Everything You Need To Know About Five Marketing Holidays
Have you ever fallen victim to celebrating the occasional fake corporate holiday such as Cyber Monday or National Pancake Day? While these corporate holidays are not registered as official days of celebration by the federal government, there still appear to be many special days throughout the month that promote the sales and traffic of these popular brands.
Even though the federal government grants the status of an official holiday, this is not going to stop companies from trying to increase their sales and revenue for their products. Moreover, in the spirit that promotes these wholesale holidays for consumers to grasp, more and more companies are establishing their very own special day to revamp their products. Especially if these holidays are quirky and fun enough to remember and celebrate — like a day in the remembrance of a past planet in our solar system.
Generally speaking, there are too many unofficial holidays to discuss throughout this article, but here are just a few fake holidays created by companies with the intention to pad sales.
Sweetest Day
A prominent day in the Buckeye state of Ohio, Sweetest Day is a midwestern holiday that celebrates love by giving flowers, love mementos, Hallmark cards, and of course, candy. Surprisingly, this so-called day of romantic sweets and gestures is also referred to as a “Hallmark Holiday,” with more than 80% of Sweetest Days cards being romantically inclined.
Dating back to the roaring 20s, Sweetest Day was brought into existence by Herbert Birch Kingston and 12 other confectioners in Cleveland, Ohio. Although being a day in the celebration of love, these confectioners gain tremendous profits for the candy industry — especially once movie stars and public dignitaries endorsed this sweets-filled holiday.
Furthermore, this cousin holiday to Valentine’s Day originally started as a day that offered sweets and small gifts to the less fortunate. However, until recently, this holiday is a day where women express love for their significant others by providing presents of love — as opposed to the men buying the gifts, which usually occurs on Cupid’s holiday.
National Pancake Day
With over 1,600 locations scattered nationwide, the International House of Pancakes (IHOP) started offering free pancakes in 2006 and labeled this occasion as a national day of flapjacks. Coincidentally, this day also happens to fall on a religiously important holiday before the start of Lent on Ash Wednesday. This highly religious day is known as Shrove Tuesday.
“My favorite health club is the International House of Pancakes.”
In addition, hotcakes have been around since the Ancient Greeks. Later civilizations marked this holiday as Shrove Tuesday in 1100 AD, which began the association of pancakes with a special day throughout the year. More importantly, this day of pancakes struck a chord for IHOP’s marketing team, who saw an opportunity to drive sales with the help of this special day for Christians.
Quite similar to the technique that McDonald’s uses with their Filet-O-Fish on Good Friday, IHOP revamped this religious holiday as a strategy for marketing more business and pancakes. From this implementation of National Pancake Day in 2006, IHOP has raised over 30 million dollars for charities by using this delicious marketing strategy of distributing a free short stack of Buttermilk pancakes.
Small Business Saturday
With over 60% of people preferring online shopping to in-store, American Express introduced a new American shopping holiday to curb the negative sales of brick-and-mortar businesses. In 2010, American Express developed a strategy labeled Small Business Saturday as a locally-focused alternative to big brands Black Friday.
With this intention, American Express patronized small and local businesses by implementing this registered trademark holiday to increase the sales of both industries. As for being a holiday that aids in support of local businesses, Small Business Saturday is held on the first Saturday following Thanksgiving. Last year on Small Business Saturday, an estimated $19.8 billion was spent by American consumers who shopped in support of their independent stores and restaurants.
Although this day falls only once a year, American Express created the event as a reminder for all shoppers to not only shop small on the holidays but to continue supporting local businesses all year long.
Cyber Monday
With the help from Ellen Davis of the National Retail Federation, “digital Black Friday” was established on November 28th, 2005, as an encouragement for holiday shoppers to purchase gifts for their loved ones via the web. This digital alternative to Black Friday takes place on the first Monday after Thanksgiving and has substantially increased the sales revenues of retailers — by roughly 75%.
Equivalent to big brands’ Black Friday, Cyber Monday offers a chance for smaller retailers to compete with larger businesses. For example, independent retailers on Amazon exceeded $4.8 billion in worldwide sales following Cyber Monday, causing the figure to skyrocket by 60% from last year.
While lots of holiday shoppers will continue shopping in-store for their loved ones, Cyber Monday allows consumers to opt for next-day delivery without ever leaving the comfort of their own beds.
National 7–11 Day
For many people, there is nothing more delicious and refreshing than enjoying a Slurpee from 7–11 but do you know what is even better? Walking into a 7–11 establishment on any July 11th and leaving with a free Slurpee. Why is this, you ask?
On 7–11’s 75th anniversary, this company celebrated its birthday by offering free Slurpees to their respective guests, which started the 7–11 Day tradition. Moreover, since Slurpees’ introduction in 1966, more than 7 billion Slurpees have been sold to the public — accounting for 470,000 Slurpees a day.
In addition to marketing free Slurpees on 7–11 Day, the term “brain-freeze” is another marketing tool that 7–11 has officially trademarked from the casual slang of baseball. This colloquial term accurately describes this arctic freezing sensation whenever you drink a Slurpee way too fast.
Whatever the product is that you either crave or desire, there is most likely an immortalized day that celebrates that company’s success in causing you to want that item. Such as celebrating World Nutella Day with the only cocoa-hazelnut product throughout the entire world.
Although we aren’t getting extra vacation days for these unofficial holidays, these quirky and fun reminders to celebrate the little things in our lives are truly priceless.
