• by Sarah Mahoney  @mahoney_sarah, April 30, 2019

For Mother’s Day, Teleflora usually milks the weepiest moments of the maternal relationship. But this year, the company is playing for laughs, good-naturedly reminding us all that it’s probably a good thing we only have one mother.

Spots show the consequences of blowing other people’s noses, wiping schmutz off a stranger’s face or giving ill-timed pep talks to those next to us in the interview line.

Themed “Love Like A Mother,” the new campaign stars women and men randomly mothering strangers. Ads end with the line “If only the world loved us like you do, Mom. Happy Mother’s Day,” and are the latest in the company’s “Love Out Loud” platform.

“We’re very comfortable with heartfelt sentiments,” says Amber Justis, executive creative director of Wonderful Agency, the in-house agency for the Wonderful Company. (Besides Teleflora, the Los Angeles-based company also owns Wonderful Pistachios, Pom Wonderful juices and Fiji water). “Once we started playing around with this idea of nobody loving you like your mother does, we didn’t feel like we needed to limit the scope of emotions that 'Love out loud’ articulates. Sometimes, love is funny.”

The two main ads are 55 seconds and 30 seconds long, but Justis tells Marketing Daily that the improv cast the agency worked with had such a good time with the material that it developed eight more 15-second unscripted versions. Those have been optimized for social media and are running on Instagram and Facebook.

Ads are also airing on YouTube and connected TV and desktop.

Teleflora, which connects 10,000 florists in the U.S., is the world’s leading floral delivery service, and Mother’s Day is its largest revenue holiday of the year. (Christmas and Valentine’s Day are next.) The National Retail Federation predicts that 67% of the Americans celebrating Mother’s Day this year will buy flowers for somebody, with an average price of $20 and a total outlay of $2.6 billion.