How To Successfully Use Holiday Marketing For Your Business

When it comes to holiday marketing, companies are no strangers to using international celebrations or global holidays to promote their businesses.

Whether it’s Christmas, International Women’s Day, World Mental Health Day, or anything else… if a company can make a quick buck off of it, they will.

But what’s wrong with this?

Well, nothing, really. It can be really successful – both in boosting your brand and spreading the word about a holiday or event. As such, International Celebrations are a great way to market your business – if done correctly.

When they’re done poorly, your business can end up looking superficial, inauthentic, and cheap.

That’s not what you want.

So, what should you look out for when it comes to holiday marketing?

We’ve compiled a list of the good, the bad, and the downright awful when it comes to holiday marketing. See if you can see what these companies did right and wrong. And, hopefully, don’t make the same mistakes they did!

Image Copyright Property of Hershey

For International Women’s Day 2020, Hershey launched a marketing campaign in Brazil that saw the changing of their bars’ names to “Her” and “She.”

Clever, right? Who doesn’t love a good pun?

What’s more, their packaging didn’t just feature the name change, but also images of influential and inspirational women. Musicians, artists, politicians – the bars paid homage to some of the greatest women ever born.

The campaign was all about promoting women and uplifting female voices. They even encouraged women to share their artwork, music, and more by using Hershey’s hashtag on social media.

So, why was this holiday marketing campaign a success?

Not only did the bars uplift women – even some including QR codes which would send people to the featured musician’s and artist’s pages – but the company also had the right intentions in mind.

In an interview with Muse Magazine, Ana Costa, HR Director at Hershey Brazil, said that they wanted to reassure their female employees that “they’re working for a company that acknowledges their value and believes in their potential”.

Meaning, that there was actual substance behind their marketing.

What’s more, with Hershey’s holiday marketing campaign, it wasn’t just a simple marketing ploy either.

It seems that Hershey puts its money where its mouth is! In fact, 52% of Hershey’s leadership is female. Meaning that they believe in their own message they’re promoting.

Now that’s a holiday marketing campaign we can get behind.

Image Copyright Property of Burger King

In 2019, during Mental Health Awareness Month, Burger King decided to partner with Mental Health America. Their holiday marketing campaign saw them changing their takeaway box designs to multicoloured ones which reflected different emotions.

From blue to symbolise feeling ‘blue’ to feeling ‘salty’, ‘pissed’, and lots of other emotions.

The holiday marketing slogan: “No One Is Happy All The Time.”

So, what’s the problem? Isn’t raising mental health awareness a good thing?

Well, firstly, the campaign idea seemed to be more about taking shots at its competitors than actual mental health awareness.

The images of the marketing campaign featured Happy Meal-alike takeaway boxes, and the campaign slogan couldn’t be denied as a jibe at McDonald’s.

Secondly, the ties to mental health seemed vacuous and artificial.

The 5 different moods represented in the meals – Salty, Yaasss, DGAF, Blue, and Pissed – did not seem to be related to mental health issues at all.

Sure, you could argue that they’re trying to raise awareness that not everyone is happy all the time. But, are ‘Yaasss’ and ‘DGAF’ really moods? And if so, what do they have to do with mental health?

Overall, Burger King’s mental health holiday marketing was a flop.

People took to Twitter confused. They questioned whether Burger King was trying to promote its products as a cure for mental illnesses?

What’s more, the company didn’t even go as far as to explain their thought process behind this. They made no announcements about the correlation between their burgers and mental health. They didn’t even attempt to rectify the blunder by offering a portion of their proceeds to mental health charities.

Ultimately, it was a holiday marketing failure.

Image Copyright Property of Poundland

In 2017, Poundland launched their Christmas holiday marketing campaign with their naughty elf.

If you haven’t heard of it, essentially, their holiday marketing campaign was comprised of different pictures every day of an elf in rather inappropriate positions and actions – each advertising a product Poundland sells.

From an elf dunking a teabag on someone’s face, to an elf holding a hairdryer accompanied with a particularly obvious innuendo, and even an elf imitating Miley Cyrus’ infamous wrecking ball scene – the ads were as hilarious as they were controversial.

So, what made this holiday marketing campaign such a success?

Primarily, it was because of how creative the campaign was. Having a different image every day of an elf in a naughty position was something that didn’t require a lot of help, set design, graphic design, or anything else. In fact, the budget for the 2017 campaign was less than £30.

What’s more, the campaign was very carefully designed. Whereas other companies had woefully fallen into controversy – Poundland embraced it. They planned their whole campaign on being controversial and getting lots of social media responses. And, as a result, thus became viral.

The reactions on each tweet would often succeed 10k, and views on the gifs and videos could range anywhere from 400k upwards.

As well as this, the holiday marketing campaign also engaged in a call to action. Followers were encouraged to submit their own captions for the photos. The winners would then go on to win Poundland vouchers to spend in-store.

Ultimately, it was found that the Christmas holiday marketing idea increased the number of people talking about the brand.

Perhaps controversy pays off, after all.

Image Copyright Property of Renault

Whilst humour can be a great way to promote a product or business, like Poundland’s naughty elf, sometimes it can go a step too far.

Take Valentines Day, for example.

The global holiday entices all sorts of companies to launch a holiday marketing campaign which is usually cringeworthy, extremely awkward, or centered around sex.

Take Heineken, for instance. In 2014, Heineken launched a holiday marketing campaign that promised a mystery box with a date inside. All you had to do to win said box was apply for it if you were a female. Oh, and have your partner publicly declare his love for you on Instagram. His act of getting mushy would reward a code being sent to you, unlocking the box, and freeing your date.

Well, what’s wrong with this?

Whilst the sentiment behind the idea – getting men to be more open about their emotions, have women feel more appreciated – but it was way too complicated in practice.

Whilst calls to action are a pretty good way to encourage people to speak about your brand, the whole process of applying for a box, tweeting, posting on social media, and waiting for it to be unlocked didn’t seem worth it.

Especially when the dates were couples’ tattoos or judo lessons…

Renault also decided it would dip its toe – or wheel – in the Valentines’ pool.

A few years ago they decided to launch a holiday marketing campaign which featured an image of one of their cars with the seats reclined all the way back.

The caption? “Renault wishes all young lovers an amorous Valentine’s Day.”

And whilst some could claim that this is funny, or mildly clever, others were a bit confused.

As a family brand, Renault using sex to promote their cars seemed to be a bit of a misstep.

Whilst it was definitely more subtle and implied compared to other Valentine’s Day ads out there – it seemed very off-brand and uncharacteristic of the company.

It certainly didn’t tarnish Renault’s reputation, however, but it definitely changed its holiday marketing ideas moving forward.

When it comes to holiday marketing ideas, there’s a fine line you must walk between humour and cringe, and advocacy and exploitation.

A good holiday marketing strategy will use an International Day or a Global Holiday to promote their brand or product, whilst also being mindful of what the holiday means.

However, not all brands can achieve this on their own.

If you would like to launch a campaign or social media marketing in celebration of an International Holiday, then please get in touch with us at Shape The Market.

We have a wide range of social media and marketing plans which would be perfect for your business. Contact us here.