I recently read Lena’s Ji blog post, called Ready or Not, here comes the Christmas Ads! In her post, she uses two examples of Christmas Ads as evidence of common themes that appear in advertisements during the holiday season and then analyzed them accordingly.
Christmas is often called the season of “giving”, but I think for many companies, especially retailers, Christmas is seen more as the season of “buying”, a seasonal spike in demand and the epitome of consumerism and spending. Earlier and earlier in the year, companies are adapting to the Christmas season and not only do they create highly specialized advertisements, as Lena has mentioned in her blog post, but they also invigorate all of their marketing mix with the Christmas spirit.
I recently went to Costco this last weekend and I was captured by how integrated Christmas was in their marketing strategy. Their product mix adapted to the holiday – there were two whole aisles dedicated to Christmas-related products, such as stockings and plastic Christmas trees. Everywhere else inside of the big-box retailer, you could also see the evidence of Christmas in their products. There were chocolates in Christmas packaging, christmas-themed cookies with peppermint and much more.
Costco’s retailing product placement has also changed. They re-arranged the store to create room for Christmas products and a Christmas section. They decorated various aisles with baubles and little mounds of fake snow to create a holiday atmosphere in the store.
While the price of their normal products did not change as a direct effect, they did use special pricing methods for their limited time Christmas products. For example, they would price higher for products in nicer packaging, such as chocolate baskets in pretty ribbon and wrapping even though the cost would not be much more than a normal box of chocolates.
Costco also promotes their Christmas products in-store, through the coupons that customers receive when they walk through the front door. They also held consumers’ interest and spurned their desire for their products by having sampling stations of popular Christmas food items, such as various specialty flavours of hot chocolate, cookies and cakes.
Christmas is a great occasion for not only Costco, but other companies and retailers to capture the holiday’s increased consumer demand.