Fathers Day Marketing Campaigns

As Father’s Day is fast approaching this year (2 months today!) we thought we would reflect on some of our favourite marketing campaigns from the last few years. As always, June creeps up on us and suddenly we businesses are left with a week to pull together a campaign, and children everywhere are suddenly left with a week to panic-buy a gift for their fathers. Let’s not get caught out this year and make sure we get inspired and get creative.

Gillette

Major brand Gillette decided to sentimentally market Father’s Day by creating a video with the theme “Go Ask Dad”. In the video, fathers are shown to be wondering why their sons would rather Google a question rather than ask them. So Gillette surprised the children by asking them to Google questions such as ‘how to tie a tie’ and ‘how to shave’, and their fathers jump into the room and give much better advice, leading to a sentimental moment shared between father and son. It’s rather tear-jerking and shows that our dads really are full of knowledge.

Kleenex

Of course, the tissue brand is coming out with a tear-jerking advert – it comes in full circle! In the video designed for Facebook, fathers come in for a ‘career day’ at school but find that the tables are turned when after they do their presentation, their children come up and read letters that praise their fathers. The video received thousands of impressions on Facebook.

Google Chrome

A bit like our father’s, this one is an oldie but a goodie! Their campaign video showed a father setting up a Gmail account of his soon-to-be daughter. He first starts sending her emails when he finds out his wife is pregnant with her, and then continues throughout her early childhood, sending photos of her baby pictures, and other memories such as her taking ballet lessons and family holidays. In his final email, he explains how he has been sending these memories via email since she was born and how he can’t wait to show them to her when she’s grown up. This ad is relatable, inspiring, and absolutely adorable. Definitely one for the tissues…

And how about one showing what not to do?

eBay

Normally, Ebay’s marketing campaigns are great, however, their Father’s Day campaign of 2016 struck a few nerves with recipients. Their email campaign was sent with the subject line: “your father called, he approves of these deals”. Of course, it wasn’t meant to cause any offence, however, customers felt that the message was insensitive to those who had lost their fathers, or had not seen their fathers for a long time. eBay did apologise, however it just goes to show that you should be triple checking your campaigns before they cause any offence!

So start planning your Father’s Day campaigns soon, after all, they could go viral if you create a particularly moving one!