What types of Mother's Day deals are winning consumers over this year?

Mother's Day is fast approaching (12 May in Singapore and Malaysia, in case you forgot) and we have seen creative content put up by brands to commemorate the event range from humorous to heart-wrenching every year. While it remains unseen what brands are up to on social media on the day itself, insights from Digimind indicated that majority of the social media conversations on Mother’s Day that was driven by B2C companies, emphasised on special discounts, events and gift collections.Well-known brands such as Sephora, Shopee and Fitbit in Singapore as well as Superga in Malaysia clinched the top spots with the most number of interactions on their promotional posts. The most popular hashtags on the type of Mother's Day gifts are #flowers and #handmade, said the company. Marketers, on the other hand, are favouring experiences over gifts in their promotional messaging, to target children who want to spend quality time with their mothers to celebrate the occasion. Olivier Girard, customer success director APAC at Digimind said,This suggests a shift in consumer behaviour towards experiences instead of things. This is a trend that has been surfacing over the past few years.Examples extracted by the platform include spa package giveaway by Pandora, concert ticket contest by Gain City, and art and craft workshops by Epson Singapore, to succulent workshops by Vivacity Megamall and DIY sewing workshops by Brother International Malaysia. Unsurprisingly, experience makers in the travel and hospitality groups are also riding on the trend to provide meaningful Mother's Day gifts. In Singapore, hotels such as Lloyd’s Inn, Dorsett and Carlton City are holding contests for free staycations and dine-in discounts. Across the border, Malaysia Airports flew in fresh tulips from Netherlands for sale and Vietjet Malaysia is holding a social media contest for a free round-trip ticket.Reception by consumersDigimind meanwhile, saw a steady increase in the number of social media mentions as Mother's Day draws near, reaching over 1100 at its prime on 2 May. The four weeks saw a total of 8,000 mentions and one million interactions by 8,000 authors.According to an analysis by Meltwater from 11 April to 2 May, online sentiment surrounding around Mother's Day (as expected) was 83% positive, but both Digimind and Meltwater highlighted a post by a Malaysian beauty brand that has garnered considerable traction and caused a spike in online traffic related to the occasion.  The user called out Hemo Malaysia for holding a "distasteful" online contest asking fans to share what their mothers hit them with.The post on 29 April has over 1,200 likes and was retweeted over 2000 times. The netizen also described it as a disappointing and "disgusting" move that brings back bad memories.[embed]https://twitter.com/lipstickfiqs/status/1123070325284003841[/embed]Commenting on the backlash, Meltwater advised brands to be more careful of the content or messaging they are putting out in lieu of occasions such as Mother’s Day. It added in a statement to Marketing, "Simply leveraging an occasion is not enough, the connection must be authentic and mindful."