Fundamentals of creating a festive campaign that stands out

GoDaddy India's Nikhil Arora pens down tips & tricks for brands to follow as they run the last mile of planning their upcoming festive campaign.

The festive season brings with it family get-togethers, holidays, celebration, joy and of course, shopping. It is the cause of excitement for people as well as brands. For brands, this is a time to uplift spirits and emotionally connect with their customers. However, this year the celebrations will be different and limited due to the prolonged impact of the global pandemic. It is certain that the consumer outlook and their spending habits have changed. Brands can take this time of the year as an opportunity to attract customers through a festive campaign and make the most out of them to help excite people to engage with your brand. 

With almost every brand gearing up since August to create their festive campaigns, it’s very important for marketers to create effective campaigns that connect with their target audience. Though, this year’s festive season won’t be the same as in previous seasons, and for all the known reasons. Hence, brands need to be careful of what message they deliver through their campaign and recognize this year’s challenges.

Find the brand connect

To make a clutter-breaking festive campaign, it's important for brands to find basic connection between the festival and what the brand stands for.

With the second half of the year filled with festivities and celebrations, brands can leverage various occasions and weave in their messaging in the right way. 

One such major occasion for Indians this year was the Indian Premier League. Given that this year’s IPL is happening during the festive season, brands have created campaigns that connect with the occasion and delivers the brand message perfectly. One such example is the GoDaddy’s recent IMC Bijness Bhai Campaign with MS Dhoni that launched during the beginning of IPL 2020. Leveraging the power of IPL and brand Dhoni was a perfect way of creating awareness about the ease and affordability of creating an online presence.

Hashtags Can Never Go Wrong!

Giving your campaign a hashtag is a proven tactic to help make your campaign trend on social media. It not only increases social media engagement but also helps in creating buzz and spreading brand awareness. Therefore creating a catchy and trending hashtag for your festive campaign can help to make it stand out.

One such recent and brilliant example is PM Narendra Modi initiated a campaign to boost the local business — Vocal For Local. Soon this slogan became a hashtag and #VocalForLocal started trending in all social media platforms where people and businesses used it to promote their businesses and the cause of the campaign. 

Also Read: Editor’s Note: It’s not just the ‘Recorded Claps’ that’s changed about the IPL-Viewer-Brand dynamic

Hitting the Nostalgic Chord

Creating a campaign that will take your customers down the memory lane and make them feel connected to their childhood festive memories, can not only enable better customer connect but can also promote the brand’s authenticity. Besides, customers feel the urge to share the content which feels relatable and ignites nostalgia, which can help in increasing a brand’s visibility and helps create a larger potential pool of customers. 

Given the situation this year due to the pandemic, brands can leverage this warm feeling of nostalgia and connect emotionally with their customers by taking them through some #throwbacks!

Campaign for a Larger Cause

Campaigns that speak for a larger cause of the community rather than just spreading festive cheer are often likely to connect with customers. With a shared need and interest in supporting a worthy cause, purpose-driven campaigns usually can help the brand to connect with its target audience on a stronger level. Knowing the fact that everyone has been through unprecedented challenges this year, brands across sectors are putting an effort and coming forward to show their support through various campaigns can create a greater sense of belonging.

The Philips Khishion Ki Ladi campaign is a good example of such a campaign. It encourages people to shop to support the chain of the economy. The campaign highlights the message that when you buy something for your home, you light up many other homes.

Betting Big on Social

With the social distancing and the new normal world, the online space has grown larger than ever. More businesses are coming online as their target audiences have started spending more time on the internet. According to a YouGov study, Facebook & Instagram influence nearly 80% of the purchase decision made by millennials. Therefore, brands across sectors are betting big on social media this festive season, be it running festive contests or creating catchy content for their social media channels.  

With 2020 almost coming to an end, creative New Year social media campaign can be seen as a trend this festive season. Brands like Fevicol, Uber, and Cadbury have been creating some engaging New Year content on social media over the past years. And with so many expectations from the year 2021, this could be a perfect opportunity for brands to reach their customers through some creative social media campaigns.

After a few challenging months, the economy is slowly recovering and swinging back to a new normal pace. Despite the pandemic, the consumer outlook in India remains positive. As a responsible brand and citizens, let’s all do our part to help drive our country to recovery. Celebrate and enjoy the festive season with positivity and encouragement as we all look forward to a new and better year.

This article has been authored by Nikhil Arora, Managing Director and Vice President, GoDaddy India.