Christmas feels like it is becoming more competitive each year, especially with the cost of living taking a swipe at our festive funds and people being generally more cautious and less generous with their gifting and celebrations than in previous years. We are seeing brands responding to this with more focus on ‘getting Christmas right’ and ensuring their campaigns over the period avoid any aspects that could reduce performance.

Christmas come early

The biggest shift in brands' approach to Christmas has been how early campaigns start. Several years ago December was one of the busiest periods in an experiential agency’s project calendar, but now brands are keen to start promoting their Christmas agenda as soon as tastefully possible; which is basically when the Christmas lights go up in city centres at the end of October.

The reason for this timing shift is down to Black Friday and the brands competing against each other to get on Christmas wish lists early, either for full-price purchases for those spreading the cost of Christmas or to ensure they are on the Black Friday bargain hunters' radar. Once past the end of November monthly payday, the effectiveness of driving harder metrics such as sales much reduces for most brands. The final December run-up is normally the domain of brands looking to own Christmas and cement consumer perception of being a festive staple as part of your family Christmas experience, for example, the drinks brand Baileys.

Nobody wants a grotty grotto

There are very few experiential site spaces available in key shopping areas so competition for them in the lead-up to Christmas is fierce. For the larger campaigns that we work on, we tend to have the Christmas site spaces booked by May, especially for prime locations such as Covent Garden and key shopping malls.

There are also great opportunities for brands to activate or partner with traditional festive occasions such as Christmas Markets which now feature in most towns and cities. Or sponsor ice rinks and create mini-brand experiences for skaters.

If you don’t plan 6 months or more ahead for Christmas then the site spaces available to you will be limited and will detrimentally affect the marketing potential of your campaign. Also don’t forget that the sooner you book, the more power you have to negotiate and secure non-inflated Christmas rates as landlords look to secure bookings early.

In November 2023 we developed a highly disruptive month-long pop-up for Marc Jacobs in Covent Garden. We started the campaign development in March of that year, securing the site space in May to ensure the brand had ‘the best’ site space in the UK for their Christmas activation.

What is hot for Christmas 2024?

People are always on the lookout for the perfect gift, whether that is a gift that is deeply personal or is a unique version of the giftee's favourite brand. Personalisation is a continuing trend with brands looking for innovative new ways to personalise their products which allow consumers to add messages of affection or make the product unique to the recipient. For the Pandora ‘Art of Loves’ Christmas 2023 pop-up we developed, consumers could design and print their own wrapping paper making it highly personal and completely bespoke to their loved one. These simple additions to the retail experience make a huge difference to consumers who are looking to buy a gift that allows them to express their love and affection for the recipient in a highly personalised way.

Another fantastic draw for consumers is to tap into the much-hyped ‘product drop’ strategy and offer product exclusives that cannot be purchased anywhere else. Fans of a brand will make huge efforts to visit your Christmas pop-up if there is the possibility of owning a completely unique piece from their favourite brand.