• by Les Luchter , August 26, 2024

 

“Breasts Need Rest” declares Parento in an advocacy campaign leading up to the firm’s first Parental Leave Summit, a free online event on September 12.

What’s being advocated for, though, isn’t exactly the right to rest one’s breasts, but the larger concept of workers receiving paid parental leave after the birth of a child.

Five-year-old Parento’s business is selling parental leave insurance to employers, but the “Breasts Need Rest” campaign is directed at employees, with the goal being to raise awareness of parental leave, Tiarra Hamlett, Parento director of marketing, tells Marketing Daily.

The breast angle? A “very cheeky phrase” to tie in with the campaign’s Aug. 1 launch having coincided with the start of Breastfeeding Awareness Month, Hamlett acknowledges.

To be clear, Parento doesn’t advocate that women rest their breasts from babies feeding on them, “which is why we’ve partnered with two breastfeeding or lactation support advocacy companies,” Hamlett notes. (One such partner is the Pumpspotting app). “Most women or caregivers are not able to breastfeed because they’re forced back to work prematurely,” she adds. 

And, while the campaign’s graphics, created in-house, feature simple graphic representations of women’s breasts, the campaign advocates equally for men’s paternal leave.

“Men have breasts too,” Hamlett proclaims.

“When you have time to rest and time to take care of yourself through paid maternity or paternity leave, you have the option to better care for your family,” she says.

The campaign, which includes influencer marketing and paid social ads, encourages parents “to share their parental leave experiences and how they were able to rest, if at all,” Hamlett continues.

With an end goal being for HR departments to realize that they should have a parental leave policy, ”Breasts Need Rest” provides “ a lot of helpful tips and strategies to start this conversation with employers,” she says. “Oftentimes parents feel intimidated to talk to HR. They don’t know where to begin, or they don’t feel like they can talk. “

Parento is hoping that 500 to 1,000 parents will attend September’s Summit, with one content track devoted just to their needs.

And while outreach for the “Breasts Need Rest” campaign ends in mid-September, Parento’s advocacy efforts won’t be resting, especially with Election Day looming.

“We are pro-national paid family leave,” Hamlett says, and part of the Summit is a “very conscious effort to create a dialogue ahead of the election.” The keynote address will be delivered by Congressman Jimmy Gomez (D-CA), founder of the Congressional Dads Caucus. Another unidentified lawmaker will also be speaking, Hamlett reveals.

As part of “Breasts Need Rest,” Parento is also offering parents up to 150 free advocacy kits, consisting of stickers, pins and collateral materials. “Our goal is for parents to share it, talk about it and share their experiences.” Everyone who signs up for the kit also gets entered in a raffle, in which Parento partners will provide such prizes as “parent coaching session, an annual membership in a lactation or breastfeeding consulting group, to a partial paid parental leave stipend.”

Besides Pumpspotting, other partners include Cooper, The Mom Economy, Josie, the Maternal Care Institute, and Springbank Collective.