It is officially November therefore we have bypassed Thanksgiving and went straight to Christmas, right? That’s how it feels like in most stores. Walmart and Target already have Christmas decorations up, so shouldn’t we be talking about the most wonderful time of the year aka Christmas? Before we know it ABC Family (Freeform) will have their 25 Days of Christmas on and we will be decorating our tree. Don’t get me wrong I love Thanksgiving, but just talking about Christmas makes me happy. It is this cheer that makes me a target for the consumerism of the holidays.
The holidays are the happiest time of the year, but many businesses exploit that cheer in order to get you to buy their products. This is because people are more likely to purchase items when they are happy. If a company markets themselves as festive then they are more likely to be successful during the holidays, so your love for the holidays makes you a target.
Here are four ways marketing campaigns use the holidays to exploit us:
1. Targeting Our Holiday Feels
Like I mentioned above, consumers are more likely to purchase an item when they are happy, and a season full of holiday cheer is a company’s goldmine. This is why brands make themselves festive during the holidays. Booktopia is a mastermind of this concept with their “Elf on a Shelf” campaign. This campaign of a holiday tradition brings seasonal traffic to their company.
2. Building Anticipation
Our culture loves rewards and the eagerness of receiving one makes it that much better. This is why building up holiday announcements and deals make the deals themselves better. Google’s Santa tracker is a perfect example of this. The trackers make you anticipate where Santa is, and creates a holiday buzz for Google.
3. Personalizing
Everyone loves to receive gifts, but personalized gifts are so much better. When a company allows you to personalize a gift to your loved ones it increases how they feel about a brand. This is because people like personalized items more. Coca Cola “Share A Coke” campaign is great example of this, because receiving a coke is nice but getting a coke with your name on it is better.
4. Giving Back
One aspect of the holidays is gift giving. Although these presents are nice gestures there is an underlying statute that you will return the gesture in some way. This is why a lot of the time brands will offer their customers a gift in return for purchasing from them. This enables the customer to feel like they are getting something in return. Victoria’s Secret is always doing this with their “get this “free” bag if you spend over $75” campaigns.
The holidays are still the best time of the year, but beware that brands are using this cheer to target you. If you understand what the they are doing though then you won’t be their target.
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