Thank you, Mom!

Procter & Gamble spends billions of dollars advertising its arsenal of brands, from Tide, Bounty and Charmin to CoverGirl and Pantene and Olay. But the consumer packaged goods giant also spends a great deal marketing its products’ relationships with consumers—especially moms. And so ahead of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, the CPG brand has revived its “Thank You, Mom” campaign in all its Olympic glory.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57e4t-fhXDs

“Pick Them Back Up” continues the theme set in 2012 for the London Games, which featured “The Best Job,” that garnered over 21 million views. This year’s spot focuses on the physical transitions of childhood, from just learning how to walk to going on to ice skate, snowboard and play hockey—all with mom’s watchful eye there to dust off and make better any bruises.

The video “Pick Them Back Up” is as warm and fuzzy as it gets. It follows four future athletes—a skier, ice skater, snowboarder and hockey player—from their first (not so successful) baby steps to their Olympic debuts. But the ad isn’t really about the athletes, of course. It’s about the dedicated moms who were there to pick them up when they fell (which is quite a lot), ice their bruises and warm their freezing toes—and send them back out to try again.

“Thank you, Mom” is  a very successful campaign. In 2012, the campaign first launched simultaneously around the world with the digital release of “Best Job,” a short film that celebrates the role moms play in raising Olympians and in raising great kids. P&G recruited award-winning director Alejandro González Iñárritu to create the film, which is the foundation of the entire campaign. It was shot on four continents and features local actors and athletes from each location — London, Rio de Janeiro, Los Angeles and Beijing. The ad campaign ran online, in social media, TV and print.

The campaign came to life through a variety of media channels and in-store with a worldwide retailer program from April through August in 2012. Olympic Games-themed P&G branded products had been featured in millions of stores across the globe. As a part of the P&G Thank You Mom promotion, P&G committed to raise $5 million to support local youth sports programs in many countries, through a portion of sales and donations from the company’s leadership brands including Pampers®, Tide®, Gillette® and Pantene®.