This Sun­day, June 21, marks one of the most impor­tant days in the annu­al mar­ket­ing cal­en­dar: Father’s Day. Unlike Moth­er’s Day, Father’s Day is unit­ed in the Eng­lish speak­ing world (falling on the same day both in the U.S. and UK). so Father’s Day is bound to gar­ner sig­nif­i­cant reach on both sides of the Atlantic. Father’s Day is a pop­u­lar cel­e­bra­tion which is held in gen­uine regard by many. So which brands have best grasped the con­sumer mood, deliv­er­ing the best moments in recog­ni­tion of the spe­cial day?

Dad­ver­tis­ing, it seems, rep­re­sents a safe bet in 2015.

Those who fol­lowed the brand activ­i­ty around the Super Bowl ear­li­er this year like­ly noticed a trend in growth of adver­tis­ing fea­tur­ing short, emo­tion­al films about peo­ple’s rela­tion­ships with their fathers. “Dad­ver­tis­ing” saw brands includ­ing Toy­ota, Nis­san, and Dove Men+Care putting out engag­ing, and high­ly shared and talked about videos. All three of the afore­men­tioned brands scored high­ly for their efforts in USA Today’s Ad Meter, and gained mil­lions of shares on YouTube to boot.

It stands to rea­son that Father’s Day is set to see a return of Dad­ver­tis­ing in a big way. Cer­tain­ly for Toy­ota and Dove Men+Care, which have reprised their Super Bowl cam­paigns with fresh con­tent, themes of father­hood are con­sid­ered a pos­i­tive con­ver­sa­tion for brands to have.

But when it comes to mar­ket­ing around Father’s Day, the key word is authen­tic. Father’s Day cel­e­brates one of the most per­son­al rela­tion­ships that peo­ple have, and it’s unlike­ly that peo­ple will appre­ci­ate being bom­bard­ed with dis­play ads or email cam­paigns adver­tis­ing dis­counts on socks, razors, or oth­er typ­i­cal “dad gifts.”

Here’s an overview of some of the most notable mar­ket­ing around Father’s Day 2015.

3 Inspirational Brands Capturing the Moment for Father’s Day

1. Toyota’s Father’s Day Redo #OneBoldChoice

Toy­ota’s “My Bold Dad” was arguably the biggest hit of the Super Bowl “dad­ver­tis­ers,” scor­ing a 6.6 on the Ad Meter. For Father’s Day, they’ve fol­lowed up the ad with a cou­ple of touch­ing new films explor­ing an emo­tion­al reunion between a father and son.

In the past few years, emo­tion­al sto­ry­telling has proved itself to be a fan­tas­tic medi­um for dig­i­tal video. Not only does it appeal to peo­ple’s emo­tions, it gives brands an oppor­tu­ni­ty to show the role they can play in con­sumers’ lives.

Toy­ota’s “Father’s Day Redo” is a fan­tas­tic exam­ple of a brand pre­sent­ing a cus­tomer-cen­tric vision of the sim­ple but mov­ing role that the brand can play in peo­ple’s lives. The Cam­ry is a mod­est fam­i­ly car that bridges dis­tances and allows peo­ple to con­nect.

The cam­paign is run­ning with the #OneBold­Choice hash­tag, and the video’s cap­tions also encour­age peo­ple to do more to show their appre­ci­a­tion on Father’s Day. How­ev­er, what con­sumers will like­ly take away from the cam­paign is the authen­tic­i­ty of Toy­ota’s mes­sag­ing, pre­sent­ing emo­tion­al doc­u­men­tary of real peo­ple (Toy­ota even spon­sored key influ­encers on YouTube), and the way they have ele­gant­ly cap­tured the spir­it of Father’s Day.

2. Dove Men+Care #RealStrength

Dove Men+Care and Toy­ota both adopt­ed a sim­i­lar strat­e­gy after the suc­cess of their Super Bowl cam­paigns.

Build­ing on their con­cept of #Real­Dad­Mo­ments, which has been a mas­sive online hit, Dove Men+Care have sourced viral videos show­ing mov­ing moments of men find­ing out they’re going to be a dad for the first time.

The genius of this cam­paign is that in col­lat­ing videos which have already proven them­selves to be a hit, the cam­paign is more or less ensured to be a suc­cess. In this sense, Dove Men+Care’s strat­e­gy for uti­liz­ing the YouTube plat­form, and work­ing with con­sumers to source authen­tic con­tent for their cam­paigns, is an incred­i­ble strat­e­gy that demon­strates what brands can do when they take a con­fi­dent approach to con­tent shar­ing net­works and con­sumer engage­ment.

