MIA Mums In Ads: The $876k Hand Cream

Leading up to Mother's Day every year, all across the nation, Aussie mums are barraged with stereotypes and platitudes in advertising. And for MIA's (Mums in Ads) it's a real double whammy - the ads are made by an industry that tends to penalise mums systemically. Working with The Parenthood - a non-for-profit that promotes fairer conditions for working parents - we wanted to highlight the jaw-dropping results from their recent research and catapult it into an industry conversation. Our interactive PR campaign featured a stereotypical Mother's Day gift, a hand cream, with an eye-watering $876,000 price tag - a sum representative of the cost of motherhood in Australia when combining lost wages and super.
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The campaign garnered widespread coverage in industry, women's and business publications - nudging just over 3.6 million in potential reach. It ignited a fuse of industry likes, comments and water cooler fodder. People were also able to bid on the hand cream via an eBay page, raising money for The Parenthood in the process.

And the total cost to make the campaign? A measly $28 bucks.