This year, innovation meant taking an internal-facing policy and transforming it into the biggest brand awareness campaign we’ve ever invested in.
As the only mom-founded and led infant formula company in the US, our team of majority parents is passionate about passing paid leave at the federal level. The origins of this commitment extend to our DNA – from day one, we created a best-in-class policy for our team, offering up to one year of leave to birthing and non-birthing parents, allowing them to return to work on their own terms. Two years ago we open-sourced that policy so other companies could follow suit and this year, we transformed it into an external brand campaign with “Parents Push Harder,” alongside Naomi Osaka as she returned to the court. Why? 86% of Americans don’t have paid leave and 1 in 4 women return to work before they’ve healed from delivering their babies. In this critical election year, with federal paid leave on the line, we got loud about it.
We joined forces with Naomi Osaka, Bobbie MotherBoard member, new mom, and 4-time Grand Slam Champ to share her “return to work” story as she returned to the court after having her daughter. At the time, our inventory was restrained, but this campaign was focused on brand awareness and advocacy.
We know our consumers and they are parents who are activated for change. We like to say that once you become a parent, you realize the world isn't built for modern parenthood. Enter: Bobbie for Change, the social impact + policy arm of our business. Bobbie for Change launched in January 2023 and now is part of all of our brand campaigns in some way. However, the Parents Push Harder campaign was the first time that the impact was really the entire front and center of a brand campaign. We realized that we needed several key ingredients: the right spokesperson + the right timing + the right partners and the right Call To Action. Having our social impact arm sit within the marketing team and all of our work executed on in house AND that 2/3 of our staff are parents of young children, we truly live the fight for paid leave together. We uniquely are able to join together to tell stories, our stories. AND understand the impact of pairing the private sector scale with grassroots organizations who are set up to fight the fight around their pillar issues, in this case federal paid leave.
Our spokesperson, Naomi Osaka, is part of our MotherBoard, a celebrity board of activists who join us in our fight for modern parenthood. She returned to work on her own terms and we launched the campaign right upon her re-entering competition for the Australian Open. We paired this campaign with Chamber of Mothers, Moms First, Paid Leave for All and Glamour joined too because they owned the petition with Paid Leave for All. Having all of these organizations work on such a large campaign collectively is our way of unifying a movement that so long has been fractured.
This was a campaign was focused on brand awareness and advocacy. We led the conversation in a critical moment for our target audience (parents) around the lack of support Americans have when returning to work postpartum. By using our combined platforms to amplify and educate around Federal Paid Leave, we took out a full page ad in the New York Times, became the first infant formula company to run an advertising campaign on ESPN, and garnered 19 pieces of earned press coverage around the campaign, and none of it had anything to do with selling formula.
To take it a step further, we asked ourselves what we could do to support parents beyond creating awareness and driving signatures to the Paid Leave for All x Glamour petition for paid leave. So we opened up applications to the N.O. Support Grants - in partnership with Naomi - offering $580 to 50 families who could use a little support in their postpartum period. We asked them to tell us how they “Push Harder” and what they would use the money for. Why $580? Because if passed, the Family Act would grant families a monthly minimum amount of $580 – so we took it for a test drive.
We were floored by the campaign impact. The Parents Push Harder Campaign had a combination of advocacy, giveback and awareness -- three essential elements that deepened our relationships with the public, private and non-profit sectors as well as our consumers.
Innumerable learnings about paid leave from our grant applicants who were asked to share their leave stories and is now helping us with future advocacy:
