10 Mother’s Day contest ideas to help your next campaign hit the motherlode

Did you know that Mother’s Day has completely different origins in the UK and the US? In the UK, you’ll be familiar with Mothering Sunday, and probably assume it’s always been a day where we celebrate and spoil mum, right?

Back in the middle ages, on the 4th Sunday of Lent, you’d give your “mother church” a visit – that’s the church you were christened in, your parish church, or failing the first 2 options being applicable, your nearest cathedral. Bizarrely, the verb in Mothering Sunday refers to this church-visiting business, known as: “going a-mothering,” and has absolutely nothing to do with the act of raising a family.

The US’s Mother’s Day, by contrast, originated in the early 1900s in a much closer iteration to what we know now. Fundamentally, whatever version of Mother’s Day you follow, it’s a time to spoil our mums and let them know how grateful we are for everything they’ve done for us. For your business, it’s a time of great opportunity, as the National Retail Federation estimated that consumers planned to spend $35.7 billion in the US alone last year.

With that in mind, here are 10 original contest ideas you can use to make this Mother’s Day campaign your most successful yet.

1. Mum’s the Word (Word Search – Wordle)

Pick 2 or 3 5-letter words specific to your product or target audience, and either give users clues, or let them make smart guesses that will ultimately help them get closer to the correct answer, and let them try to solve the word before the grid is filled up with incorrect guesses.

When they solve a word, you can hit them with some pop-up content to deliver more of your branded messaging, and everyone who participates and fills in the data collection form is emailed a promotional code to drive conversions.

Pro tip: Enable the leaderboard to stir the fires of competition! Whether you’re targeting mothers, or people buying for their mothers, anyone who likes solving word puzzles likes solving word puzzles faster than everyone else even more – especially when they’ll get the public recognition!

This could be a great promotion for a bookshop, or any brand with a more intellectual clientele. (A love of reading is typically passed down to sons and daughters, so odds are if the person buying the gift is a reader, their mother is too.)

2. Which Movie Mom is Yours? (Personality Test)

Not everyone’s a reader these days, but movies are still a universal form of entertainment!

If you’re marketing for a cinema chain or even a streaming service, capitalise on the build-up to Mother’s Day with a customised Personality Test. Ask a series of questions for users to determine which movie mom is theirs. Are they fearless and forward thinking like Sarah Conner circa Judgement Day? Non-judgemental and laid back, like Rosemary from Easy A? Or an empowering dispenser of fortune cookie wisdom like Mrs. Gump?

This could be a great way to promote a revival series of screenings celebrating powerful mums on the silver screen – whether that’s powerful in a terrifying Pamela Vorhees kind of way, or “super powerful” like Elastagirl from The Incredibles.

Flip the script for more customer insights: People answering questions to describe their mum are answering based on their interpretation of their mum. Make the Personality Test’s title: “Which Movie Mom Would You Be?” and you’re getting first-hand user insights!

Are you prone to randomly up-sticks and go it alone on a Greek island like Donna Sheridan in Mamma Mia? Or, God love ya, do you know you’re destined to be a “no rules” wannabe “cool mom” like June George from Mean Girls?

3. Just How Momma Used to Make (Photo Contest)

Winner winner chicken dinner if you sell kitchen appliances or run a meal prep service!

Not every mum can be Delia Smith or Mary Berry in the kitchen, but pretty much everyone has a fond memory of a dish their mother used to make them, even if it’s just a Philly cheesesteak sandwich with a twist, or a mac & cheese bake with a secret topping.

Invite users to submit pictures of those recreated meals with the recipe for a caption, then share the images across socials with links to a connected Voting Gallery – the most votes wins a prize!

Bake your product into the experience: If for example you manufacture air fryers, why not make the challenge to adapt the recipe to be done in the air fryer? Better yet, make the Photo Contest a Video Contest so your users show your products in action in a mobile-friendly microformat.

4. Momma Needs a New Pair of Shoes! (Wheel of Fortune)

Build an instant win game like a Wheel of Fortune to distribute incentives to convert!

Embed them on your landing page or your banner so users get a 10% off promo as soon as they visit your site, or utilise them in-store to make the most of your increased footfall, and encourage more signups to your newsletter or loyalty programme.

Momma needs whatever momma needs: This kind of instant win game mechanic will literally work for any style of business. If you sell shoes, handbags, video games, or fitness equipment. If you’re a cafe, use it to dispense free coffees or pieces of cake for your user and their mum, and integrate it in your loyalty app.

Pro tip: You can include multiple prizes on the Wheel of Fortune, and what’s more, you can add smaller quantities of higher ticket prizes, such as actual products, and put them on for specific time periods, ensuring you keep some high ticket prizes available to win deeper into the experience.

