HOLIDAY CAMPAIGNS WE LOVE! 🎄❤️

If you’re reading this on Christmas Day – Merry Christmas, Marketing Mondays subscribers! 🎄

If you’re reading this after Christmas Day, we hope you had a very Merry Christmas (and we still think you should check out this edition of Marketing Mondays). 

The holidays are one of our favourite times of the year – especially seeing what holiday marketing campaigns come out! For this week's newsletter, we thought – what better way to celebrate than by exploring the creativity that brands bring with their Christmas campaigns? 

There are countless ways to reach your customer, but these brands really take the cake. Let’s look at some of our favourite holiday ad campaigns and why we can’t stop talking about them:

1. STARBUCKS AND THEIR HOLIDAY CUPS

Starbucks ushers in the holiday season in style with their annual lineup of holiday-themed to-go cups that everyone is always excited for! The brand first introduced its festive cups in 1997, and even back then, they created a buzz. Over the years, they’ve never failed to capture the attention of target audience members around the world, helping the company boost brand awareness in the process.

Today, Starbucks customers look forward to the brand’s newest round of fun, exciting designs. More than just a Christmas campaign, the cups feature a variety of holiday imagery for people of all backgrounds. 

Aside from the cups, Starbucks takes its design assets to the next level. How? With seasonal drink menus, limited-time promotions and a whole series of Branded Products. That includes cold cups, water bottles, tumblers, coffee beans and more — all of which are adorned from top to bottom with holiday spirit. 

2. SPOTIFY WRAPPED

If you’re not familiar with Spotify’s annual “Wrapped” campaign, you’re missing out on one of the most creative holiday marketing campaigns in recent years. Since 2016, the brand has analyzed users’ streaming habits and shared a personalized snapshot to each individual customer — a musical “year in review.” 

It breaks down preferences and gives customers a list of their most-streamed artists over the past year. Spotify then encourages users to share their results on social media, generating a frenzy of online attention in the process (because we know that once Spotify wrapped comes out, it’s all we see on our Instagram stories). 

The genius of this particular marketing strategy isn’t that it’s a great New Year’s Eve promotional tool. What we really love about this example is how it connects physical media to digital content. Although the campaign begins in the app itself, it’s also complemented by billboards, posters and other traditional marketing tactics. This helps Spotify drive interest among potential customers, increase engagement and integrate the campaign across multiple platforms. 

3. GOOGLE’S HOME ALONE AGAIN CAMPAIGN

This was iconic. 

In 2018, Google did a parody of the classic holiday movie “Home Alone” for their Google Home device. 

The ad begins just as the movie does: with Kevin McCallister — played by Macaulay Culkin — waking up on Christmas, only to find his family is nowhere to be found. The much-older-than-he-used-to-be Kevin spends his day hilariously repeating everything he did in the film; only this time, by using Google Assistant — a voice-activated smart home device.

This ad is a great example of brands tapping into Christmas nostalgia. By referencing a classic holiday movie, Google instantly wins the hearts and minds of its audience. 

4. JOY RIDE – AMAZON

For Amazon’s 2023 Christmas ad, they decided to do one of the most wholesome ads we’ve seen. Their “Joy Ride” video tells the story of three older ladies who are sitting on a bench, watching other people sledding on a hill. One of the women decides to give a special present to the other two for Christmas. She goes on Amazon and orders a seat cushion for all three of them. 

As ladies gather at the hill the next day, it’s not for observing but for rolling down. As they sled images from their childhood come alive and goosebumps form on your skin. Amazon gave us one of the best Christmas marketing campaigns 2023 without any doubt.

Amazon really plays with your emotions in the best way with this ad. It makes you feel joy inside, and is a genius tactic by Amazon to showcase how they have products for everything and everyone on their site. 

5. THE WORLD NEEDS MORE SANTAS – COCA-COLA

Coca-Cola is known to deliver great Christmas marketing campaigns, and this year was no exception. The video ad takes on a question of what it means to be a “Santa”. The first part of the commercial takes us to a fictional town where Santas live their daily lives going to the gym, doing laundry, and taking the subway. What is evident there, though, is that kindness is widely practiced, we see Santas helping each other.

However, this town is an illusion, we’re transported to the real world where ordinary people are doing small acts of kindness like holding the train doors, helping with a snowman, or coming home for Christmas with a family gift. That’s a heartwarming commercial from Coca-Cola and one of the best that we’ve seen this year.