Ad Of The Month

Nestle’s Ninho formula milk brand for growing kids already has one 5-Star Mother’s Day ad under their belts. In 2019 they released “Love That Lets Be”, a video celebrating the moments when mothers step back and let their kids be themselves – after supporting them all the way, of course. The ad struck a big emotional chord, and earned System1’s top rating. It was clearly a hit for the brand, as Nestle and Publicis have gone back to the well with a new ad, “Seu Amor Transforma” – “Love That Transforms”.

The theme this time is a little different. The 2021 ad is about how a mother’s love can help kids overcome adversity and transform their lives. That gives Nestle the chance to show a very inclusive selection of children, and emphasise how they encourage a fight against racism, ableism, and other kinds of prejudice. For instance, in one of the most striking segments in its montage ad, a mom and child – both in wheelchairs – pass a ball back and forth to one another.

The actual messages in the ad aren’t anything particularly novel – in fact they’re very much what you’d expect from a global brand playing attention to Mother’s Day in its local markets. So what makes the ad emotionally effective is its execution, which gets a lot of things right.

For a start there’s no voiceover – while there’s some text on screen, this is an ad which lets its soundtrack do the talking. It’s a very strong soundtrack, too, a cover of the familiar Beatles classic “All You Need Is Love”, which starts with solo childrens’ voices then expands to bring in the anthemic instrumentation of the original.

Both these elements are good ways of getting right-brained attention, which we know from Orlando Wood’s Lemon work is a great route to building emotional effectiveness. Voiceovers drive audience focus to the verbal, not the visual, so it’s better to leave them out – and familiar soundtracks serve as a cultural shorthand connecting the viewer to the wider culture and world. Aslo, most of the scenes with mothers and babies naturally show plenty of between-ness and non verbal communication. So even though this isn’t a linear ad following a single story, it’s built to appeal strongly to the right brain.

The results are strikingly effective. “Seu Amor Transforma” is one of the best bits of emotional advertising we’ve ever tested in Brazil, scoring 5.5-Stars and also managing an exceptional Spike score and strong Brand Fluency – people know who the ad is for, it motivates them, and they like it. Happiness is steady throughout but does hit a minor peak with the wheelchair-bound singer, suggesting the commercial’s message of inclusion is finding a warm welcome too.

All in all, a big success for Nestle Ninho, and one that sets the standard for Mothers’ Day ads in general this year.

View the full in-depth ad report.