The festive period is such a crucial sales time for brands that it is essential that your Christmas experiential campaigns are on-point and don’t deliver the same disappointed feeling as receiving that knitted jumper from your mum.
If you are considering an experiential campaign this year, then here are a few learnings from Christmas Past and some insights into Christmas Present to consider for the upcoming months.
Top Tips for Experiential Festive Cheer.
Christmas comes earlier each year – In years gone by, December was typically the key month for Christmas experiential activity. Now we are seeing brands wanting to activate as soon as tastefully possible. This is being driven by brands wanting to get on shoppers’ present lists early and well before Black Friday sales erode margins. We are now seeing early November as the peak promotional period for brands at Christmas. In November of 2023 we delivered four pop ups simultaneously for Marc Jacobs, Sezane, Pandora and Pai Skincare.
Don’t be a Scrooge – Generosity is key to delivering an effective experiential campaign. There is no worse feeling for a consumer than walking away feeling your attendance was a waste of time; some brand fans might travel a couple of hours to visit the experience, so ensure guests are rewarded fittingly for attending. Here are some examples of what consumers are looking for – Meet the founder experience, exclusive products to drive attendance and sales, product masterclasses and a stylish/fun environment to appeal to the amateur content creators. Remember, it is only expensive if it doesn’t work!
Embrace the holiday spirit – Christmas is a time for spreading ‘the love’ and positive festive vibes. It is a time for expressing your affection for loved ones through carefully selected heartfelt personalised gifts. Giving back to those who are less well off and need your support. Or, just a great opportunity to get together and catch up with your closest friends. Remember to create experiences that pull on these emotive levers, so guests come away with a Christmas spirit boost.
What is hot for Christmas this year?
Make it personal – Personalisation continues to be the hottest topic when it comes to Christmas gifting and a source of continual innovation, with brands competing for the latest methods of personalising gifts. A seemingly simple mechanic is an incredibly difficult process to get right, having to balance cost, operational considerations and make it exciting and new for customers.
In 2023, we developed the ‘Art of Loves’ pop up experience for Pandora where guests could be inspired by commissioned UK artists’ interpretation of love through five exhibits. Inspired by these art installations and key Pandora jewellery pieces, guests could create a completely unique and bespoke piece of artwork to wrap a present to a loved one. To complement this, guests could write a message of love which appeared on the pop-up’s external screen against the backdrop of Tower Bridge to share online.
Less is more – When it comes to Christmas experiences, simplicity is key. This is a high footfall time of year, so often it is best for the experience to be fairly ‘low-touch’ to maximise the number of engagements you can achieve and campaign ROI. Another key consideration is making the operations of the experience simple and inexpensive.
A great example of this is the recent high-design kiosk we created for Prada Beauty. The vending machine-based experience delivered beauty samples, a chance to win spot prizes, collected data and drove UGC content. This massively popular campaign was staffed by a lean team of three brand ambassadors and visited four locations around the UK.
Book to avoid disappointment – Most people plan their special Christmas shopping day out and large queues at experiential events can be really annoying, especially for your real ‘brand fans’. Build a bookable attendance option into the guest experience; this doesn’t have to be just for masterclasses or other traditional bookable activities, this can be a fast-track queue experience where guests pay a small amount to secure a slot, say £5. For this they get to jump the queue and receive a unique piece of brand merchandise or goody bag.
James Barnes
With over 20 years of experience in experiential marketing, James has honed his skills at leading global advertising and experiential agencies before co-founding Backlash in 2017. Backlash was established as a response to the burnout often seen in agency life, creating a nurturing environment where creativity can thrive. Our mission at Backlash is to deliver "Big Agency Thinking, without the Price Tag," ensuring that the transformative power of experiential marketing is accessible to brands of all sizes, regardless of budget.
