Drugi jezik na kojem je dostupan ovaj članak: Bosnian
By: Aleksandar Milojević, Strategic Planner, McCann Beograd
It’s “that time of the year” when every other article you click will be related to New Year and Christmas holidays, from advice about decorating Christmas trees, over the festive discount, to the analysis of Christmas advertising by big brands.
Every year at this time we still wonder if it’s too early. Is it too early to start counting down to the New Year? Is it too early to plunge into the New Year euphoria? Is it too early to start the holiday shopping? The moment you hear it on television – that famous “The holidays are coming, the holidays are coming” and we see Coca-Cola’s red truck, we get our answer. It’s official – New Year’s mood can begin. How and why did the brands become the ones who dictate the pace of the New Year holidays?
The road which the New Year’s ad has passed is a long one. It evolved together with the marketing as a whole. However, New Year’s ads by big brands have become something that is waited for with immense attention. Every year in November, the entire United Kingdom is waiting to see what marketing teams of department stores John Lewis and Marks & Spancer have prepared for them this year. Today, holiday campaigns cost several million euros, and are more and more in the form of short, three-minute films in which we often see famous actors and actresses. The last such mini-movie in the series is a Christmas ad for Burberry which stars Sienna Miller and Domhnall Gleeson.
Brands have easily recognized the territory of the holidays as the potential for advertising, and took it. The largest among them understood the potential to the fullest, and they invest literally millions of euros into New Year and Christmas campaigns. However, they have also realized a far more important thing. None of them during the holidays insists on tactical communications and promotional offers, as they are after all implied during the holidays. The strategy of advertising products during the holidays has a short-term effect. This is an opportunity for something much bigger than immediate profit. It’s something that has much broader potential for the brand – in these situations, brands build their value and position. The most successful ones have become a symbol of the holidays, and holidays are an integral part of their brand strategy. So, when we say New Year, Christmas or Santa Claus, the first thing that comes to mind is Coca-Cola.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVzHT9yO508
How did Coca-Cola become a symbol of the holiday campaigns? Some even believe that Coca-Cola was the one that invented Santa Claus and dressed him in a red suit. No, Coca-Cola did not make up Santa Claus, but it did define the holidays as we know them. The first New Year’s Coca-Cola ad came out in 1958 and since then the Santa Claus is its biggest brand ambassador. After the campaign for the New Year 1997, Santa Claus as a symbol was joined by the Coca-Cola’s red truck, and now together they constitute an inseparable part of Christmas holidays. By positioning itself as a leader in holiday advertising, Coca-Cola has become a role model for all other brands, both locally and globally, and many each year try to steal an element from the Coca-Cola holiday iconography, but without success.
And what is happening in Serbia? According to 2015 research by IPSOS, Serbia under a magnifying glass, 28% of people in Serbia do not practice any New Year’s ritual – from decorating the Christmas tree and home, to the simplest countdown or the midnight wishes. New Year’s wish is made by every third woman in Serbia and one in six men. Perhaps this is why in Serbia, apart from global adaptations, brands invest very little in holiday season advertising. There are only minor activations, while large ATL campaigns with large budgets are rare and mostly based on tactical advertising of products. No local brand has clearly used this opportunity and strategically positioned itself as a “festive brand”. However, as we said at the beginning, brands are the ones who dictate the festive mood, and perhaps they are the ones who can change this not so great statistics.