The holiday season is the perfect time for brands to connect with their audiences in creative and engaging ways. From heartwarming storytelling to community-driven campaigns, Christmas marketing efforts often capture the magic of the season while driving sales and brand awareness. Here are three standout social media campaigns that have successfully tapped into the festive spirit, and how you can recreate them for your own business.
Rimowa: Gifts
The campaign: Over the last few years, Rimowa has been running their series of animated ‘Gifts’ videos. The luxury luggage brand manages to evoke emotions in their viewers, as well as convey the high-end sophistication their bags and suitcases provide. These short clips showcase different cultures and settings, all with one common theme: Rimowa luggage enabling meaningful experiences. The brand has purposefully captured the essence of travel in these seconds-long videos, while still balancing a subtle elegance associated with Rimowa. This moves the brand’s image away from simply being a high-end baggage brand, and instead conveys a greater depth.
How you can recreate it: Create your own drawing-style images featuring your products in action using Picsart’s AI tools. Create these instantly and post them on your social media accounts in the days leading up to Christmas to promote additional sales and experiences. This may work particularly well if you’re a cozy cafe looking to drum up some additional holiday business, or if you’re a beauty brand with products that make great stocking fillers.
Coca-Cola: Santa’s Takeover
The campaign: The famous soda brand took their organic social media marketing one step further over the last few years by creating an X account for the iconic Coca-Cola Santa, separate from their main corporate account. The account was first created in January 2020, but the first post wasn’t published until December that year – some forward thinking from the marketing team! All posts on the account have been written as though they were created by Santa, ranging from polls asking what he should do today to funny one-liners that prompt engagement such as ‘RT if you want to make the Nice List.’ The account was active periodically between December 2020 and July 2023, with the most active month being December each year. Although the account’s following sits at 3,000 currently, numerous posts saw exceptionally high engagement, including one which saw over a whopping 1,400 comments. Brands have been leaning into mascot social media accounts, with another example being Duolingo hosting TikTok accounts for its characters.
How you can recreate it: If you have a character or icon as part of your branding, this is the perfect opportunity to bring it to life. If not, create one! Use Picsart Avatars or AI Logo Maker to create a whole new account for your character. The best part is that you can continue this initiative all year round. Foster an engaged community through storytelling and active posting. Your audience is soon to invest in the life of your character, and subsequently your brand. For last-minute holiday marketing, set up the account and tag it from your main social media. Launch a challenge (like Elf on the Shelf via your stories) or create a series of posts prompting engagement, like asking the audience what the character should wear on Christmas.
L.L. Bean: 12 Days of Puppies
The campaign: From 2016, L.L.Bean ran their 12 Days of Puppies campaign annually for a number of years via their Instagram account. For this campaign, L.L.Bean fans would submit images of their dogs in a festive setting in the hopes that their pup would be chosen as one of the 12 featured that year, along with a $50 gift card prize. A tailored hashtag of #LLBeanPuppyContest was required to be posted with all entries. The brand knew their target audience of outdoor enthusiasts would be likely to own dogs, making this campaign appealing to their key market. Puppies are also widely loved, which helped to draw attention to L.L.Bean at a pivotal selling time of the year.
How you can recreate it: Think of something unifying that people love – chocolate, novelty sweaters, animals, or anything else that would be specific to your target audience. Create a campaign in which people can send in their own submissions. This will help to activate and engage your audience and help to foster a sense of community. Use Picsart.
These three Christmas social media campaigns show how brands can connect with their audiences in a number of creative ways during the holiday season. Through storytelling, community-driven initiatives, and campaign-specific social media accounts which make the audience feel as though they are part of an inside joke, these various approaches offer opportunities to increase engagement, prompt seasonal sales, and provoke emotional reactions. