The 2024 holiday season is nearing a fever pitch as Thanksgiving and Black Friday approach and consumers prepare to make good on record spending intentions. For holiday marketing campaigns, the ambitious spending forecast coincides with brands’ bets on buzzy tech and widened media strategies.
The Q4 period might be more cheerful for brands than in recent times, with research suggesting consumers intend to open their wallets wide. However, marketers still face challenges. Shopper behavior and preferences have continued to shift, tasking brands to juggle striking the suitable tone of their holiday campaigns while staying on top of the newest trends and emerging channels. Consumers have also shown an absence of loyalty in the hunt for higher deals. To land the sale, some are attempting to strike a balance between joy and value-based messaging, while others are hoping to seize the moment with some help from artificial intelligence (AI).
“Overall we see the outlook is merry and brilliant,” said Brian McCarthy, principal at Deloitte Consulting. “We’ve got increased confidence within the economy, holiday shoppers are planning increased spending this holiday season, with record spending intentions.”
Shoppers this 12 months are expected to spend a median of $1,778, a rise of 8% over last 12 months, in keeping with Deloitte’s 2024 holiday retail survey. Last 12 months, retail sales between November to January 2024 grew 4.3% to $1.54 trillion, in keeping with U.S. Census Bureau data cited by Deloitte. The higher spend is attributed partially to a rosier economic outlook and perceived higher prices, a signal that, regardless that financial woes aren’t yet within the rearview, consumers are in the suitable mindset to open up their wallets.
‘Gazing into the crystal ball’
In one other sign of economic optimism, greater than one-third of marketers this season have a bigger holiday promoting budget this 12 months over last, in keeping with findings from TvScientific and Rockerbox. However, increased bets come at a value: 60% of marketers this season also report feeling more pressure to deliver measurable outcomes and return on investment.
As consumer behavior has shifted in recent times, confidence in obtaining desired holiday outcomes has been shaded by a wave of uncertainty, said Harry Guild, strategy director at agency BBH USA.
“I feel perhaps 10 years ago, the holiday season was all the time very set and it was such a well-recognized space … Now, annually now we have to do more gazing into the crystal ball.”
Harry Guild
Strategy Director, BBH USA
“I feel perhaps 10 years ago, the holiday season was all the time very set and it was such a well-recognized space,” said Guild. “Now, annually now we have to do more gazing into the crystal ball.”
Among priorities this 12 months, spending on gifts is predicted to be relatively flat over last 12 months, per Deloitte, while clothing and accessories remain the highest gifts to present. Instead, many consumers are prone to place a much bigger concentrate on experiences, like hosting, with spending within the sector forecast to rise 16% 12 months over 12 months. Online retailers (71%) and mass merchants (55%) are the popular shopping destinations.
To reach shoppers, 41% of advertisers plan to extend their spend on connected TV (CTV) this 12 months, per TvScientific. The channel was ranked as the highest performer for holiday campaigns last 12 months, with social media falling second. The majority of advertisers (54%) planned to activate for the vacations within the Q3, up barely from 51% the 12 months prior.
While timing and channel mix are typical considerations for holiday promoting, this 12 months’s presidential election carries additional weight. Half of advertisers (50%) consider the political face-off will impact the visibility of their seasonal campaigns, per TvScientific’s report, which advises that the election could spur a shortened holiday shopping season.
Why multichannel is ‘table stakes’
For marketers to face out this season, a multichannel presence is prone to be “table stakes” as consumers shop a wider swath of channels, per Deloitte. Simultaneously, consumers report that they are more loyal to retailers once they have consistent experiences online and in-store.
True Religion has opted for a more sprawling media strategy this 12 months in hopes of shoring up latest customers. The retailer’s campaign, which incorporates a tie-up with superstar Megan Thee Stallion and rapper Hunxho, spans in-store and online and includes out-of-home ads and content across editorial, influencer and paid channels including CTV, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and Facebook. The push also will include its first audio campaign, while tests on Pinterest and Reddit round out the hassle.
Having a throughline across the channels leveraged by the brand, just like the repetition of certain colours or messaging, is vital to maintaining consistency, said True Religion CMO Kristen D’Arcy. However, it’s just as necessary to strategize content native to every platform to seem authentic, she added.
“I feel of it a bit bit like matching luggage, but obviously there’s different sizes,” D’Arcy said. “Depending on where you interact with us, you’ll feel the consistency of the brand by the use of tone of voice, also by visuals … however the content is planned in a different way depending on the channel to be certain it feels endemic.”
Marketing across multiple channels is also key to sticking with consumers as loyalty comes under threat, with 62% of shoppers willing to modify to lower-priced brands while 25% report looking for “dupe” goods, per Deloitte. Timing may be critical, with 38% of consumers having planned to buy October promotional events, per Deloitte, though the majority of spending is forecast for late November.
