On one of the most crowded dates in retail — Mother’s Day — La Ganga, the largest home appliance retailer in Ecuador, chose not to compete with discounts or promotions, but with a deeply emotional and strategic idea.
In professional sports, everything has a cost. Every jersey, every story, every achievement comes with a price tag. Instead of investing in expensive sponsorships with well-known Ecuadorian athletes, La Ganga bet on the only people who would never charge for a post or a story: their mothers.
A campaign that turned the mothers of three elite athletes — Michael Morales (ranked #7 in UFC welterweight), Kiara Rodríguez (multiple Paralympic champion), and Luisa Valverde (South American wrestling champion) — into the true ambassadors of the brand.
Giant billboards were placed in their hometowns, featuring real phrases full of love and pride. Things only a mother would say to her child. No contracts, no influencers, no media spend — the athletes themselves amplified the campaign on their social media, spontaneously and genuinely, effectively hacking their own accounts with brand content through their moms.
The billboards left the streets and went viral across media and platforms, becoming a powerful earned-media channel. One of them even made it all the way to Las Vegas — on a t-shirt worn during Michael Morales’ UFC fight. A simple, strategic, and powerful execution that hacked the world of sports sponsorships from the most legitimate and emotional place of all: a mother’s love.
