Winning Mother’s Day in the supermarket sector is an escalating battle, with retailer ad spend up 35% YOY. Sainsbury’s knew their competitors would focus on the price points of typical Mother’s day products (the usual suspects of flowers, chocolate and prosecco) as well as meal solutions around the Sunday Roast. So we went looking for a better way. The research revealed that 80% of Mums spend a substantial proportion of ‘their special day’ washing up and cooking the Sunday roast. Indeed, only 9% of mums have ever had a meal cooked for them by a member of their family on Mother’s Day. Most telling, however, was the research output that told us that most Mums consider their Mother’s Day to be over by 10.22am. Once they’ve been given a card and a present, things go back to normal pretty quickly. Background and objectives Insight Mother’s Day is supposed to be ‘day off’ for Mum. However, research by NetMums commissioned for Sainsbury’s showed that reality is quite different. Executive Summary Through research that discovered that Mother’s Day is over for most Mums almost before it starts, we used newspapers to ‘hide’ a Mother’s Day recipe that would help make her day – or, at least, her morning! We focused heavily on the Friday and Saturday, hiding our idea in predominantly male environments such as the sports sections of key national press titles, offering Dad some last minute inspiration and time to keep the surprise tucked well away from Mum. We successfully managed to minimise exposure to the campaign from Mums, and more importantly, inspired Dad and the kids to cook pancakes with a twist. These revealing insights didn't just lead the media strategy, they actually influenced the products that would be featured in the campaign. There would be no last-minute gift ads from Sainsbury’s. Instead, the focus would be on breakfast /brunch so that Sainsbury’s could make a difference on Mother’s Day while Mum still felt special. The plan