In China, where being filial is a virtue, Mother’s Day is one of the most celebrated holidays of the year. It is the moment where children are expected to show respect to their mothers, mainly in the form of gifts. While most competitors see this holiday as an opportunity to boost sales, Avene, the French dermo-cosmetic skincare brand has a different point of view- to reinvent Mother’s Day with “Mother’s Mother’s Day”.

Avene invited female Chinese consumers to celebrate “Mother’s Mother’s Day” by sharing photos of their family with multi-generation of mothers on Chinese social media. In the end, we received one-of- a-kind photos from consumers all across the nation. The photos had a much more symbolic meaning, considering the government’s firm stance on the one-child policy.

Avene not only reinvented the traditional Mother’s Day, but more importantly, it created a new way of celebrating mothers, motherhood and maternal bonds in the hearts of our female consumers.

To initiate the social conversation, the short viral video was launched on Chinese Twitter, Weibo, a week before Mother’s Day with the hashtag #mothersmothersday. The video was also uploaded to popular video hosting sites like Youku and various popular female lifestyle websites such as Elle, Self and PC Lady.

Online users were invited to be part of the conversation by posting comments and uploading personal family photos with different generations of mothers. The hash tag soon picked up momentum and became a trending topic on Weibo and BBS forums, along with the large amounts of family photos that were submitted.

The campaign lasted for 11 days between May 1st and May 11th, 2014 –Mother’s Mother’s Day- the campaign came to a climax as the nation celebrated mothers all across China.

Within 11 days, our story received over 1,000,000 views on video sites such as Youku, Tencent and Sina, with over 2.9 million media impressions. Results from social media were also very positive, with a total of 40,274 re-tweets and 54,000 comments.

In the end, Avene successfully enhanced its brand image in the minds of our target consumers by reinventing and initiating a new way to celebrate mothers, motherhood and maternal bonds for all our female consumers.