Why seasonal campaigns are good for your brand

Abi Roman

Are your campaigns in the doldrums? Is your marketing plan in disarray?  Danielle Raperport, Account Director, explores why seasonal promotions are the ideal way to revive your marketing campaigns this autumn.

The Coronavirus epidemic has affected us in many ways and with all major events scrapped and countless retailers and services closed for so long, the past quarter has been a real struggle for marketers.

Although hope is emerging on the horizon, the reality is that budgets are reduced, some lockdown restrictions are still in place and there are concerns about a second wave of Covid-19- so it makes sense to run campaigns around things we know are certain to happen like Halloween and Christmas, or Easter next spring. But what will make your seasonal promotion a success?

  1. Make prizes relevant – Our prize research shows that most people want to win cash, but they are also delighted with prizes that help them out – so that means holidays for summer promotions, top gifts at Christmas such as gaming consoles or food treats at Halloween.
  2. The magic number – We find that promotions are best with more than one prize, but not lots and lots of different ones. Increasing the chances of winning but without confusing the entrant is the goal.
  3. Surprise and delight prizes are great too! Prizes that are out of this world, that you cannot buy in stores or a dramatic sum of money will always mean success for your promotion
  4. Loud and clear – During holiday seasons and big calendar dates like Mother’s Day your promotion will be vying for attention along with many others. Ensuring that your promotion is simple to understand and easy to enter will make it the most attractive and communicating this well on your packaging will help it to stand out on the shelves.
  5. Timing is everything – Make sure that your promotion is timed to take advantage of excitement for the coming holiday. Running promotions early and giving away prizes in time for that event or holiday will attract people wanting to win cash or gifts for the holiday period.
  6. A time for giving – Our recent survey also discovered that during lockdown the public has become accustomed to giving to one another – a promotion that allows the winner to give their prize to someone else will receive a lot of entries, and a lot of shares on social media too.

Some seasonal promotions we love:

Maynards Summer of Silly Fun

Last summer we helped Maynards Bassett with their popular on-pack promotion for the chance to win a day of ‘silly fun’ with tickets to visit one of various UK attractions, or trainers, designer sunglasses and wireless speakers.

Cadbury White Egg

This Easter promotion got the whole nation searching for the hundreds of special white Cadbury Creme Eggs that we had hidden in stores around the UK and Ireland.

Cadbury Ghooost Egg

For this Halloween promotion we hid special Cadbury Creme Eggs with green yolk. The lucky finders were treated to a family trip to Alton Towers’ Halloween event.

TK Maxx White Christmas


We helped TK Maxx with their instant win promotion to make Christmas dreams come true. Real snow was delivered to the lucky customers who found exclusive snow-globes online and in retail stores.

Walkers All I want for Christmas Instant Win

Walkers gave away thousands of prizes including Xbox consoles, Netflix subscriptions, Christmas socks, cash and boxes of crisps, with this on-pack promotion that ended on 31st January.

Tyrells Mother’s Day

This novel Mother’s Day Facebook competition closed with plenty of time to select the winner and send her a personalised pack of Tyrells crisps by Mothering Sunday.

Whatever the holiday, festivity or time of year, seasonal promotions create the perfect platform for brands to boost excitement, engagement and sales. What is most important is to plan ahead and plan well and remember to bring out the joy in promotions, whilst minimising any risk to the consumer.

To find out more about running seasonal promotions contact us at info@promoveritas.com or why not join our webinar on Wednesday 22nd July where we will share our knowledge and expertise. To register click the link below.