Kitchen Warehouse and Special Help Hack Mother's Day Gift Algorithms With 'Mum-nipulation'

Kitchen Warehouse is helping Mums ‘mum-nipulate’ the algorithm this year, so their families get ads for the Mother’s Day gifts they *actually* want.

Mothers often don’t get what they want for Mother’s day. But this year, mums who want gifts from Kitchen Warehouse are able to sidestep this pitfall, thanks to the brand’s ‘Mum-nipulate The Algorithm’ campaign, devised by Special.

“Marketers have been using the algorithm to influence people for years,” said Nils Eberhardt and Simon Gibson, group creative directors at Special. “We thought it was high time for mums to have access to the same tools.”

The campaign is running ads that, when scanned or clicked, allow mums to pick the gift they truly want for Mother’s Day, and then serve ads for that gift to their family members.

"We loved working very closely with Special on this campaign,” says Adam Steward, head of performance and eCommerce at Hatched Media. “We developed a custom solution that relied on signals, such as a device ID, from in-store posters, OOH, display, and social media ads, to give mums what they really want. Once mum’s device ID was captured, highly targeted ads were served to anyone in her household, encouraging them to purchase the exact gift their mum wants from Kitchen Warehouse.”

There are six mum-nipulation techniques all up, including the ‘Algorithm Infector’ that uses QR codes to infiltrate family members’ algorithms when scanned, the ‘Sneaky Share’ that retargets families through innocuous-looking cat and dog videos shared by mum in the family chat, and ‘Microphone Mum-nipulation’; Digital Audio ads on the Nova Network that repeat product names out loud, so that any phones in earshot start serving up ads for it.

With the campaign well underway, hundreds of thousands of mums have already mum-nipulated the algorithm, ensuring hundreds of thousands of families get their Mother’s Day gifts right this year.

“Mums are our core customer,” says Simon Lamplough, chief customer officer at Kitchen Warehouse. “We know they'd love some Mason Cash bowls, or a Nutribullet or maybe a little something from Le Creuset this Mother's Day. But how can they make sure they get the gift they want?"

"This year’s campaign has allowed us to be much smarter with our marketing budget. Mums let us know what they'd like, and we spend money on their behalf, mercilessly targeting their families with ads for it -- it's delightfully 'Mum-nipulative'.