The Holiday Marketing Challenge
Posted by Debra Semans on Tue, Dec 13, 2011 @ 09:10 AM
Eggnog. Fruitcake. Candy canes. Stockings hung by the fire with care.
The holiday season is certainly rife with opportunities for marketers, but the challenge for holiday promotions is to (1) make it memorable and (2) make it brand-enhancing. While on the surface, Coca Cola's polar bear campaign seemed perfectly attuned to the brand, customers thought otherwise, forcing the white cans to be pulled by the global softdrink maker. But I recently became aware of two holiday promotions that have become long-awaited traditions by these brands' customers.
PNC Bank Christmas Price Index® shows the current cost for one set of each of the gifts given in the song "The Twelve Days of Christmas." It began 28 years ago when the chief economist at PNC Bank decided to figure out how much it would cost to buy each of the gifts. Little did he know, he was starting an economic tradition that continues to this day.
The PNC Christmas Price Index® is similar to the Consumer Price Index, which measures changes in prices of goods and services like housing, food, clothing, transportation, and more that reflect the spending habits of the average American. The goods and services in the PNC Christmas Price Index® are far more whimsical, but most years, the price changes closely mirror those in the Consumer Price Index. It's a fun way to measure consumer spending and trends in the economy, complete with an interactive website.
PNC gets a lot of press from this brand promotion - when I checked on Google, there were nearly 100,000 references - making this a great brand-building holiday tradition.
Another tradition, from a much smaller and less well-known company, comes to us from Global Lingo, a U.K.-based translation company, features "weird Christmas traditions" from around the world. This year's December newsletter told about traditions from:
- Catalonia, where a log is beaten repeatedly with a wooden stick until it finally produces gifts on Christmas Eve.
- Japan, where it has become a tradition to eat KFC (yes, that's right, Kentucky Fried Chicken) over the December 23 through 25 holiday.
- And again from Catalonia, "the defecator"! As Global Lingo's newsletter explains:
"Among the nativity scenes worldwide we have the normal crowd: the three wise men and angels, Mary and Joseph, all present with baby Jesus in the Crib. In Catalonia, however, there is one essential character which has been present within the nativity throughout generations and whose popularity has grown and grown in recent years: introducing “The Caganer”. The caganer, whose name is translated most politely to “the defecator”, can be found in almost all Catalan nativity scenes and in recent years has taken on some rather unusual guises! This scatological nation has seen a trend in famous and celebrity caganers springing up in nativities across the region."
Global Lingo is well on its way to having a wonderful holiday tradition. And the reason that it works so well is that it reinforces their brand value proposition - global experience in translations.
There are many, many other holiday promotions that reinforce the brand promise. What's your favorite?
