In 2020, birth rates hit a new record low with the number of babies born in the U.S. dropping by 4%, while the number of direct-to-consumer diaper competitors continued to grow. And in the midst of a pandemic, commodity costs started to rise, adding to the pressures of already strapped parents.

Pampers recognized the hardships parents were facing and wanted to get a message of support to parents to help remind them of just how powerful their love is. #MillionActsofLove was designed to win parents’ hearts and thus, strengthen brand equity.

Our objectives:

1. Drive positive perceptions: Let as many parents as possible know Pampers sees and supports them.

2. Make it personal: Create content worthy of engagement to encourage small acts of kindness.

Our creative idea brought support and encouragement to the forefront of the cultural conversation around parental burnout. By reframing “I’ve got nothing left to give” to “I’ve given exactly what my child needs” Pampers delivered a powerful message — acknowledging that parenting can be hard and comes with losses, but tfacing those challenges with grace and love is exactly what makes a parent.

Pampers debuted When A Child Loves You, an online film inspired by the children’s book, The Velveteen Rabbit. The story’s message is that while loving others comes with sacrifice, love changes us for the better.

We teamed up with mom and entrepreneur, Shay Mitchell, to kick-off the #MillionActsofLove movement — activated across social and digital channels — encouraging everyone to share small acts of kindness to support parents in their lives. Loved ones and friends were able to share digital love notes, offers of help, and more.

#MillionActsofLove set out to speak to all parents of diaper-wearing children, especially moms. Pampers knew parents needed a reminder of just how powerful their love is, and it needed to reach them in the perfect moment where they could truly appreciate it and draw from it to keep going.

Recognizing moms were more likely to use YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, and Pinterest than traditional TV or print, the strategy was focused on these platforms. Beyond that, we needed to ensure that we offered an authentic voice in the tools that moms sought from those sites. We created custom audience segments in each platform across 1P, 3P, contextual, and behavioral audiences for the deployment. All of this was powered by an integrated team across agencies, media platforms, and internal stakeholders.

Then Pampers expanded the reach of the #MillionActsofLove movement to inspire friends and loved ones to offer encouragement to parents, too.

On Mother’s Day 2021, Pampers debuted a hero film, When A Child Loves You, which leveraged YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, Facebook, and Pinterest to drive views. And we teamed up with mom and entrepreneur, Shay Mitchell, to kick off the #MillionActsofLove movement.

We launched a branded effect experience on TikTok offering randomized acts of love for mom and the #MillionActsofLove challenge to drive awareness and activation. For Pinterest, share-able CouPins could be given to mom to show love and support — deployed with a promoted leader pin linked to a custom, sharable pin board. And we created lenses and filters on Snapchat to show moms love and appreciation.

Using time-based flighting, we developed a “Night Owls” program for Facebook/Instagram, soliciting words of affirmation and redeploying them to tired moms awake in the middle of the night. And on Pampers-owned properties a central branded website linked users to the various activation sites.

#MillionActsofLove exceeded all goals in the first week.

• 95 million video views across YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, Facebook, and Pinterest

• TikTok — 800,000 branded effect users; 10.7 billion hashtag challenge views

• Pinterest — 530,000 CouPins delivered

• Snapchat — 24.2 million lens impressions; 26 million filter impressions; 30 million unique users

• Facebook/Instagram — 5.5 million moms received “Night Owls” affirmations; 7.8 million impressions

• 1.4 million swipe-ups to Pampers’ website from influencer content

Pampers showed up for parents — garnering 99% positive sentiment around the campaign.

On Twitter, one mom shared “Omg the Pampers commercial made me cry… HAVE YOU SEEN IT? Oh wowza.” And it resonated with dads, too — “Dude, love the YouTube @Pampers commercial. Really tugged on my heart. As a daddy of four little ones, that was probably the only ad on YouTube I haven't just skipped. Well done pampers, lots of love."