Awards:
WARC Awards for Effectiveness NA, Gold, Instant Impact, 2024
Background
DoorDash, an on-demand delivery platform in the US, differentiates itself from other players in the category by championing neighborhoods through local businesses. As a neighborhood champion, the opportunity was to continue to expand deliveries beyond food, such as groceries, pharmacies, and more. All in efforts to grow business for both DoorDash and a larger range of local businesses that consumers could reach in the app.
But, while DoorDash has a wide range of offerings, 4/10 of consumers don’t know that DoorDash is more than food.
Flowers are the most popular gift option for Mother’s Day, with 74% of gifts in previous years consisting of the traditional, go-to, bouquets. If DoorDash could capture audience attention with a campaign for Mother’s Day bouquets, they could capture a large portion of the expected $35.7B being spent on Mother’s Day in 2023.
The Objectives:
200MM earned media and 54MM social impressions within 4 days.
Lift awareness +10pts and consideration +10pts.
Drive purchases of flowers on DoorDash, doubling sales from the year prior.
Strategy
88% of US adults planned to celebrate Mother’s Day in 2023 alone. But how they celebrate varies.
Only 52% of U.S. adults plan to celebrate Mother’s Day by purchasing a gift and 57% would take their moms for a special outing. DoorDash needed all Mother’s Day celebrants to want to gift bouquets, no matter what their Mother’s Day plans were.
Millennials and Gen Z consumers are the biggest Mother’s Day gifters, purchasing not only what they’d gift, but what the kids in their lives would gift as well. These aren’t meaningless gifters who grab a random bouquet from the grocery store for moms, they’re intentional gifters. 41% want to find a gift that creates a special memory, and 46% want to gift something unique or different.
Bouquets are the most popular Mother’s Day gift, 74% of consumers plan to buy them–they’re beautiful to look at and are almost expected as a gift to moms. Mothers are always appreciative of them, like any of the gifts they receive.
But Millennials and Gen Z needed flowers to feel more special. If DoorDash could change what a bouquets mean as a gift, Millennials and Gen Z gifters would celebrate the moms in their lives with flowers.
Why don’t flowers feel like a thoughtful gift?
DoorDash found that many moms don’t get thoughtful gifts from their children or partners. In fact, 84% of women admit to buying their own gifts for holidays and celebrations. Mother’s Day included.
54% of moms admit to buying themselves a Mother’s Day gift as a way to spoil themselves. When it comes to gifting, 6 out of 10 moms admit to giving the present to their spouse or children to then gift back to them.
Moms have the burden of making themselves feel celebrated around special occasions, eliminating the thoughtfulness behind a gift. In turn, flowers feel meaningless instead of loving. Moms shouldn’t have to buy their own presents to feel celebrated on a holiday that’s all about them.
The Strategy Bloomed:
Shift the purchasers of Mother’s Day gifts off of moms by getting anyone else to celebrate them.
Idea
While moms shouldn’t have to purchase their own presents, if they didn’t, who would?
The behavior needed to shift from moms celebrating themselves to others celebrating moms. And who better to celebrate a mom than the ones who make you a mom?
Kids.
Yet, kids don’t buy Mother’s Day presents for their moms. Why? Well, a quick search on Google for “Mother’s Day gift kid” shows various articles on craft ideas[9]. Kids don’t buy gifts, they have to make them.
So why don’t kids purchase Mother’s Day gifts?
The barrier was clear. Buying. They’re kids. They don’t have their own money to buy presents. It’s clear that they want to gift their moms a present for Mother’s Day. But crafting is the go-to gifting method because kids have to rely on an adult to actually buy a gift.
If DoorDash could get kids to purchase bouquets for their moms, it would help Gen Z and Millennials see gifting flowers as a special gesture again.
The Creative Idea
Give kids the ability to purchase Mother’s Day gifts with their own money.
To give kids the power to buy flowers for Mother’s Day, DoorDash created Kid Currency, a nationwide auction where kids could offer a bid for a flower promo code by sharing a picture on social of kid currency–items that kids feel have value–making bouquets a more meaningful gift for moms (with an adult).
Execution
Four days before Mother’s Day, DoorDash posted an announcement video across Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter, telling the world that DoorDash would be holding a flower bouquet auction and everyone was invited, but with a twist–items could be bid on using kid currency.
The announcement was coupled with PR informing people of how to enter the auction in two days by posting images on social, tagging @DoorDash, and using the hashtags #KidCurrency #sweepstakes.
Instagram meme page Pubity created a news-style post about the Kid Currency auction. Tank.sinatra humorously shared that his kids wanted to bid with pinecones. Family lifestyle content creators Rosanna and Winston shared auction details and start date, while Denise Otico guided users on bidding and ordering from local florists through the app.
Right before Mother’s Day, in-app, all markets saw banners that promoted purchasing flowers for Mother’s Day to ensure that everyone, even those without kids to help purchase a gift for, would be motivated to purchase flowers for a mom in their life.
Two days before Mother’s Day, DoorDash kicked off the Kid Currency auction with an instructional video explaining the entry mechanics for bidding on social.
To boost bidding, DoorDash partnered with influencers. Family lifestyle blogger Dr. Brittney Fusilier showcased her family's bidding and bouquet purchase on Instagram. Meme Instagram account iamthirtyaf encouraged people to buy their moms a DoorDash bouquet.
During the 2-day auction period, DoorDash responded to bids on Twitter and Instagram with pre-planned GIFs and videos to create a live auction feel. Responses would celebrate the bid a kid had entered or ask them to try again with a more “valuable” item.
After Mother’s Day, DoorDash sent an email to participants thanking them for their bid submission in the Kid Currency auction. On social, a recap auction video was shared that showcased some of the most creative bids kids had offered up during the auction.
Results
Kid Currency brought meaningful flowers to moms while:
Driving millions in gross merchandise volume over four days, creating DoorDash’s largest non-restaurant delivery day in history.
Third-party fulfillment and grocery store flower sales gross merchandise value reaching millions, increasing 340% from the same period in 2022.
Reaching 2x the earned media goal with 318MM impressions.
And, Moms and their kids had a more meaningful and love-filled Mother’s Day.