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5. The Mother of Invention (Voting Gallery)

There are over 2 billion mothers in the world, and you better believe among those numbers are a diverse array of interesting women with varying hobbies. Some will like to bake, some will love shoes, but plenty will enjoy surfing, combat sports, and even woodworking!

Just because your business is in hardware or DIY doesn’t mean Mother’s Day isn’t a great commercial opportunity for you.

Challenge users to complete a DIY or craft project with their mother, submit pictures of videos of said project to a Media Contest, then connect it to a Voting Gallery and put that out to your widest possible audience to find a winner!

6. Soccer Moms Shootout (Football Game)

Again, not everyone’s a walking cliche! Plenty of mums are football fans, so if you’re in charge of the marketing for a team, factor this holiday into the fan experience!

Customise our Football Game in your team’s kit and colours, and invite your fans to put as many balls into the back of the net within the time limit as they can.

All scores are recorded on a leaderboard with the top 10 at the end of the campaign being entered into a prize draw. The first prize? A season ticket for you and your mum. Second prize, a hospitality package for the whole family, as well as kit and other merchandise.

Pro tip: Come up with a better title, you know we’re just going for the wordplay.

7. The Mom-entous Calendar (Advent Calendar)

You know how Christmas gets whole calendars devoted to it running for 24 days? Why not for Mother’s Day too?

Take the format, but instead of chocolate, it’s a series of your own branded games and experiences, each one becoming available on a new day, and have it run for a week, or even a few days in the lead-up to Mother’s Day. Select a mix of Quizzes, instant win games, and branded content to subtly educate users about your offerings while distributing incentives and prizes.

Pro tip: Target the buyer when customising the apps that make up your calendar. Mum’s not treating herself.

Maybe you position your calendar as “A son’s guide to jewellery,” or “what mothers want.” There’s potential to attract whole new customer personas during gift-giving seasons, which you can segment in your marketing, so link your games across social media, on strategic pages, and embed them on QR codes in ads and in physical locations.

This is an ideal promotion for especially giftable brands like jewellery, perfume, and designer bags. The longer format makes it a great shout for department stores and larger ecommerce operations working across multiple product-types.

8. Gifting Guru: Mother’s Day Edition (Product Recommendation Quiz)

A simpler play on the above!

Just ask a series of questions based on what users know about their mother’s likes and dislikes, then recommend the most appropriate gift from your range!

This is a great, quick gamified experience to help browsers buy the right gift for their mum from your range. Whether it’s finding the right perfume scent, selecting the right piece of jewellery, or the right flower package – this is a great one for gifts where your typical gift buyer is probably flying blind on the purchasing side.

Pro tip: This works just as well for more giftable items as it does for specialist items sons and daughters might be buying for Mother’s Day. Think wine, whisky, cheese, and electronic goods – anything where a little knowledge can go a long way to buying the gift she’ll appreciate the most.

9. Momager on a Mission (Dynamic Path™)

Create a tongue-in-cheek, multi-level playable experience using Drimify’s Dynamic Path™ to promote Mother’s Day!

Momager on a Mission invites your customer to take the role of a self-styled “momager,” determined to make her kid a star! (No matter how unsuited they are for the big leagues.) Try them out for the NBA with a customised Basketball Game, the NFL with an American Football Game, or maybe rugby or football could be the answer?

Perhaps sports aren’t for your kid. Maybe they’re a scholar, or a tour de force personality destined for notoriety on game shows. Quizzes, game engines like Pacman and Bubble Shooter adjusted to your branding and overall concept, all combined to deliver a fun, “live vicariously through a fictional child” kind of experience. With each game completed, players get their “kid” closer to stardom and success, whether that’s advancing down a red carpet to fame and glory, or climbing a mountain (pick the visuals that work for your brand).

All the scores get recorded on a global leaderboard so the momagers who pushed their kids the hardest can finish the campaign in the top 10 and be entered into a prize draw.

Pro tip: This sort of experience is ideal for brands with extensive product ranges. The journey from game to game, interspersed with promotional content allows you to explore a range of products or services.

10. Mother’s Day Match Up (Memory Cards Game)

Test the mental plasticity of your customers by inviting them to match cards denoting products as quickly as possible!

For some matches, you can include pop-ups telling them more about the product, and every player who finishes the game receives a promotional code to help you drive conversions.

Add a leaderboard: Like all points-based games on Drimify, you also have the option to enable the leaderboard, so you can hold a prize draw for the top 20 players at the end of your campaign to deliver high-ticket prizes!

Expert advice

By incorporating gamification into your next Mother’s Day campaign, you can engage all sorts of new customer personas.

Making a strong connection with a customer buying something for their mother on Mother’s Day makes it that much more likely that they’ll come back to you for birthdays, Christmases, and anniversaries.

The key is knowing who you’re appealing to, having a well thought out, on-brand concept, and promoting it extensively across all your available channels.

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