Care.com Gears Up for a Complete Brand Transformation with System1’s Test Your Ad Platform and Guidance
Often the most effective and authentic campaigns are built on real consumer insights. Care.com, one of the largest online marketplaces to find family care and care jobs, uncovered in its 2025 Cost of Care Report the significant mental strain that caregiving has on parents. Additionally, its 2025 Perception of Parenthood Survey found that many young adults are questioning having kids, and that comprehensive family care support, beyond just child care, influences whether adults become parents.
It’s clear that families need more holistic support—and that Care.com can play a vital role. But that required Care.com to reposition itself not just as a transactional site for nannies and sitters, but as a modern platform that can guide a new generation of families to find trusted child care, senior and adult care, pet care and house care.
So in 2025, Care.com approached its biggest transformation in the company’s 18-year history. It would introduce a complete brand identity overhaul, alongside an improved user experience for families and caregivers, and a renewed commitment to its members.
Care.com would also launch its first fully integrated brand campaign, “When it’s not you, it’s Care.com™”. The idea is rooted in a single-minded consumer insight: the hardest part of care’s never-ending demands is trusting someone else to give the care you wish you could. The campaign would acknowledge this truth and enable the brand to communicate in a more honest, empathetic, and emotional way than ever before.
Ahead of this critical launch, Care.com sought to better understand how this new direction would resonate with consumers, further committing to best serving its users.
“This rebrand is a complete paradigm shift in Care.com’s brand identity, creative strategy, and user experience,” said Meiling Tan, Vice President, Brand and GTM, Care.com. “Our goal with the launch was not to falsely pit brand against performance, but to achieve both, driving short-term and lasting business impact.”
Ahead of the external launch, Care.com turned to System1 to put a series of ads in front of consumers, all part of the “When it’s not you, it’s Care.com” campaign. The spots included some ads that lean more into brand storytelling, and others that dive deeper into the product experience, while staying true to the emotional core of the campaign.
System1’s Test Your Ad platform measures consumers’ emotional responses to creative to predict its commercial impact. Additionally, Guidance from System1’s experts helps improve creative’s potential by highlighting adjustments that can enhance emotional resonance and brand recognition.
“Communicating across multiple verticals is never simple and senior care is also uniquely nuanced,” added Tan. “We really wanted to test our approach and ensure it truly resonates with the families we aim to serve.”
The testing of the rough cuts affirmed that Care.com and partner agency Bandits & Friends had a solid foundation from which to build upon. The brand-building potential is expressed as a Star Rating (with a maximum of 5.9 Stars). The testing revealed the following results among the custom samples of U.S. adults with children and aging parents:
The majority of the 100,000+ ads in System1’s Test Your Ad Premium database fail to make consumers feel any emotional response. Thus, the average U.S. ad scores 2.7-Stars, equating to ‘Modest’ brand-building potential.
Each of Care.com’s ads performed well, predicting ‘Strong’ (4-Star) or ‘Exceptional’ (5-Star) long-term growth potential. Additionally, all of the more product-focused executions performed either ‘Strong’ or ‘Exceptional’ on System1’s Spike Rating, which predicts short-term sales potential. This was the result of the creative eliciting emotional intensity and effectively branding, the latter being especially crucial with a rebrand.
System1’s Guidance team offered feedback to further optimize the creative, including extending the duration of the logo placement on the brand spots to drive even higher brand recognition, removing certain shots to maximize the pacing and emotional journey, and brightening the spots.
Thanks to System1’s strong partnership and quick turnaround times, Care.com and Bandits & Friends were able to quickly implement meaningful enhancements to the ads. The spots, which can be seen across TV, video and social channels, are already generating a strong, positive response from consumers.
“With System1’s support, our team was able to take strong creative assets and make them even more impactful, giving us confidence that this new chapter for Care.com would resonate with families, and help us to make business impact both in the short and long term” added Tan. “We are so pleased that this campaign is resonating with people and excited to usher in this next phase of growth.”
"With System1’s support, our team was able to take strong creative assets and make them even more impactful, giving us confidence that this new chapter for Care.com would resonate with families and help us to make business impact both in the short and long term. We are so pleased this campaign is resonating with people and excited to usher in this next phase of growth."
Meiling Tan Vice President, Brand and GTM, Care.com
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