Balancing joy with affordability
Brands attempting to ring a bell with consumers this season have led with various messaging themes, though a combination of value and traditional holiday tropes is common.
For its part, JCPenney is doubling down on a commitment to working families by leaning into its successful “Really Big Deals Reveals” campaign. Amazon is opting for more emotional messaging with “Midnight Opus,” a worldwide campaign that positions the e-commerce behemoth because the hub for heartfelt gestures. The retailer used the same strategy for the 2023 season.
Walmart’s pop culture-heavy campaign highlights the moments when people find the right gift. A 60-second spot pairs the heat of gift giving with iconic scenes from film and television series like “Gilmore Girls” and “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.” The retailer’s concentrate on culture, which it similarly tapped into last 12 months, is meant to assist it stand apart within the crowded retail category while still highlighting affordability.
True Religion debuted its holiday campaign, “Where Holiday Wishes Come True,” in the autumn with a significant headliner in Megan Thee Stallion. The selection reflects stepped up efforts by the brand to attach with women, a segment that after led in a 60/40 split over the brand’s men’s business. However, the split has since flipped.
“When we thought of the suitable talent for the campaign, we knew we wanted form of a female powerhouse,” said D’Arcy. “We’ve really doubled down within the last couple of years on our focus of growing the ladies’s business.”
Reflecting expectations that customers will spend more on experiences this 12 months, SharkNinja’s global campaign starring soccer icon David Beckham positions Ninja’s kitchen appliances as a solution to make holiday hosting easy. Convenience as a theme can be evident in Urban Outfitters’ “Happy LOLidays” campaign that promotes the retailer as a hub for stress-free gifting.
Tapping into trends
Some retailers are using the vacations to experiment with buzzy tech like AI. American Eagle’s seasonal strategy includes becoming the primary retailer in North America to launch an AI gift guide chatbot on WhatsApp, a messaging app that dominates in international markets and is gaining traction within the U.S., explained CMO Craig Brommers. The Meta-owned platform is especially popular among the many retailer’s goal Gen Z audience.
For the hassle, American Eagle is leveraging Meta ads that invite consumers to talk via WhatsApp to search out the right gift. Consumers who click into the ad will probably be redirected to WhatsApp where they will begin shopping with a prompt like “I want some gift advice.” From there, they will probably be asked clarifying questions like who they are shopping for, color preferences and hobbies until they are presented with a spread of products.
American Eagle’s use of AI represents a useful opportunity to be an authority for consumers as they ask the timeless query of what they need to gift their family members, Brommers explained. The move also speaks to the brand’s eagerness to be first-to-market. However, that’s to not say the project was a rush job — it took the team months to iron out facets like customer journey and tone of voice.
“We desired to make it feel such as you’re chatting with a friend or someone that felt like one among our store associates,” Brommers said. “How do you’re taking that have from the actual world and put it into the digital world — [that’s] type of been a bit little bit of the guideline.”
The gift of social media
Perhaps less flashy than AI but nonetheless worthy for holiday strategies is a robust mobile presence. This 12 months, about 60% of each Gen Z and millennials plan to buy via their smartphones, per Deloitte. Additionally, 13% of consumers — the bulk being the younger generations — plan to purchase gifts on social media.
For brands vying to succeed in digital shoppers, minimizing the trail to buy, whether in-app or via social media platforms, will probably be key to landing the sale, said Emily Brown, senior manager of strategy at Billion Dollar Boy. Amid a 12 months that marks the very best social investment observed by the exec, it is going to even be crucial for brands to maneuver quickly in the event that they wish to face out.
“We’ve been working with brands for months on holiday planning, and so it’s going to be so congested that even when you’ve been working on a campaign for months, I feel you furthermore may should have a plan in place to quickly jump on trends that are happening,” Brown said.
One of social media’s shiny objects continues to be TikTok Shop, a platform that has been successful in driving each sales and brand awareness on the ByteDance-owned app, Brown said, particularly in the sweetness and retail space. Still, TikTok Shop has had its pitfalls, particularly in regard to questions around its legitimacy and oversaturation in users’ feeds. To drive interest, the exec recommends brands consider selling a product exclusively on TikTok Shop, a move Coke explored earlier this 12 months.
As marketers juggle various trends and mapping the when and where of their strategies, BBH’s Guild also urges brands not to think about the vacations as homogenous — there are quite a few moments surrounding the season’s tentpole events that also represent key marketing opportunities.
“It’s not Christmas morning day by day — you’re not eating chocolate for breakfast day by day,” Guild said. “There’s a great deal of little moments within the holiday season. I feel [it’s] understanding that it’s not a one-off event, it’s like 10 weeks of various stuff, and there’s different sorts of emotional turbulence occurring, and then understanding find out how to pitch yourself throughout that.”
Read the complete article here
