Your 2026 Guide to Mother’s Day Creative Best Practices

For Mother’s Day, great Connected TV ad creative isn’t just attention-grabbing — it captures real emotion and drives measurable action. And the opportunity keeps growing. 

This guide is packed with insights and strategies to help you craft compelling Mother’s Day creative for CTV that resonates with shoppers and drives results.

The Trends

TV and video are everything these days, and for good reason — viewers retain 95% of a message when they watch it as a video and Connected TV ad completion rates sit comfortably at 98%.

Which is why strong Mother’s Day ad creative is crucial for capturing consumer spending. According to the National Retail Federation, Mother’s Day spending reached $34.1 billion in 2025, with U.S. adults spending an average of $259 each to celebrate the occasion. In other words, shoppers are eager to celebrate, and brands have a meaningful opportunity to show up in ways that truly resonate. 

48% of consumers say finding a unique gift is important.

$259 How much the average adult spent on Mother’s Day shopping in 2025.

Top Gifting Categories: Flowers (74%), Greeting Cards (73%), & Special Outings (61%)

Creative Best Practices

We asked the creative experts at QuickFrame, MNTN’s creative solution, to share their most effective best practices for Mother’s Day video ads. Here’s what they had to say:

1. Include Mother’s Day-specific elements. Top gifting categories are a cheat sheet for tuning your ad creative to the Mother’s Day vibe.  Think: flowers, chocolates, island getaways and other special outings. Use such related elements as set dressing or props to get your ad into your shoppers’ headspace.
2. Create an emotional connection. Mother’s Day is the queen of emotional holidays. And emotion is a strong motivator for prioritizing what to spend on. Folks often want to express feelings of love, gratitude, and appreciation, so make sure your ad creative reflects these sentiments in your visuals and scripts. 
3. Pull your audience into the ad. Audiences like seeing themselves reflected in the characters, situations, and experiences featured in ad creative. Every family looks different — so make sure your characters and themes reflect that. 
4. Include a timely CTA. Much like those Mother’s Day-specific elements, a timely campaign calls for a more urgent CTA than the ones you use in evergreen ads. Since the holiday has a set date (this year, it’s May 10), include a time-sensitive reminder to encourage viewers to make their purchases before it’s too late. 
5. Create enough content to last throughout the entire campaign. When examining ad creative performance, our data found that a single holiday ad maintains its prime freshness for around 7 to 10 days on average. We recommend producing variations of your creative (remixed edits, new end cards, CTA, etc.) to get you through your campaign without risking undue ad fatigue. 

Making Every Impression Count

Mother’s Day is a high-intent, high-emotion moment — and on Connected TV, brands can turn that emotion into measurable performance. With the right creative strategy, timely messaging, and enough variations to stay fresh throughout your campaign, you can make the most of the $34.1 billion opportunity in front of you.