MANILA – Strengthening its footprint in the digital sphere, Philippine variety show Eat Bulaga launched an integrated campaign to celebrate mothers on Mother’s Day. In keeping with its vision of sharing “isang libo’t isang tuwa” (a thousand and one happiness), the show turned its attention on mothers and integrated special segments on offline and online platforms to shower them with appreciation on this day.
Developed by Havas Media Ortega, the week-long campaign kicked off on Facebook on May 2 with a wall post encouraging Eat Bulaga’s fans to send photos and greetings for their moms through Facebook, Twitter or Instagram hashtagged #EBMomsDay. Havas Media Ortega also incorporated wall posts featuring photos of Eat Bulaga’s hosts with their moms to create more hype for the upcoming celebration.
Beginning May 5, the program rehashed its classic noon-time segment titled, “Pinoy Henyo” (Filipino Genius), a two-minute game for pairs who are tasked to guess the word placed on one of the players’ forehead. This segment was changed to “Inay Henyo” (Genius Mom) to highlight moms and give them an opportunity to play on the show with their child. Along with the segment, Eat Bulaga asked fans to add #InayHenyo to their Mother’s Day greetings.
On May 8, Eat Bulaga released its teaser video on Facebook encouraging everyone to join their Mother’s Day celebration on Saturday. The campaign concluded on May 10 with Eat Bulaga solely dedicating their Saturday program for mothers as an advanced Mother’s Day celebration.
Incorporating HVMO’s social media initiative, Mother’s Day messages posted on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram were collated and featured throughout the show through screen pop-ups.
For the longest time, Eat Bulaga’s average Saturday rating has been at 8% in Mega Manila but with the show’s Mother’s Day campaign it heightened to 9.0%, beating its competitor, “It’s Showtime”, with 7.7% according to AC Nielsen Philippines.
The campaign created 68.2 million impressions from 2,974 mentions in Twitter. It also reached 1,865,864 million Facebook users and garnered 2,366 Instagram entries, which went beyond the usual response from other social media platforms aside from Facebook.
Commenting on the initiative, JM Villafor, HVMO Art Director, said: “Eat Bulaga has always put its audience at the center of everything they do. This Mother’s Day, it’s time to turn all our attention to mothers and show how much they deserve the joy and appreciation on their special day.”
Jenny Ferre, Eat Bulaga Senior Vice President for Production said: “A concept should know the soul of the client, its language, its culture, and its core business. When HVMO presented the concept for Mother’s Day, I knew right away that they know us – they know Eat Bulaga by heart.”