3. TIME Magazine’s ‘Letters from Dad’

To cel­e­brate Father’s Day, TIME Mag­a­zine has pub­lished a series of let­ters from influ­en­tial fathers to their chil­dren, includ­ing the likes of hip-hop mogul Rus­sell Sim­mons, musi­cian Pete Wentz, actor Hank Azaria, and writer/director/producer Lee Daniels.

The let­ters are incred­i­bly mov­ing, and at times down­right inspi­ra­tional. For exam­ple, here’s what Wentz wrote:

Boys: always take the high road, even when the low road seems eas­i­er or sim­pler. Let your kind­ness radi­ate and defend those who can­not defend them­selves. Be your­self when it is not pop­u­lar to be. Love your friends not in spite of their flaws but because of them. Bronx, I remem­ber once ask­ing you what your favorite col­or was and you said, “Red, black and the col­or of light­ning.” Nev­er let the world take away your cre­ativ­i­ty and diver­gent think­ing. Be the col­or of light­ing, be wild, and always laugh a lot. Nev­er for­get who you are.

Many of the let­ters cap­ture a sense of raw emo­tions, the love, pro­tec­tive­ness, and devo­tion, that father­hood entails. It’s a sim­ple cam­paign, but one that presents a real authen­tic­i­ty, and does­n’t com­pli­cate its mes­sag­ing with any obvi­ous agen­da.

The let­ters have been a hit on Twit­ter, spurring a great deal of pos­i­tive con­ver­sa­tion about Father’s Day.

Read Pete Wentz’s touch­ing Father’s Day let­ter to his sons: ‘Be the col­or of light­ning’ http://t.co/Wjy1R3GT97pic.twitter.com/RQmltOMSeO

— TIME.com (@TIME) June 15, 2015

Angel Soft Bucks the Trend #HappyFathersDayMom

One notable omis­sion from this list is Angel Soft­’s #Hap­py­Fa­thers­Day­Mom cam­paign, which took up a unique stance on cel­e­brat­ing Father’s Day:

While the cam­paign has nat­u­ral­ly received a great deal of indus­try cov­er­age, it has also divid­ed opin­ion amongst con­sumers: The cam­paign has sparked gen­uine con­ver­sa­tion, but per­haps at the expense of the feel-good mar­ket­ing that defines Toy­ota or Dove Men+Care’s cam­paigns. It may still prove to be a good move for Angel Soft, but the cam­paign took a risk in try­ing some­thing new, and not build­ing on the suc­cess of pre­vi­ous cam­paign con­tent like the two afore­men­tioned brands.

What Makes A Great Father’s Day Campaign?

What’s clear from these three exam­ples is that some of the key qual­i­ties for brands to cap­ture when engag­ing in a con­ver­sa­tion about Father’s Day, are authen­tic mes­sages and inspi­ra­tional sto­ries about pater­nal rela­tion­ships.

Greg Jar­boe, Pres­i­dent of SEO-PR and author of YouTube and Video Mar­ket­ing, explained why pro­vid­ing an emo­tion­al con­text via videos is par­tic­u­lar­ly effec­tive for brands:  “Over the years, numer­ous stud­ies have found that our brains are far more engaged by sto­ry­telling than a recita­tion of cold, hard facts. Sto­ries are illus­tra­tive, eas­i­ly mem­o­rable, and allow a brand to cre­ate stronger emo­tion­al bonds with cus­tomers. That’s why video is a con­tent marketer’s best medi­um for sto­ry­telling.”

Father’s Day is essen­tial­ly an event about one of the most per­son­al and unique rela­tion­ships that peo­ple have. Brands that wish to engage in such con­ver­sa­tions should­n’t look at Father’s Day with a mind for quick wins, but instead a much more long-term strat­e­gy to build brand aware­ness and iden­ti­ty.

It’s clear why Toy­ota and Dove Men+Care have con­tin­ued to invest in Father’s Day con­tent. For them, brand iden­ti­ty is para­mount for them to con­tin­u­ing win­ning moments of truth, and con­sumer choice. Their con­tent ties their brand and prod­uct to the way peo­ple are feel­ing in a par­tic­u­lar moment, engag­ing a moment of of height­ened con­sumer emo­tion. TIME mag­a­zine has also man­aged to gen­er­ate an incred­i­ble sto­ry­line in the build up to this Sun­day.

All three brands have uti­lized gen­uine con­sumer reac­tions and sourced con­tent to deliv­er a sense of real authen­tic­i­ty. All three brands are fan­tas­tic exam­ple of cus­tomer-cen­tric mar­ket­ing, and the brands will undoubt­ed­ly enjoy a impor­tant moment of pos­i­tive con­ver­sa­tion around Father’s Day as a result.

What has been your favorite exam­ple of brand con­tent or con­ver­sa­tion around Father’s Day?