Many Brits are cutting it close when it comes to Mother’s Day preparations, according to new research from car sharing service Turo. The company analysed UK Google Trends data from 2024 and found a trend of last-minute searches for everything from gifts and bouquets to poems and card messages.
The findings also reveal a cheeky side to these last-minute efforts—Google searches suggest Brits are more inclined to copy messages for their mums’ cards than for their Valentine’s cards, revealing a higher likelihood of poetic plagiarism on Mother’s Day.
Leaving it late
Mother’s Day in 2024 fell on Sunday March 10th and in classic last minute fashion, it was March 8th that was the peak for searches for “flower delivery”. Flower delivery options were clearly front of mind, with the search term more than twice as popular as “takeaway near me” as Brits put Friday night treat meals to one side. However, even this was too organised for some, with “next day flower delivery” peaking the following day on March 9th.
According to the analysis, Brits will start to think about gifts for Mother’s Day in earnest around a week before the big day, with searches for “Mother’s Day gifts” peaking on March 3rd last year.
Plagiarised poems
While many might write genuine words of affection in their cards, searches for “Mother’s Day Poems” are incredibly popular, with Brits more than twice as likely to be searching the term than a year-long term such as “weather near me”. According to 2024 analysis, Brits are also more than 3 times more likely to search Google for Mother’s Day poems to write in their cards than Valentine’s Day poems, with many apparently drawing the line at stealing romantic lines for their partners.
The search term “What to write in Mother’s Day card” peaked on the day before and the day itself and is nearly twice as popular as “what to write in Valentines Day card”.
Mother’s Day trends
Throughout the whole of 2024, the week before Mother’s Day saw the highest search volumes for “afternoon tea”. “Moonpig” search volumes also peaked the week before Mother’s Day.
Despite the official name being Mothering Sunday, Brits continue to prefer the more colloquial term and are more than 50x more likely to search for Mother’s Day.
Searches for “when is Mother’s Day” understandably peak a few weeks before the day, but search volumes are almost as high the week before the US version of the day in May, indicating a lot of panicking children across the world are worried that they may have forgotten the important date.
Searches for Mother’s Day also trump searches for Father’s Day as Brits make their priorities clear to Google.
Rory Brimmer, Director at car sharing marketplace Turo, commented:
“These trends show that Brits are leaving things to the last minute when it comes to Mother’s Day and often not even writing their own cards. It also indicates that, as a nation, we are struggling to be creative with our gifts and more reliant than ever on convenient options for cards and gift ideas, the majority ending up booking the almost obligatory afternoon tea for Mum!
For those that are looking to truly surprise Mum this year, the gift of renting a car on Turo could be a fantastic way to show your appreciation. There is a wide range of options on the Turo platform, from the exclusive Porsche 911 to the accessible FIAT 500c. Best of all there’s no need to wait around at a rental desk or trek all the way out to an airport to pick up your car, it can arrive outside your door on the same day, ready to whisk your mum away.”
