5 Examples of Awesome Holiday Marketing Campaigns

Goodbye November, Hello Holiday Season.

Holiday season represents huge opportunity to connect with your audience and to drive record sales. Marketers can employ the all-embracing feelings of togetherness and gratitude to create a deep emotional bond with their customers which in return fosters loyalty, trust and..traffic. However, the more spending in the game, the highest the competition. How to create a successful holiday marketing campaign that will help your business to stand out? Here are the 5 examples of companies that are doing the right job. Use them to motivate your own marketing campaign this season.

1. Coca-Cola: bring Christmas to your customer’s doorstep

Coca-Cola Great Britain became a benchmark for creating spectacular and highly engaging Christmas campaigns enriched with an ultimate personal twist. This year, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the iconic ‘Holidays are Coming’ TV ad, for the first time ever a member of the public was invited to drive the legendary Christmas truck making the launch of its nationwide tour. Matt Smith, 28, a professional truck driver from Andover was given the opportunity to sit behind the wheel after he shared this wish across his social media channels back in August.

Another personal touch of the Coca-Cola campaign is the competition to win a personal visit from the Christmas truck (also launched for the first time ever). With the promotion running on the selected Coca-Cola packs, one lucky person will be able to welcome an iconic truck in their town. In another personal first, this year the fans were able to determine the release of the nationwide route itself, by getting @CocaCola_GB’s tweet to reach 500 retweets.

Keywords: personalized brand experience, customer engagement, social media, viral effect, brand’s promotion.

2. John Lewis: #ManOntheMoon

Every year (since 2007), John Lewis releases an ad like no other. Anticipated by the whole nation and the marketing community, the  retailer’s Christmas TV spot has become an unofficial sign for upcoming Christmas and a major event on the marketing calendar. This year the ad depicted a young girl who tries to send gifts to a man who lives on the moon. Another brilliant example of a campaign that taps into Christmassy emotions, uses music to perfection and employs the up-to-date context of water-on-Mars-discoveries to generate well deserved social buzz.

According to the Marketing Magazine only within the first four hours of release, #ManOnTheMoon had generated 47,770 tweets – 25% more than the last year spot #MontyThePenguin with 38,052 tweets in the same time frame in 2014.

Keywords: emotions, Christmas spirit, gift-giving, current social context, excellent craftsmanship, music used to perfection.

 3. Aldi: Parody for John Lewis #ManOntheMoon Ad

A cheeky take on the John Lewis Christmas ad. Not even three weeks after John Lewis released the touching #ManOntheMood ad, Aldi parodies it with its own commercial and its own lonely man on the moon who soon cheers up when joined by Jean Jones, a star of Aldi adverts back in 2011. What makes this story even more exciting is the fact that Aldi also managed to get in a sly price dig by comparing a pricey telescope from John Lewis with its own budget £69.99 version. The audience reactions have been extremely favourable so far with the ad being viewed nearly 2 million times on YouTube in 4 days after its upload. A true holiday ad masterpiece!

Keywords: humor, current social context, brand promotion, viral effect, timing.

4. Starbucks: #RedCups

A great example of an awesome-holiday-marketing-campaign-not and certainly a good lesson to learn from. This year Starbucks “red cup” design that is meant to signify the approaching holiday season, provoked a lot of controversy on social media. While some Twitter users have praised its minimalist design, others interpreted the lack of any extra patterns on it as an attack on Christianity. Within days, the issue dominated the headlines. The reaction of the brand, however, was quick and honest. In nothing more than 3 days after the outcry began, an official brand statement explained clearly the new design intentions. Starbucks continued with its Starbucks’ Red Cup Contest on Instagram to win a Starbucks gift card for customers who share their photo with their red Starbucks with #redcupcontest tag. Lesson learned: speed is essential to get ahead of developing issues. Use social media monitoring tools to avoid a social media crisis.

Keywords: social media monitoring, personalized brand experience, customer engagement, social media, viral effect.

5. Air Canada: #ACGiftofHome

Last year, Air Canada, set out to give 200 lucky holiday-home-sick “Canadians living abroad one of the best gifts imaginable” – home. On the 27th of November the London pub “Maple Leaf” – also known as a  little piece of Canada in the heart of London – invited a group of unsuspecting Canadian expats to stop by for a ‘taste of home’. In the video, you can see two Air Canada pilots entering the pub and giving the invited Canadians the roundtrip tickets to go back home for the holiday season. The audience reaction was just breathtaking. Further on, the campaign invited the lucky consumers to share their stories at #ACgiftofhome Air Canada Twitter. Well done Air Canada, a very well done.

Keywords: consumer engagement, brand promotion, emotional branding, viral effect, social media, timing.

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OK, have you spotted any other awesome holiday marketing campaigns this season? Share your discoveries!