marketing teardown: 📅 owning a holiday

howdy, marketer! 

holidays are everywhere – there was a time where it seemed like I couldn’t open social media or email without being bombarded by some brand’s random “holiday.”

you know the ones I’m talking about:

• february 18 – eat ice cream for breakfast day

• july 6 – take your webmaster to lunch day

• january 21 – international sweatpants day (though, I could get on board with this one)

pick any day of the year and someone has commandeered it for their own wild agenda.

are these successful campaigns? meh.

what’s more fascinating is when a brand aligns themselves with a well-known and celebrated holiday.

they aren’t railroading folks into celebrating the holiday, they’re inserting themselves when people are already celebrating.

and in this issue I include some serious snafus 🤦

today's treasure trove

• why and how to own a holiday?

  • how to own a holiday

• when to create your own holiday

• stellar examples and flubs of owning a holiday

  • nathan’s famous | fourth of july

  • domino’s pizza | superbowl sunday

  • calm | election day

  • graduation | krispy kreme

and hey, this issue is sponsored by vibeo.ai – I featured them in monday’s best of the week and was able to negotiate a discount for you on this product!

see details below.

why and how to own a holiday?

some brands and industries experience an organic sales boost around certain holidays – think electronics sales on black friday, candy and flower sales on valentine’s day, etc.

these industries experienced a natural affinity with the holiday through word of mouth, convention, and commercials over years and years.

but how would one brand own black friday? 

they couldn’t. it’s too big. 

it’s already inundated with electronics shopping and there’s no clear way for one brand to stand out among all this competition.

instead, brands should consider holidays that:

• naturally consume their product or service as part of the holiday celebration

• naturally fit the value prop they offer or

• have complete absence of competitive presence

one thing to note is that these campaigns can be costly and take a long time – not months, but years. it can take years for the alignment of a holiday and brand to stick.

but, if successful, it positions the brand as the market leader, and cements that holiday & brand pairing into the consumer’s mind – meaning that they’ll keep thinking about the brand year after year when that holiday comes around.

how to own a holiday

like I mentioned, it’s costly. 

it takes paid media – running local or national campaigns on several channels and really saturating the audience with the message. it’s a hard and fast campaign.

it also takes clever creative – the idea isn’t just “your brand” + “this holiday” = “good”

no no. 

create a magical experience (even better if it contains a viral loop).

this could be a unique product – think pumpkin spice lattes marking the beginning of fall

or a unique event – think nathan’s hot dog eating contest on fourth of july

or even a unique service – think tattoo shops that do friday the 13th tattoos (though this isn’t owned by just one brand)

make sure the uniqueness ties in with the holiday – like pumpkin and fall, bbq’s and summer, the “13” in the tattoos.

then, as any good social media manager should know – put those brand experiences on blast and really create the fomo hard for everyone who didn’t partake, so they’ll remember it for next year.

lather. rinse. and repeat the campaign year after year.

when to create your own holiday

creating your own holiday is not advised unless your brand is already a market leader (and it’s a big market).

a successful example is amazon prime day. 

amazon created prime day because it noticed a natural slump in sales during july. it’s far enough from black friday to impinge on any winter sales, and after fourth of july, there weren’t any significant holiday for almost two months.

they got the idea from chinese retailer alibaba that took “single’s” day (11/11) and turned it into their own 24-hour shopping fest.

besides besides examples (far from the norm), most brands aren’t able to create their own holiday – though apple’s wwdc event does come close.

stellar examples and flubs of owning a holiday

nathan’s famous | fourth of july

the folks at nathan’s famous recognized that summer bbq’s were a thing, and wanted to ingratiate their product with the most patriotic of american holidays.

but they didn’t simply give away hot dogs. 

as we all know, they started a hot dog eating contest that is now a household name. This contest helped make competitive eating an actual sport – with television coverage even.

although – the hot dog eating contest made a huge blunder as the star athlete signed a sponsorship deal with a vegan food brand, so they booted him from the contest. 

netflix seized those eyeballs and hosted their own hot dog eating contest, bringing in a couple of controversial athletes – stealing the spotlight from nathan’s famous.

domino’s pizza | superbowl sunday

domino’s didn’t invent the trend, they just noticed that their orders surged on superbowl sunday and they decided to make superbowl sunday theirs. 

this is an uphill battle, because domino’s is competing against other takeout food and even homemade food to earn a spot at the table. 

but, domino’s has done a phenomenal job of running deals leading up to gameday and even during the game.

however, their rival, little caesar’s, has taken over as “official pizza of the nfl” – but can they really dethrone domino’s from superbowl dominance?

I’m curious to see how this one plays out next year.

calm | election day

another presidential election came and went – and for many, that meant enduring a ton of stress.

cue a 30-second ad smack dab in the middle of the heart pounding election coverage to just ~ be still ~

calm, the mediation app, bought ad space and ran a silent ad during election coverage. and it worked.

this wasn’t the first time they did this. they did the same thing for the 2020 election and jumped over the competition in the app store.

they showed up when anxiety was at an all-time high with an ad that did the exact opposite of everything going on.

graduation | krispy kreme

ah yes, this is an epic fail from earlier this year. 

krispy kreme has been giving a free dozen doughnuts to graduates for several years.

the campaign was hugely successful – free doughnuts are a viral loop, because while you may eat one or two, you’re probably going to share a dozen, and you’re probably going to say you got them for free.

krispy kreme was becoming synonymous with graduation.

but they dropped the ball. 

they stopped the promotion and the backlash was ugly. it honestly does feel like a betrayal, so if you jump into owning a holiday, be prepared to stick with it or face the consequences.

conclusion

owning a holiday can be a brilliant way to ingratiate your brand into the culture, but the opportunities are slim and if it’s handled poorly, the backlash can be fierce.

I covered national holidays in this issue, but brands can also own local holidays – and still make a huge impact in their community.

thanks for reading and I’d love to hear your thoughts about this teardown. (and read the other deep dives here)

✌️,

tom from marketer gems