Happy Valentine's Day everyone. I opened my emails and saw the onslaught of hearts in the subject lines of holiday themed email offers. Dashvapes and the mail order marijuana place had lovey dovey deals. The Shopping Channel and 514-Billets were letting me know I could share the love by buying stuff today.
I know that the corporate marketing sales holiday calendar is here to stay but I hate the vapid nature of it all. There is no relevance to these deals. They are just, oh say word it’s February 14th, let’s give you 15% off a drill or some vape juice. The part that gets me is that it feels like an onslaught of fake love via corporate heart emojis all trying to hustle me.
While I’m sure it’s an effective strategy to do what everyone else does, it’s also annoying. It’s often some of the laziest advertising I’ve ever seen in my life.
Valentine’s Day is inherently capitalistic and I’m fine with that
I’m not mad at people advertising on Valentine’s Day to push sales. It’s clearly a day that is full of presents. It’s fun to go buy some gifts for someone you love and getting surprises is super cool too.
Sometimes people are super extra about it and others are kind of negligent. How deep you want to play the love-day present for sex games is up to you. It’s important to know your partner and figure out what matters to them. Don’t ignore their feelings over principle, it took me way too long to learn that lesson.
I think retailers believe that because people are going to buy presents that they can just slap a discount sticker on items and push it. They for sure have data on what items each gender prefers receiving, so I bet they algorithmically chose items that make sense. It’s still super lazy, there’s nothing to that campaign. It’s just another discount because it happens to be this time of year.
In March it will all be green themed with leprechauns. You know who does not have any wild sales going on today? Lindt. Lindt just been dropping heart themed content like this:
You know why? The chocolate people know that people are going to buy chocolate for their loved ones. They could raise the price and still sell. They still needed to make content to push the idea that Lindt is the chocolate you want. But they have such strong marketing they don’t need cheap sales to push this “sales holiday”. They just need to make sure their premium product that makes everyone happy is available.
St-Viateur made heart shaped bagels, that type of corny is cool. If you want to capitalize on the holiday, go all in, it’s the laziness that bothers me.
Sales aren’t special anymore
Sometimes I see people remarking at how we no longer get a spectacle around Black Friday time. Black Friday (and Boxing Day for us Canadians) used to be a really big deal. The specials would be the greatest specials you will get all year. Whatever the hott item was, that TV or X-Box would be marked down so low it is almost worth a brawl over.
One time I waited in line at H&M. The first 100 people got gift cards that had free H&M money ranging from 25$-300$. I personally got a 75$ gift card that day. H&M had a gimmick that made it worth it for me to stand in line. There was a general hype cycle around the day.
There was also madness in the store. It took over an hour to try on clothes. It was an unforgettable experience. I’m glad I didn’t try to gladiator fight through Best Buy crowds. Side note, almost all that H&M clothing was in the garbage within 6 months.
Then Black Friday got extended to Cyber Monday. Boxing Day became a week. The gimmicks ended and the specials got real mid. Chances are if you wait a month or two, whatever the Black Friday special was, will come back as the Valentine’s Day special. Literally every week they invent a reason for a new sale.
A bunch of people who make more money than me are committed to this new world order. I no longer wait for things to go on special because of the change, I just get stuff as I need it. The 15% off is cool and all, but not worth waiting for.
A good campaign will come off like art
Coca Cola popularized Santa Clause as we know him today. That is an effective marketing campaign. Coca Cola also made polar bears really cool for a while. Pepsi is the drink that is “forever young”.
A good marketing effort will be something that sells without cheapening the product. It will tap into the brand identity and speak directly to their consumers. Snoop Dogg giving up smoke for Solo Stove was brilliant, hilarious and probably sold some stoves. This brand leveraged creativity instead of a cheap valentine’s day special. It had a creative ad linked to the right celebrity to drive it home.
A newsletter that leverages content that offers value to the readers is going to go way farther than one that offers sales. Instead of Dashvapes hitting me with a 15% off. Imagine a month of ads where they leveraged humorous tales of the missus of the household that hated the smell of cigarettes. Then all of a sudden Dashvapes shows up and proceeds to help homie get his dick wet by not tasting like tobacco (true story, happened to me).
Or what if they painted a picture of me running out of vape juice and acting all anxious over no nicotine. Then they hit me with the order Dashvapes and never have this happen again. Get the Valentine’s Day nookie you want by having the supplies you need.
I really liked the way Wix and Squarespace show value in their advertising. They wait until you are in the funnel to drop prices, but they do that year round. It’s not cornily attached to a holiday. It’s cornily attached to a trigger based on my behaviour.
I want to see better advertising efforts from people who want my money. Be like Apple, build a culture.
This cannot be a sustainable future
I don’t mean sustainability from an eco-friendly point of view. Though the constant push for consumption has a lot of bad effects on the planet. No, instead I mean constantly pushing sales offers related to every holiday can’t be the future of marketing. You are just a media machine in a constant rush to hit these arbitrary deadlines.
There are entire social media calendars ready to go, giving you ever possible # day that could be related to your business. It all has no soul. It’s like listening to pop music and trying to replicate it then singing songs that have nothing to do with your life. It creates this weird cognitive dissonance between our perception and brand expectation.
Or maybe I’m wrong. Maybe this push for optimized sales funnels will be all that is required for future companies. I think brand identity matters a lot for longevity though. Or at least I appreciate a brand that tries hard. Vessi has a clear identity and I like it. So I bought some Vessi gear.
All I’m saying is that advertising and marketing efforts need to try harder. I appreciate the effort that goes into a good ad. Kanye goofing on spending 7 million and then just using his phone to make an ad is brilliant. The concept is perfectly Kanye and speaks to his fanbase.
It all comes down to the lore behind your moves. If your decisions make sense to your audience, the relationship you build will move products.
I was annoyed at some ads today and here we are. Hope you get laid today.
Live Long and Prosper Everyone
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