Grab4Mom branded utility: turning empathy into a toggle

Picture a mother standing at the curb with a baby in her arms and a bag on her shoulder, waiting for her ride. The car arrives. She needs the driver to get out and open the door, take the bag, and slow down on the bumpy stretch. But she says nothing. She doesn't want to be a bother, and the driver looks like he's in a hurry.

According to Grab's award-entry summary on WARC, Vietnamese mothers often hesitate to say what they need. Grab Vietnam (the Southeast Asian ride-hailing and delivery app) built Grab4Mom around that insight, with a toggle in the app that lets a mother signal she needs help without having to speak up. The campaign won Bronze in the Branded Utility category at APAC Effie 2025 (APAC Effie).

Our reading at 126Insights: "mothers have it hard" is a line any brand can say, while "mothers are shy about asking" only shows up if you look closely. Once Grab saw it, its answer was a feature inside the app. Vietnamese brands should stop telling customers they understand them and turn that understanding into something customers can tap and use right away.

What is branded utility, in short?

At 126Insights, we take branded utility to mean a brand building a tool, service or feature that is useful to customers, so they feel the brand understands them simply by using it. This is our own working definition, not an official Effie one. Advertising says "we understand you." Branded utility lets a button or a process say it instead.

Think of the corner coffee shop where the owner remembers you like less sugar. By your third visit, the cup is right before you say a word. She doesn't need a banner reading "We understand our customers." You come back because you don't have to explain.

APAC Effie has a category called Branded Utility. In the 2025 edition, Grab Creative Studio's Vietnam entry, "Grab for Moms – Outserving Moms in Need," took Bronze in it (APAC Effie 2025 winners list). The ceremony was held on 19 September 2025 in Singapore, with 81 winning campaigns (APAC Effie).

Photo by Engin_Akyurt on Pixabay

Where did Grab find the need?

According to WARC, hospitals and clinics are among the top 10 destinations for GrabCar trips. MMA describes the campaign as built on Grab's transaction data and existing ecosystem.

It is easy to skim past this detail, but we think it is the first thing worth learning. Destination data already sits inside a ride-hailing company's system. The value came from reading it with the right question: who is traveling to these places, and what do they need but haven't said?

Every Vietnamese business has a similar store of data, even if smaller: order history, the hours customers order, the notes they type at checkout. When did you last read those notes?

What does the Grab4Mom campaign include?

Per WARC and MMA, Grab4Mom has three parts:

• An Assistive Ride Toggle in the app, so a mother can signal that she needs help discreetly.
• Driver training and a service handbook.
• A Grab4Mom monthly package with discounts on trips to and from hospitals and clinics.

The toggle is the part that photographs well. What decides whether it works is the person at the other end. If a mother flips the switch and the driver doesn't know what to do, her awkwardness just moves from boarding the car to sitting in it. The handbook and training turn a signal on a screen into something done in the real world.

A feature on a screen is a promise. The person delivering it is where the promise is kept or dropped. Holding quality through people is not unique to ride-hailing; if you're curious, read 126Insights' piece on Chu Long salt coffee and how it protects its name.

How to read the Grab4Mom numbers

Start with where the numbers come from. The figures below were published by Grab itself in its MMA Smarties entry (a marketing award run by the Mobile Marketing Association), as summarized by WARC. MMA Smarties and APAC Effie are two different awards. Numbers a company publishes to win an award are best read as the company's own account.

Four figures were reported:

• Trip ratings rose 25%. WARC uses the phrase "booking ratings," meaning rating scores, not the number of trips booked.
• Tips on assisted trips were 37% higher. According to Advertising Vietnam, the benchmark is a standard trip, so this is a gap between two kinds of trips, not growth over time.
• Users grew 15% a month. The source doesn't say whether these are users of the monthly package, the toggle or some other service.
• 2% of the discount codes for hospital trips were used. The source doesn't say how many codes were issued.

The number we find most interesting is 37%. A tip is money the customer hands directly to the driver. Higher tips on assisted trips mean drivers also share in the value the campaign creates. Grab doesn't say this; it is our inference at 126Insights. But it hints at why a feature like this can last: drivers have a reason to do their part well. Vietnamese has a saying, "có qua có lại mới toại lòng nhau" (roughly, one good turn deserves another), and here both the mother and the driver get something.

The second number to read carefully is 2%. If the discount were what mothers needed most, the redemption rate would hardly be that low. Set beside the 25% rise in ratings and the 37% tip gap, our reading is that the value lies in a mother being helped without having to ask, with the discount as a side benefit. Since we don't know how many codes went out, 2% isn't enough to conclude anything about the monthly package. It is enough to make a brand running a similar campaign ask: if the budget gets cut, do we cut the discount or the training for the people delivering the service?

As 126Insights wrote in after-sales promises are part of the product, what happens after the tap is also something the customer buys.

How can a Vietnamese brand build its own toggle?

Marketers who serve new mothers (the "mẹ bỉm sữa" segment, moms of babies and toddlers) are used to the line "mothers have it hard." Grab4Mom suggests a different question, one that works for any customer group: what are they tired of repeating, or too shy to ask for? That leads to three steps: find the sentence customers hesitate to say, turn it into a tappable option, then prepare the person who will carry it out.

A few hypothetical examples:

• Suppose a drink chain lets customers save "less sweet, no ice" in their account and prints it on the cup sticker. Customers no longer repeat it with every order. The condition: the making process must include a step to read the sticker before pouring.
• Suppose a spa adds a box reading "I would like a quiet session" to its booking form. The box means something only if therapists are told exactly what quiet is: ask only what the service needs, and don't pitch other packages.
• Suppose an online shop adds a "discreet delivery, no product name" option. The warehouse needs plain packaging on hand, and the shipping label must not name the item.

All three share a structure with Grab4Mom: a button on the customer's side, and a prepared person on the brand's side. Without the second half, the button is an empty promise, and an empty promise in an app disappoints customers more than a slogan does, because they trusted it enough to tap.

One thing to do this week

If you are finalizing next year's plan and want to look back at the last Tet season (Lunar New Year, Vietnam's biggest shopping period), see 126Insights' piece on the 2026 Tet campaigns.

The task for right now: open your order notes, or ask your customer care team, and list the ten things customers have to say most often. The top of that list is where your first toggle goes. And before you put it in the app, ask the person who will carry it out: do they know what to do when a customer taps?