{"id":574,"date":"2016-11-30T18:06:55","date_gmt":"2016-11-30T23:06:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kenbanks.com\/?p=574"},"modified":"2017-01-11T15:13:35","modified_gmt":"2017-01-11T20:13:35","slug":"making-holiday-messages-special-with-branding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kenbanks.com\/?p=574","title":{"rendered":"MAKING HOLIDAY MESSAGES SPECIAL WITH BRANDING."},"content":{"rendered":"

[et_pb_section admin_label=”section”][et_pb_row admin_label=”row”][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row admin_label=”row”][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row admin_label=”row”][et_pb_column type=”2_3″][et_pb_video admin_label=”Video” src=”https:\/\/youtu.be\/GzXGNEON7nM”] [\/et_pb_video][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_3″][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row admin_label=”Row”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” background_layout=”light” text_orientation=”left” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid”]<\/p>\n

PRESS PLAY>>TO VIEW THIS MONTH\u2019S WELCOME VIDEO<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Season\u2019s Greetings from Cincinnati, Ohio.\u00a0 Being back in the Queen City on the Ohio River, brings back memories of my first career job\u00a0\u00a0\"pg-logo\"in brand management on Folger\u2019s Coffee.\u00a0 Back then, going to work at P&G was comparable to getting your doctorate in marketing and the strong foundation for a career in branding.\u00a0 One of the first things I learned was that SHARE OF MARKET was the most important measurement of a brand\u2019s success.\u00a0 In my time on Folger\u2019s, we never looked at a sales report like I did when I moved to retail a few years later.\u00a0 It was all about share and analyzing Nielsen reports every other month by market, by brand, by product and then analyzing what we did that worked to improve share or what the competitors did to take away share.\u00a0 Did a special promotion work?\u00a0 Did a change in campaigns have a positive effect? (Although we never change our ad strategy in my time there.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Looking at all of the holiday campaigns that have broken this past couple weeks makes me wonder whether anyone is watching their market share or is all about the next big promotion.\u00a0 I\u2019ve talked about Black Friday the past few years, and I won\u2019t waste any time going into that debacle.\u00a0 Nor will I spend any time lamenting the thick sale inserts in the Thanksgiving day newspapers which have less readership than the papers themselves these days.\u00a0 Rather let\u2019s look at a couple examples of companies that still believe that the key to holiday sales is to make this time of year truly special and that visiting their stores is a special experience.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"macys-logo\"Macy\u2019s continues to run its BELIEVE campaign for the ninth straight year and it\u2019s better than ever.\u00a0 If you\u2019ve been reading my blogs for a while, you know that I\u2019m not a big fan of any department store marketing for quite some time.\u00a0 However, Macy\u2019s still has a commitment to making its store an important part of their customer\u2019s holiday season.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The benchmark of the campaign is its Make a Wish program where the company donates a dollar for each letter to Santa that\u2019s mailed at \"macys-believe-logo\"special store mailboxes. Yes, Virginia, they\u2019re doing it again and it\u2019s just as special as the first year with driving home the true meaning of Christmas giving and benefiting the community at the same time.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But that\u2019s not all that makes Macy\u2019s special during the holidays. Of course there is the annual Thanksgiving Day Parade<\/strong> which continues to be must viewing every Thanksgiving morning around our house and millions of others around the country.\u00a0 Still a tradition that makes the store special.\u00a0 Then, there is their Macy\u2019s Santa Land<\/strong> in select stores that warrant a special trip by families who could easily go to the mall nearby, but there\u2019s nothing special about that.\u00a0 In Philadelphia, Macy\u2019s continues the city\u2019s 50-year tradition of the Christmas Light Show<\/strong> with tree lightings and story-telling. In Chicago, there\u2019s Breakfast with Santa <\/strong>throughout the holidays while in Dalls, Texas Montly teams with Macy\u2019s for a Holiday Fashion Party <\/strong>on Friday, December 2.\u00a0 Add to these events, New York\u2019s Holiday Fireworks Spectacular<\/strong>, Philadelphia\u2019s Dickens Village,\u00a0 <\/strong>San Francisco\u2019s Winter Walk Holiday Entertainment o<\/strong>n Union Square, \u00a0New York\u2019s Holiday Window Unveiling, <\/strong>and a Hanukkah Celebration <\/strong>as well.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"macys-store-image\"In short, Macy\u2019s gives us a reason to make the season special besides their one-day sales, 12 hour sales, holiday specials, etc.\u00a0\u00a0 It\u2019s all part of the Macy\u2019s Brand that would hold true for any major department store as was the case in Christmas\u2019s gone-by.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Let\u2019s hope this tradition continues!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There are other companies that have the Christmas spirit as well.\u00a0 Subaru\u2019s LOVE campaign compliments their ongoing brand strategy and helps them stand out from the other car companies.\u00a0 Bass Pro continues its Santa\u2019s Wonderland which brings in large crowds every day to the store for more than just good gift ideas.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 By adding special events to the Christmas advertising not only builds traffic but also enhances the brand all year long.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Have a Merry Christmas!\"img_0010\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[et_pb_section admin_label=”section”][et_pb_row admin_label=”row”][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row admin_label=”row”][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row admin_label=”row”][et_pb_column type=”2_3″][et_pb_video admin_label=”Video” src=”https:\/\/youtu.be\/GzXGNEON7nM”] [\/et_pb_video][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_3″][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row admin_label=”Row”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” background_layout=”light” text_orientation=”left” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid”] PRESS PLAY>>TO VIEW THIS MONTH\u2019S WELCOME VIDEO   Season\u2019s Greetings from Cincinnati, Ohio.\u00a0 Being back in the Queen City on the Ohio River, brings back memories of my first career job\u00a0\u00a0in brand management on Folger\u2019s Coffee.\u00a0 Back […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kenbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kenbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kenbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=574"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":608,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574\/revisions\/608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kenbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}