How To Get Marketing Ideas From Christmas Day
The work of a marketer is to create culture. To create a culture around something. Usually, this is a product, a service, an experience, a destination. As Seth Godin puts it, culture is when people like us do things like this. Culture is what inspires someone to buy a specific car, vacation a specific place, or wear a specific thing. Because when they do, they belong.
Today is Christmas. Christmas is culture. This tiny little day has so much culture stuffed inside of it, baked into it, and wrapped all around it. There’s a religious culture surrounding this day, and also an American culture altering it, and even specific ethnic cultures modifying that. And then there’s your family culture.
We sing Christmas songs, and that contributes to the culture. We eat Christmas foods, and tell Christmas stories, and watch Christmas movies, and give Christmas gifts–all of which contribute to the culture. Christmas is a marketer’s paradise, and not just because all of our Q4 work is finally published. It’s a paradise because the content marketing ideas are endless.
If Christmas was a brand, it would be the biggest brand in the world by a mile. And this is because there’s so much culture connected to Christmas that it “snowballs” into even more Christmas culture. Tech reviewers trend-jack iPhone releases with their own reviews to get a slice of that audience. Musicians trend-jack Christmas with their own covers of classic holiday songs to get a slice of that audience. Do you see what I’m saying? There’s so much buzz and attention around Christmas, that it’s a self-perpetuating machine.
If you’re a marketer, sit back and think about these things today. Grab a mug of something warm, and consider all the things that contribute to Christmas culture. Then, think about how you could parlay these ideas for the brands you work with. What stories can you tell, what songs can you sing, what recipes can you share, and what gifts can you give that would create a culture around your brands?
