22 Dec HOW TO CELEBRATE OR COMMEMORATE SPECIAL DAYS AS A BRAND?
Brands need to acknowledge and celebrate national or international special days to connect with their audience. It’s a must for any brand in any scale at this point. But since most of the special days have a historical background, sometimes the celebration and commemoration with good intend can lead to backlash. That’s why, brands should be careful and be aware of the sensitivities of their audience.
Be sincere and authentic
Yes, we said that celebration or commemoration is a must for any brand. But don’t do just for the sake of doing it, and don’t forget your audience wants you to be sincere. They want you as a brand acknowledge their values and what’s important for them.
Is it a marketing opportunity?
At the end of the day, you still own a brand and must advertise your brand and benefit from the opportunities. Running a very well thought advertisement or campaign for a special day will bring appreciation and credit from your audience. Yet, this is a very risk area. In recent years, some brands start to celebrate or commemorate some special days one or two days before, just to get ahead of their rivals. But they received very negative comments by doing so. Because the importance wasn’t about that special day anymore, it was just like any other marketing campaign. These kinds of actions tend to receive negative comments and backlash especially on historically important days.
Merge your brand with the essence of that day
The best way to show appreciation and value a special day is to show the effect of that day. Let’s say that you are a woman entrepreneur running your own brand or company. On International Women’s Day, you can share your story with your audience and encourage them to support women entrepreneurs and business owners. Instead of using the cliché and out-dated slogans or mottos, share your own very authentic story, which people can relate to.
Using out-dated and cliché slogans is another mistake that most brands do. You have to be aware of the new understandings, trends and cultural and social improvements. What might be very encouraging 10 years ago is meaningless today. As a brand, you need to adopt yourself to the realities of this era.
It doesn’t even have to be a special day; you can still express your thought as a brand for any current issue or event. On July, 2020 Nike released a campaign called ‘You Can’t Stop Us’ with a video that went viral on social media platforms. The campaign’s main idea is that you can’t stop people from uniting, you can’t take our courage, people will always come back and strong. The video shows Black, Asian, White and Muslim female and male athletes, disabled and able-bodied athletes as the main message is inclusiveness. It also shows COVID-19 crisis on sports and also protests racism and police brutality. As you can see it’s a very inclusive marketing campaign with a very clear and strong message. Yes, it’s mostly applauded and appreciated on social media platforms but it also received a serious amount of backlash. Some people stated that the brand is hypocrite due to its production lines in China and human rights violation happening in China.
In a world with 7,800,000,000 people who are all very different and unique, it’s not possible to please everyone or being liked or appreciated by everyone. But as a brand, you already take that risk as there will be people who appreciate your products or service and some who won’t. That’s why, you can also take that risk on your campaigns and ads, just be authentic, sincere and have a very clear message.
Don’t follow past years very applauded campaigns or mottos, be creative and pioneer your sector with your original ideas! IDA Media is always here to boost your creativity and support you with the necessary information!
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