Planning for Christmas And Beyond
We know, it seems a little early, but if you’re in the food, beverage or retail industry then you already know it’s time to start planning for Christmas! It’s not just an exciting time for people to gather with loved ones, eat good food and celebrate, but it’s a key time for retailers and brands as well. Many experience a peak in their sales figures during this period, with a significantly greater volume of retail goods sold in the UK in December than in any other month.
As one of the most profitable parts of the year, brands need to start preparing early to make sure they take full advantage of it. That means planning Christmas campaigns and promotions, advertising and, of course, sampling.
Christmas is a time when shoppers are anxious to ‘try before they buy’ gifts for loved ones, and are stocking up on food for the season of indulgence. So it’s the perfect time to get your brand in front of some new prospective customers.
Why Christmas Starts Now
It seems like Christmas is starting earlier and earlier each year, with some retailers putting the decorations up before Halloween. But if you’re involved in marketing products, then you’ll know Christmas comes even earlier – with some marketing teams starting conversations about next Christmas as early as the 26th of December!
We know that most people don’t want to be thinking about Christmas just as the leaves begin to change colour, but if you want to make the most of the seasonal opportunity, then you need to start planning as soon as possible. After all, Christmas doesn’t just happen overnight. Even as consumers we have a strategy in place to help manage the increase in spending ready for Christmas, and it’s exactly the same for businesses.
December is the biggest month of the year for most UK retailers, and according to the ONS Retail Sales Index,November and December account for approximately one-fifth of the year’s sales. But Christmas sales start ramping up before then in October, with households spending approximately £740 more over the festive period. That’s 16% more on food and 38% more on alcohol and other drinks. So yes, Christmas is starting around October, and that means brands need to start preparing their festive campaigns now.
Level up your Demo
One of the biggest challenges brands face at Christmas is being visible through the noise. Customers are bombarded with marketing messages left right and centre, 24/7, and it’s difficult for individual brands to get their products noticed. So, you need a way to cut through all of that noise and get your customers to sit up and take notice.
Bigger is Better
Why not consider running a demo or sampling event that hits the stores for an entire week in the Christmas countdown throughout December? This ensures high impact and high reward at the peak of the trading season. If you want to really make a splash, you can also include pop-up counters, pallet wraps and branded clothing, so you get the best impact possible. This option gives you maximum visibility, reaching a much wider audience and might also allow for your brand to feature multiple products, which makes it perfect for the festive season. Because most retailers will see different audiences on different days of the week, you can target your sampling events to match. For example, Monday-Thursday you’re more likely to get a big trade audience. Friday-Sunday you might get more families, individuals and couples. This means you can choose which products you promote, which marketing materials to display and even what message the brand ambassadors are promoting. It’s a bigger, better way to capture your audience’s attention.
Timing Is Everything
The best way to maximise brand awareness and sales over the Christmas period is to make sure your demo is timed just right. In many cases, this means running them before December. In fact, many brands run their festive super demos between October and December, leaving plenty of time to build excitement and get their brand names embedded into customers minds.
So when is the best time to start ramping up for Christmas? Right now! The end of summer gives you ample time to plan and execute your campaigns for Christmas and beyond. So leverage your presence in-store and make the most of the experiential marketing opportunity that a demo or super demo offers. Cut through the Christmas marketing noise by talking to your customers face to face.
Our Favourite Festive Campaigns
Behind The Layers: In 2017 chocolate giant Ferrero Rocher invited Westfield shoppers into a luxurious pop-up store to discover ‘what lies behind the layers’ of everyone’s favourite Christmas chocolate. The lucky ones who went in got to experience a multi-sensory five-layer taste experience, with ambient lighting and mood-enhancing sounds while they sipped Ferrero Rocher-inspired cocktails and, of course, tasted the chocolate. The event was just as layered as the chocolate, and the next-level luxury of the event reminded customers why they love the Rocher brand.
If Carlsberg Did Christmas Trees: How do you make a Christmas tree even more magical? Cover it in beer bottles! 2015 saw the campaign ‘If Carlsberg Did Christmas Trees’ hit the stress. A fun twist on their traditional strapline, the event saw people queuing to get in on the free beer action. London’s Southbank was studded with 100 limited edition ‘beerbles’ – glass baubles that doubled as glasses for people to drink Carlsberg from, and keep as a souvenir. It was fun, festive and perfectly Instagramable – it ticked all the boxes for us!
The Coca-Cola Christmas Truck: It may be controversial, but, like it or loathe it, there aren’t many sights as synonymous with Christmas as the famous Coca-Cola truck. Huge, red, dazzling and bearing a jolly, 1930s Santa Claus image, the truck reminds us instantly that the ‘holidays are coming’. For the past eight years, Coca-Cola has taken their iconic TV advert on the road with the truck touring sites from Glasgow to Croydon. Each year, thousands of people turn up to greet the famous vehicle, and so far over 50,000 images have been generated and shared on social media.
Gift-o-Matic: Free stuff is great, but add a little creativity and they can become something more exciting and immersive altogether. In 2015, Not On The High Street ran their ‘Gift-o-Matic’ campaign, launching a Christmas vending machine. It was targeted specifically at last-minute shoppers (we all know one of those), on ‘Mad Dash Monday’, and passers-by were invited to stop and tweet Not On The High Street with one of five hashtags describing hobbies/likes. When they did, the clever machine would dispense a matching free gift. It was the holy trinity of experiential marketing – personalisation, an element of surprise, and strategic social media.
Beyond Christmas
Of course, the action doesn’t stop after December 25th. The festivities continue into the new year, and soon January will be on the horizon. This is a time for change and transformation, and customers are looking for new brands to introduce into their lives. In fact, research shows that while interest in the food and drink category shoots up by around 54% in the final week of November, that interest was carried over to January. Healthy eating is a particularly popular topic in the first month of the year, which means any brands, particularly those specialising in health foods and drinks, should have a robust experiential marketing plan ready to be rolled out as soon as the festive season is over.
If you need any help planning your Christmas experiential marketing campaigns or want to discuss some ideas for super demos, just get in touch with your Fizz Experience Account Manager.
At Fizz, food sampling is in our blood. It’s what we’ve been doing for over 30 years, and we do it well. We offer a complete end-to-end experiential marketing service for food and drinks brands, providing all of the strategic thinking as well as the practical, boots on the ground work for your sampling experiences. We have the skills and knowledge to make sure the event is delivered to your high standards, and ours. If you’d like to know more about food sampling and how we go about it, give us a call today and book your free consultation.
