birthing class. Inspired by research that shows eight out of 10 surveyed moms would rather spend quality time with their kids than receive material gifts for Mother's Day, the coffee brand is also running a Mother's Day Market pop-up store in New York City through May 8. Visitors can create personalized cards or call and video chat their moms to show their appreciation. Ads from the company will run in Times Square and The New York Times around the holiday.

Dive Insight:

Kraft Heinz is mixing together video, experiential and personalization-driven marketing to draw interest toward its Kraft and Maxwell House labels ahead of Mother's Day. Moms are a key buyer segment for the packaged foods giant, and the creative for both campaigns pushes back against the materialism often associated with holidays to instead focus on parental self-care and fostering deeper connections with family.

Recognizing the stresses of being a mom has become a common refrain for Kraft Heinz. One of Kraft's buzzier Mother's Day efforts in recent years, "Swear Like a Mom," included a viral video of moms' swears being censored by family-friendly alternatives. The brand also doled out special ear plugs so kids could block out their parents' curse-laden outbursts in real life, which quickly went out of stock.

Aligning with its coffee focus, Maxwell House continues to lean less into humor and more into purpose-driven messaging around providing energy for labor, which has proved successful in the past. A campaign the company ran for Labor Day last year similarly focused on the "real hands of hardworking Americans" and featured a contest for a paid day off. A YouGov analysis of the effort found it resulted in an increase in brand awareness and purchase consideration for Maxwell House in the weeks after launch.

Kraft Heinz needs to spur more sales and attract stronger interest in its flagship brands like Kraft as it weathers internal turmoil and changing consumer perceptions of processed packaged foods. The company wrote down the value of Kraft and Oscar Mayer by $15.4 billion in February, which has sent its stock value plummeting and led to high executive turnover.

Over the weekend, the company confirmed that Eduardo Luz, U.S. CMO and global brand officer, would be leaving at the end of May. Luz handles marketing for more than 200 Kraft Heinz brands around the world and leads marketing for Heinz, Kraft and Planters in the U.S.