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🪩 Volume 146 | August 5, 2026

 

So I finally sat down to sift through my marketing inbox and it turns out, in July, it was SNOWING!

 

Which is CRAZY because it’s hot as hell outside? But somewhere around mid-July, every brand I’ve ever given my email to decided it was December.

 

De Soi wanted me to have a “merry little mule.”

Caden Lane offered 20% off Christmas prints.

Foxtail Coffee sent me a sand snowman in sunglasses.

Carters, Saranoni, Love + Light Studio: everyone got the same memo.

 

I rolled my eyes as the Sea of Samesies struck again. 🌊 I Slacked my team: “Just me, or is Christmas in July a whole thing this year?” 

 

At first I had FOMO, I worried my team and I had missed the on-trend moment. Then I popped open our latest send for a client celebrating the anniversary of the moon landing and remembered wtf it is we do for our clients: help them stand out. 
 

So in a world of Prime Day Sales, Black Friday in July (lookin’ at you Macy’s), and everyone trudging along the Oregon Trail of Bandwagon promos whilst trying to avoid modern-day dysentery… here’s the question we have to ask: what makes a holiday (or fake holiday) promo land instead of flop? 

 

How do we make logical sense of  “Christmas in July” being seemingly everywhere, why it works when it works, and how to tap into the tactic 👇

 

 

 

"Christmas in July" wasn't born in a marketing meeting, it started in 1933 at Keystone Camp, an all-girls camp in Brevard, North Carolina, where co-founder Fannie Holt strung up a tree, faked some cotton snow, and let the kids do a mid-summer Secret Santa to break the monotony. It got national attention when Preston Sturges made a 1940 comedy by the same name, and then, as most good things go, advertisers had their hands all over it by around 1950.

 

 

So why is it screaming right now? The summer promo calendar has a hole in it.

 

Amazon moved Prime Day to June this year (June 23–26), and the big fall event (Prime Big Deal Days, aka "October Prime Day") isn't until, well, October. Which leaves July as a dead zone: no built-in reason to run a sale, no cultural excuse to email. "Christmas in July" is the borrowed occasion brands are using to manufacture one.

 

 

 

 

The same week everyone else celebrated Christmas in July, on the 57th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, we sent a Reframe email built entirely around that moment: "the moon landing was 57 years ago today… now our job is to recreate that feeling." The product tie was clean (if I do say so myself) a cannabis spirit that takes you to "new heights," anchored to humanity's most famous "new heights" moment. Three flavors, three ways to reach them. Not a percent-off in sight.

 

That email held its own while everyone else tried to make Fetch happen. It earned its keep, maintaining the client’s >70% open rate, and a solid 4.42x ROI.  So yeah, they weren’t on the bandwagon with everyone else, but it's a clean little proof of the thing we do for this brand constantly: give people a reason to feel something before you give them a reason to buy.

 

A plain promo says "here's a discount." A moment says "here's a feeling you already have, and here's how our thing fits inside it."

 

For your business: what's a date your audience already feels something about: an anniversary, a season, a shared cultural memory, that you could throw a party around instead of a plain sale? (bonus points if the tie to your product is honest, not a stretch.)

 

 

The other way to win a bandwagon holiday is to refuse it: loudly, and on purpose. On Black Friday 2011, Patagonia ran a full-page New York Times ad that said, simply: don't buy this jacket. An anti-sale, on the biggest sale day of the year. Years later they went further and pledged 100% of their Black Friday sales to environmental groups, which pulled in $10 million and quadrupled their projections.

 

It worked because it was true to them. If a random DTC brand tried "don't buy this," it'd read as a stunt. The bandwagon holiday you skip only builds trust if skipping it is on brand.

 

For your business: is there a bandwagon moment you could win by sitting it out, because opting out is more you than joining in?

 

 

When it comes to holidays, anchor the promotion or marketing moment in a meaning your audience already holds, not in the discount itself. The sweaty-Santa emails flop not because the sale is bad, but because there's no reason to care attached to it. "40% off" is a coupon. "40% off, because [thing you already feel]" is a moment. 

 

 

1. Auggie's "oops" email (forwarded to me by Sarah). The parenting-community brand sent a belated welcome email that opened with a confession: over the last few months, they'd accidentally MISSED sending the welcome to a batch of new members. I loveeeeee a good ownership moment, because it does the one thing polish can't: it makes you trust them. Brands that admit the mistake before you catch it read as human.

 

2. Pestie made a reel out of my comment. Pestie's whole IG is gloriously weird for a pest control brand, so I left a comment saying "elite marketing" and they turned it into a reel rating their own marketing stunts (including, yes, eating bugs on camera). Two lessons in one: (a) a weird, specific brand voice in a boring category is a moat, and (b) your comment section is content. Someone hands you a compliment in public? Make something with it.

 

3. Kiplie's product demos are the sales page. Kiplie makes baby changing pads, and their demo Reels are so good that I'm convinced the IG grid alone would convert a skeptic. If I were meeting this brand cold, wondering "why this changing pad?" the page would answer it before I ever hit the site. That's the whole point of a considered purchase: don't tell me it's better, show me the fifteen-second proof. The demo IS the argument.

 

Honorable mention / something to watch: House of Stassi. Stassi Schroeder's new reality show premiered July 29, and the buzziest thing about it is that she breaks the fourth wall constantly, openly admitting on camera that it's a show, that they're playing a game, that they need each other for the ratings. And audiences love it more for the honesty. In an era where everyone knows the marketing is marketing… is transparency the new authenticity? Watching this one. 🍰