Mother had a great year in 2021, with revenue of $70 million, up from $50 million in 2020. And it did so by purposely limiting its new business pipeline.

Its independent status allowed Mother to focus instead on growing business with current clients including Target, Postmates, Sonic and Dave & Buster's.

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Mother launched Target’s “What We Value Most Shouldn’t Cost More,” a brand platform focused on attracting new customers by highlighting products that resonated with them such as BIPOC-owned brands, affordable organic groceries and size-inclusive apparel. The campaign increased brand relevance and appeal with new Target customers and helped increase traffic and comparable sales quarter-over-quarter. 

The agency helped reintroduce restaurant-arcade chain Dave & Buster's to a new generation of customers who have grown up with access to all kinds of entertainment. The year-round campaign—which included a 40-foot banana and a $250,000 promotional giveaway involving llamas—helped D&B continuously deliver week-over-week revenue growth versus 2019. The brand’s 2021 second quarter was the highest-performing sales quarter D&B has experienced, despite COVID-19 restrictions and staff shortages. 

Mother created Postmates’ “Don’t Cookbook”, which unlike a traditional cookbook, included illustrations of food alongside nonsensical instructions and a QR code that guided users to a Postmates page linking to local restaurants that made the dish.

The agency also helped launch a Panera Bread campaign as it prepared an IPO after a redesign and investing heavily in drive-thrus.

A big part of Mother’s success is due to Mother Ventures, in which it invests capital and creative services in exchange for equity in businesses. This has helped the agency think about businesses and brand growth holistically and bring that thinking to its work. Mother is up to 20 partnerships, including with non-alcoholic beverage company Ceria, started by Blue Moon Founder Keith Villa, and software company ProQuo AI. Other investments include Sir Kensington’s Ketchup and VidMob.