Ho Ho Holiday Marketing: 5 Campaigns That Nailed It
It’s starting to look a lot like Christmas... The rush of the holiday season is already upon us. Which means, it’s time for you and your brand to start thinking about how to celebrate this holiday season in style. It’s time to start building your holiday campaigns that are loyal to your customers. It is time to create the viral content that gets chins wagging.
Whatever you do, as Joey (from the famous American Sitcom F.R.I.E.N.D.S) says, it’s the time for giving and receiving as well as having and sharing.
Thanks to Joey
Learn how to bundle up your holiday campaign in a warm, fuzzy way
The holiday season is the time when brands connect more with their audience. Why put in the effort? It’s not just because brands enjoy getting merry. Did you know an effective holiday marketing campaign can drive up to 40 percent more sales?
That’s definitely a huge leap and to keep up with the race, you need to start now if you haven’t already!
Try to experiment with a new tone of visual and voice content this holiday season. To give you a helping hand, here are some of the most successful holiday marketing campaigns from around the world.
LEGO Australia: Build it together this Christmas with your favourite LEGO Sets
Lego Australia came up with this amazing ad to top the Christmas advertising pile with a stop-motion animation about how with the help of Sensei Wu, Santa finds his way home to save Christmas, thus putting Lego back on every kids Christmas list.
Agency: CHE Proximity
Why did it work?
As soon as you watch the ad, you know it’s holiday season. Warm lighting, festive characters and even the sound of sleigh bells immediately invoke the friendly festivities of this time of year. As the video progresses, we watch the epic quest of LEGO characters rescuing Santa from under the bed. It’s fun, it’s playful, and it’s fantastic advertising. What’s so smart about this? By setting the story in a child’s bedroom, the ad encourages children to have their own holiday adventure through LEGO toys. Building a story around lost toys is a fun tongue-in-cheek touch for parents too, who often have to crawl about the house finding them! Memorable for children (and those buying their gifts) alike, this is a heartwarming ad that appeals to young and old.
The other plus? Holidays are a time of celebration for everybody, and Lego made ‘diversity’ a pivotal part of their holiday campaign with the wide ethnic range of characters involved. Gifts for everyone this season!
Booktopia -- the ELF on the SHELF
Last year, the Booktopia came up with elf themed toys that appeal to the holiday season thus attracting seasonal traffic.
Why did it work?
‘Elf on the Shelf’ is a cute children’s storybook character with a long history. Nostalgic parents often look to buy a copy for their own children, and Booktopia smartly anticipated this. As the holiday season hit, and parents began thinking about Christmas traditions, Booktopia’s display ad campaign had already begun to snap up sales from their competitors.
Bath & Body Works Australia -- 24 Days of Christmas
Looking locally this time, Bath and Body Works Australia came up with a series of contests based around the 24 days before Christmas. They placed their products and offers centre-stage through email newsletters and in social media with daily posts that still managed to feel fresh and engaging, keeping their products in the forefront of customers’ minds.
Why did it work?
Many things went right for the brand Bath and Body Works, last Christmas, like;
- They were able to focus on repeated customers without draining their holiday excitement.
- The pictures were cleverly-designed to give customers an ‘unboxing’ experience, drawing on holiday colours, images and ribbons to make each image feel like a present (and suggest to shoppers where to find their own).
- They did a great job of putting themselves in the shoes of the customer and came up with many contests and prizes.
If you’re aiming for repeated visitors over this Holiday season then delight your customers with a series of offers. The holiday season provides a great opportunity to get your potential customers to talk about your brand on social media.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BcIyDChn3Di/?taken-by=bathandbodyworks.au
https://www.instagram.com/p/BcQgjb2nzHw/?taken-by=bathandbodyworks.au
https://planetmedia.com.au/blog/holiday-marketing-5-campaigns-that-nailed-it/
Ghost With Uber
Ghosting, Smoke-bombing, Phantoming -- we’ve all wanted to leave a party at some point. Words like these are all a part of the modern vernacular. During the last holiday season, Uber along with Drinkwise and Clemenger BBDO Melbourne launched ‘Ghost with Uber’ aiming to help people avoid the peer pressure to keep drinking at holiday parties when all they want is to call it a night and get home safely. The feature allows you to message your friends after leaving, letting them know you’ve gone for the night.
Why did it work?
- They were able to find the brand’s unique holiday angle, identifying a problem many people have during the holiday season and bridging that gap with their service. This was a smart way to drive business & positive customer sentiment through helping to solve a real problem.
- They co-branded their campaign with Drinkwise. Co-branding allows you to reach out to a wider customer base while providing your customers something new to consider.
Oreo
You don’t just eat an oreo. You experience it almost ritually. Chant along with us: first, you twist the cookie, lick the cream filling, put the cookie together, dunk the cookie in milk and then drink it.
Last Christmas, Oreo came up with the new ‘Wonderfilled’ holiday campaign of a series of animated videos surprising the world with a new sense of awe.
Why did it work?
While most of the companies/brands are trying to bring real-time videos to their marketing campaigns, Oreo did a simpler work by creating a series of animated videos to develop customer trust, personalise conversations and to create a lasting customer connection.
They identified a real problem many of us experience during the holiday season (namely the stress of buying gifts or hosting large parties). The holiday season leaves many adults saying no, no no, instead of ho ho ho! Oreo connects with people through acknowledging this issue, then transforming it (implicitly linking their product to beautifully animated videos).
Thanks for reading, we hope you enjoyed the blog! Feel free to connect with us on Facebook and Instagram to stay updated on marketing blogs.
Happy Holidays!
