Whether bedazzled or bemused by the multi-platform domination of Christmas marketing campaigns, they are a great example of how integrated marketing can boost your brand.
Do you remember a time when a Christmas campaign was primarily about showcasing what’s on sale over the festive period? A sparkling montage of products to a twinkling Christmas tune with the odd smattering of celebrity to seal the deal. Those days are long gone. In recent years, the key to Christmas domination has been integrated marketing – with a huge amount of planning and investment ensuring a consistent brand message can be spread across as many different platforms as possible.
Take John Lewis, for many the King of the Christmas campaign – if you can get past the schmalzy concept – the campaign was launched with much fanfare on television at the end of November. The ‘Man on The Moon’ message was then spread across social media – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube (just over 20M views at the start of December!). The soundtrack was available on Spotify, Apple Music and iTunes.
Whilst successful businesses have always mixed free communication opportunities – such as PR – with paid-for-marketing, the rise of social media means the opportunity for creating multi-platform integrated marketing is something all businesses can take advantage of.
Obviously John Lewis have invested significantly in the key elements of their campaign but the conversations and interactions on social media were all free – adding immeasurable value to their marketing investment.
The organically evolving ‘social’ narrative adds value to the strategically paid-for parts of the campaign… the newspaper adverts with products hanging from balloons, the artwork placed in the bottom of boxes, the ‘Man on The Moon’ pop up exhibitions in-store…
All contributing to a massive 15.8% sales increase in comparison to the week prior to the campaign launch.
What can smaller businesses take from this approach? Integrated marketing is a brilliant way to increase the ‘reach’ of your campaign. If you plan your communications carefully you can use low cost channels, such as social media and PR to significantly amplify the impact of your paid-for-marketing.