How do you follow an advertising effort celebrating mothers that’s so creatively arresting that it would go on to win a North American Grand Effie and a Silver Lion in Film at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity? By broadening it into a cultural movement.
The “World’s Toughest Job” campaign from Mullen Lowe and American Greetings was best in show at the Effies this year, and soon after garnered the Silver Lion for creative mastery.
The agency’s challenge was to persuade people to craft a Mother’s Day card with American Greetings’ Cardstore—at a time when only half of people buy Mother’s Day cards.
The work caused people to reconsider Mom as the amazing professional she is and realize importance of acknowledging her with a card. The video has received more than 24 million views, and the earned media effort for #worldstoughestjob increased American Greetings’ Cardstore orders by 20%, and user base by 40%, and met sales goals for the entire year.
“It was an intelligent idea,” said Clive Sirkin, CMO at
So the next step had to carry that inspiring idea forward, said Christy Kaprosky, VP of marketing at American Greetings. “When you hit it out of the park with something like this—it really sparked a lot of courage and creativity within our company,” she said.
“’World’s Toughest Job’ was about expressing gratitude for moms. So we started thinking more broadly about gratitude. Our category and all the occasions we represent—at the heart is gratitude. It transcends all the occasions.” Company leadership, together with Mullen Lowe, decided to step out with a social movement that “inspired people to say thank you,” Kaprosy said.
American Greetings launched #ThankList—a call to people to thank others and create a more caring and thoughtful world—at the end of March. It was the first brand purpose campaign for the 100-year-old brand. It has become a rallying cry for the business, enthusiastically supported by President John Beeder.
“Mullen Lowe brought us the insight that inspired the idea—all Americans believe we live in a rude world,” Kaprosy said. That insight came from the 2013 Civility in America study by Weber Shandwick. “Almost 90% believed we can do something about it. Expressing gratitude—they feel good when they do it.”
For Father's Day, American Greetings created an extension of its #ThankList campaign around the notion of thanking fathers, with a spotlight on childhood cancer survivor and father Ron Prince in one of the documentaries about gratitude created for #ThankList.
“Our consumers tell us over and over—they have a need for more meaningful connection. That’s the consumer insight we were expressing with ‘World’s Toughest Job.’ #ThankList transcends all occasions and all types of relationships,” Kaprosy said. “It’s also a great way for us to step out and show how we can break the walls of our category and show how our product can be part of our day-to-day lives. It does start with that consumer insight and that brilliant creative idea, and I believe that really was the key to our success.”
So does Kaprosy have any concerns about having set such a high bar? “It’s difficult to strike viral twice, or even once for that matter, so we definitely recognize we might never have another viral sensation,” she said. “We don’t see it as a challenge or that the bar has been set too high. What we see is an opportunity. It has inspired more creative thinking around developing innovative ways to reach our customers and get our message across.
“As the world of greeting cards continues to evolve, shaped by the digital age, we’ve used the success of ‘World’s Toughest Job’ to help maintain that we are not a dying brand, and the industry is still alive.”
