Dive Brief:

• Mondelez's Ritz crackers this week launched a multichannel campaign to salute foster parents as families prepare to celebrate Mother's Day and Father's Day. The brand partnered with the National Foster Parent Association on the "Foster Welcome" effort, per an announcement.
• Ritz created Instagram stickers for foster parents who haven't been able to post pictures of their families on the photo-sharing app because of privacy rules in some states. Instead of editing their photos with censor bars or icons that hide a child's face, foster parents can type #FosterWelcome into the sticker search bar on Instagram Stories to find alternative stickers for sharing pictures.
• The effort, which part of Ritz's broader "A Taste of Welcome" push to promote inclusivity, includes a two-minute video that dramatizes a couple who welcome a foster teenage boy into their home and prepare a snack to make him feel more comfortable in his new surroundings. The snack brand worked with The Martin Agency and the National Foster Parent Association to create the video, which Ritz posted on its TasteOfWelcome.com website.

Dive Insight:

As people get ready to celebrate Mother's Day and Father's Day, Ritz is offering another inclusive message with its "Foster Welcome" effort to honor parents who care for the estimated 424,000 foster children in the U.S.

The campaign is notable for offering digital stickers for foster parents to decorate their family snapshots in states that prohibit the sharing of pictures of foster children. The rules are intended to protect the privacy of minors, but can get in the way of sharing pictures like other families are allowed to do. The sticker pack in Instagram Stories, whose pictures and videos disappear after 24 hours, includes a mix of messages like "Support foster families" and "Celebrate foster parents," along with animated GIFs of sunglasses and masks to hide the identity of people in photos.

"Mother's Day and Father's Day are the perfect occasions to celebrate all the foster parents who might not get the recognition they deserve during this time of year," Santiago Gomez Bernal, associate marketing director at Ritz, said in the announcement. "We hope to elevate their inspiring stories and raise awareness around how meaningful it is to be a foster mom or dad."

Ritz's "Foster Welcome" effort for Mother's Day and Father's Day is part of the snack brand's broader "A Taste of Welcome" purpose-driven campaign to promote inclusion. During last year's holiday season, Ritz debuted its "Where There's Love, There's Family" campaign, which included a minute-long spot depicting people who are searching for acceptance and belonging as they prepare for festivities. Ritz cast two gay men of color, a transgender woman and a non-binary person for the ad to emphasize the message of diversity and inclusion.

Ritz's latest campaign comes as parent company Mondelez Interntational seeks to maintain sales growth amid the rapid shifts in consumer behavior during the pandemic. The health crisis helped to lift snack sales as people cooked more meals at home. The company's revenue rose 7.9% from a year earlier to $7.24 billion in the first quarter as organic sales expanded 3.8%, per its quarterly earnings statement. The revenue growth marked an improvement from the 5.6% gain it had seen in the prior quarter on a 3.2% gain in organic sales, which excludes gains from acquiring other businesses. However, the company estimated that organic revenue growth would slow to 3% for the full year ahead, compared with 3.7% last year.

Mondelez's research showed that 60% of people snacked more frequently last year, and another 30% have increased their consumption this year, indicating that people haven't completely reverted to their former eating habits as the economy reopens, Barron's reported. With many people continuing to eat snack foods as a source of comfort and adopting more flexible work arrangements, the company anticipates there will be continued demand for snacks, according to the report.