Alexandria, VA – The Society of American Florists and its members were instrumental in promoting favorable media messaging and discouraging negative floral advertising this Mother’s Day.
On behalf of the industry, SAF reached out to over a dozen businesses that disparaged flowers in their Mother’s Day marketing, prompting two organizations to take action to correct their messaging.
“SAF knows how important it is to send the positive messaging about the benefits of flowers, not just at floral holidays such as Mother’s Day, but year-round,” says Elizabeth Daly, SAF’s marketing and communications manager. “We are pleased to see that these organizations were receptive to how they disparaged flowers and were eager to correct their mistakes.”
Fresh Cut Paper, a company that creates pop-up greeting cards, removed its Facebook ad that included one of their floral bouquet greeting cards next to a vase of dead flowers. The ad said, “Freshcut Paper. Finally, flowers that last forever.” After SAF reached out to the company, the director of operations responded with a positive message. “We agree completely and have asked our marketing company to remove that ad immediately. We really appreciate you bringing this to our attention, and we will do better in the future!”
Westchester Magazine published a story with the headline, “Mom Will Love These Locally Made Mother’s Day Presents. This Mother’s Day, skip the flowers and shop from local, online stores and makers for a one-of-a-kind gift that Mom is sure to appreciate.” SAF asked the magazine to reconsider the message to “skip flowers” and reminded the magazine that there are many local florists. The digital managing editor replied, saying they would “update the article accordingly.” The headline has since been changed.
SAF’s advocacy work also proactively kept one writer from dogging flowers. The author of an article published by the business news website PYMNTS.com knew of SAF’s negative publicity outreach and was careful to give a nod to flowers first when writing an article suggesting gifting mom cryptocurrency and NFTS (non-fungible tokens). In the article, the author pointed to a National Retail Federation survey that found flowers were expected to be a top gift. Then, before promoting cryptocurrency and NFTS, the writer quoted an SAF NOW article, noting that the association had “registered its displeasure with several Mother’s Day gifting campaigns” that bashed flowers.
Florists can learn more about speaking to the media and combating negative press year-round here. See all the businesses SAF contacted during Mother’s Day 2022 here.
About The Society of American Florists
The Society of American Florists is the association that connects and cultivates a thriving floral community through training, education, marketing resources and advocacy. Our vision: The power of flowers in every life. For more information, visit SAFnow.org.
