Four last-minute PR tips for your Christmas campaign
Ho ho ho—Christmas is starting early for comms people out there. Which might sound surprising for some, considering that we’re still in the peak of autumn. However, in the comms cosmos, we've already been prepping for the Christmas holiday season. Why? Because starting early is key…
Follow the example of elves and start early
Starting early means being prepared in advance before getting caught up in the middle of all the x-mas fuss. In other words, giving yourself enough time to come up with a Christmas campaign, before, or just, when people start thinking about what to buy for their loved ones, while avoiding trying to start in December when everybody’s already snow deep with their Christmas shopping. Ideally, planning would start in August, and starting to spread the campaign as early as September is not unheard of or uncommon. You’ll have higher chances to get into the (print) media cycle, as journalists are already receiving Xmas-related content pitches, and they prefer to set up their publishing plan as early as possible. Competition around the most popular and festive calendar days is fierce—so good timing and great content are essential.
And imagine, having a campaign tied to a great cause such as a Christmas charity, and not being able to draw the necessary attention to it because of starting too late—you wouldn’t want to risk starting late and missing the opportunity to get as much exposure and donations as possible.
True, we’re a long way from August, and you might have already missed some opportunities with print magazines that plan months in advance, but with some of these last minute Christmas PR steps, it may not be too late to launch your campaign sled off the ground!
Tip 1: Act according to changing consumer behavior
Online shopping in general has become a consumer habit for everyone. Let’s face it, the pandemic and all that quarantining shifted our purchasing habits towards online shopping. According to a pre-Christmas consumer behavior survey from our former client, Thrasio, around 42% of German respondents wanted to do their Christmas shopping online in 2021. The survey results showed that compared to 2019’s pre-pandemic Christmas, online shopping in Germany has increased by 8.9%. The reason: the pandemic has “substantially shifted” people’s shopping behavior.
Something else that is influencing consumer behavior, is the ever-increasing and high inflation rate that we are currently facing. You might have to adjust the prices and consider how to best attract a larger audience to the affordable, yet quality products or services you offer.
Tip 2: Play your way to media attention
Christmas is that time of the year when everybody is bringing their A game and trying to raise their brand and product/service awareness.
One idea to boost your awareness and engage the media with your Christmas campaign is to offer your products or services to be raffled away through the many advent calendars media outlets (and influencers) organize. In Germany, this has been a long-standing tradition: in the 24 days leading up to Christmas Eve, media outlets or influencers present one product a day on their channels which their audience can win. To get included in these calendars, research which media outlets do them, what themes they are focused on, and who is the contact person in charge. For example, a sports media outlet would focus more on healthy and sporty gifts, a tech publication might appreciate more gadgetry, and a baby product might be better suited for parenting and lifestyle media outlets.
Remember to try to offer your products as early as possible and think in advance about how much product value you can offer. If the pricing point of your product is low, you would need to offer several units, but for more expensive products even one item may be enough. For services, you might want to think about offering vouchers, or how to include your service voucher into a broader gift basket. In any case, you will need great, high-resolution visuals and some snappy copywriting to score one of the coveted advent calendar doors.
Christmastime is a time for party and celebrations—Christmas is a great occasion to create memorable experiences for your customers, the media, and influencers, boosting your brand image (and maybe even your sales) for the end of year and new year to come.For example, one can easily conjure the image of Coca-Cola’s bright red Christmas trucks with the ear-wormy jingle, “Holiday’s are coming… Coca-Cola’s coming to town.” For decades, they have created a cheerful, colorful fairy tale, combined with catchy tunes, which makes the whole thing memorable, year in and year out. The ads are not focused on sales, but seeks to tap into our emotions so that we keep Coca-Cola’s memorable branding in mind.
Tip 3: Gift guides vs. the what-to-buy panic
For the undecided, Christmas gift guides are a great source of inspiration for what to give this year. And whether you are targeting parents, siblings, colleagues, friends, or romantic partners —all of them have specific needs you can address.
Media and influencers also know this, and prefer to publish tailored gift guides in the time leading up to Christmas. Getting included in these guides are a great opportunity. But remember about doing like the elves? You have to approach media early. Anticipating what exciting and specific angles you should pitch to get in the gift guide is also important. Play around with different ideas. Here are some examples:
5 calm-inducing gifts for brand-new parents
7 more sustainable ways to celebrate Christmas
The perfect gift for the geeky girlfriend
Write a compelling text or press release that either features your product as a standalone or that includes it next to other, non-competing ideas or products. Especially the latter, makes it less “salesy” to a journalist—you are not selling your product, but rather selling them on a whole theme, idea, and feeling.
Along with gift guides, using Christmas boxes is an effective tool for sharing your products with your target audience. Christmas boxesare a small present given at Christmas to tradespeople, customers and potential customers. Be creative on what to offer, how and to whom to deliver these boxes to. The goal is to catch the media’s attention as the perfect shiny fit for their gift recommendations.
For example, tworking with Gambettes Box, Laika developed a jolly campaign with a special December Box for their Tight-Subscription service. This December Box put the spotlight on their glittery tights, which were given to new and existing customers to immediately put them into the Christmas spirit.
Tip 4: Piggyback on Christmas traditions
Everyone who celebrates Christmas, also have their specific set of Christmas traditions. In Germany, Christmas cookie baking, Christmas lights and parties, as well as mulled wine are among the staples. But of course the list is much longer and differs from target group to target group. So, the first step to piggybacking on Christmas traditions is to analyze which of them are actually followed by your target customer. After that, you can think about how to make this work for you.
For example, when working with a big video conferencing software in the midst of COVID, we decided to put out a series of virtual Christmas office party tips which were well-received and appreciated by the media. In addition, for our former client, SENS, who among other products also produced cricket flour, we created unique Christmas recipes using cricket flour—as a healthier and more sustainable protein source.
If you haven’t started yet—it’s not too late to start with your Christmas campaign prep and execution. Remember to take into account changing consumer behavior, engage the media and consumers in fun, exciting and memorable ways, seize the opportunity with gift guides and Christmas boxes, and to get creative with Christmas traditions. Don’t hesitate to reach out to the Laika crew if you’re in need of a little festive inspiration. And as things go in the PR North Pole, we think it’s never too early to start thinking about your Christmas PR campaigns—even for next year!