I hope there's a nice chill in the air wherever you are – happy sweater weather season to all who celebrate.
This month we're excited to share an update on our working relationship with the brilliant British brand agency Notable, thoughts on the art of the all-important holiday ad campaign, flowers for brand architecture, and lovely perspectives from the founder of an award-winning toy brand, Follies.
We'll plan to be in touch one more time before the end of this year, fast-approaching though that point may be! (What is time?!).
Cheers,
Laura
Holiday brand campaigns are the stuff of legends*. In the UK, even non-agency folks wait with bated breath to see what John Lewis, Tesco or McDonald's will do to mark the season. Even luxury brands get in on the fun over there. It's one moment, every year, where marketing is seen – almost universally – as a force for good in a cold, capitalist world.
The American market has traditionally been a bit less consistent in its embrace of the sentimental/nostalgic/downright gooey genre of holiday marketing. Maybe it's the fact that our advertising Superbowl is….the Superbowl. (Or, more likely, the sheer size and diversity of this country cannot as easily be captured by a singular representation of the festive season's key moments.)
The mid-90s seem to have been the heyday for American holiday ads, led by brands like Campbell's and Coca-Cola. (Indeed the latter was the inspiration for a failed AI remake this year.) Throw together some recognizable tunes, heartwarming little twists to the storyline, and most importantly, distinctive brand assets, and you're off to the races!
While it's probably too late to start planning your 2024 holiday activations at this point, here are three key elements to keep in mind for evergreen holiday marketing campaigns:
Don't be a Scrooge: Embrace and embody childlike wonder and carefree revelry. This is not the time to be too cool for school. No one wants to ‘reframe’ or ‘subvert’ in December. They want latkes or the Rat Pack.
Remember who you are: Similarly, this is not the time to do the brand equivalent of getting bangs**. This is where those distinctive brand assets come in. If you haven't spent time and money building those up, might I suggest that now is the time to start? Just be sure to maintain this work through the rest of the year!
Embrace the bittersweet: After the age of – say – 12, the holidays aren't all gingerbread and twinkle lights. There are hormones and hangovers, feuds and family guilt. There is grief made all the more poignant by happy memories. This ambivalent messiness is what makes the festive season so emotionally powerful. Don't shy away from it.
*Note: Yes, of course I have a favo(u)rite from my time living across the pond. For me, it's got to be 2011's The Long Wait, with The Bear and the Hare (2013) as runner up. Both are John Lewis, because they do it the best. Fact.
**Bangs (US) = Fringe (UK)
Brand architecture is the structure of brands within an organization — the way they are organized, the way they relate to one another, and the way they’re presented to the market. Some of us think it's the best (and possibly the nerdiest) part of our jobs. Others hate it – chafing against the models and the scenario planning, and yearning for the creativity of positioning, packaging, or campaign work.
But it's always fun with non-brand people grapple with the issue. Highly recommend the recent HBR article that succinctly summed up what we'd argue is the most important rule of brand architecture: there is no right, there is no wrong, there are only implications.
“There is no one best corporate strategy. Indeed, any strategy along the continuum can be successful provided that the corporation adopts the organizational practices appropriate to its position on it.”
"Corporations should focus less on the makeup of their portfolios and more on managing them."
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