It’s early November, but we all know that holiday advertising heats up after Halloween, and many times even earlier. The iconic Lexus ads with the big red bow have been running since 1998 as part of their December to Remember campaign, which it will continue this year. Other iconic holiday advertising campaigns include the Coca-Cola polar bear, which have been moved to being used mostly in-store but are still recognizable to many of us. M&M has gotten in the mix with their walking, talking M&Ms meeting Santa while another candy, Hershey’s Kisses, has aligned themselves indefinitely with the holidays thanks to those Holiday Bells commercials.
Here are some of the season’s early holiday ads campaigns:
- Starbucks
Starbucks cups are iconic year-round and have become symbolic as an outward symbol that the person holding a cup of Starbucks has worked hard and deserves this treat as a personal reward. For those that love Starbucks, just seeing a cup can bring up warm, cozy feelings because the stores are familiar as is the ordering process for long-time fans. And during the holidays, Starbucks raises the bar by introducing their red cups in early November as they have been doing for 17 years. Digiday reports, “On Instagram, where Starbucks says last year there was a picture of the red cups uploaded every 14 seconds within the first two days of the campaign starting, the hashtags #RedCup and #RedCups tallied more than 330,000 posts, mostly pictures of people post with the cups.”
- Mulberry
This luxury British lifestyle brand is known for its finely made leather goods, but not necessarily for its sense of humor. As Marie France observes, “Tongue-in-cheek doesn’t quite come to mind. Which is why their Christmas film this year is pure comedic genius.” The film is a 2-minute commercial tagged #MulberryMiracle that recreates the nativity scene, but putting a bright red women’s purse in place of Baby Jesus. Watch the video here.
- Target
Target amps up the cute this year, utilizing their mascot, Bullseye the dog, as an animated character ready to take kids on a shopping spree touted as a Target storybook. Of course, along the way Bullseye leads users to different products that they can add to their wish list, so it’s really a guided virtual shopping trip with a super cute dog.
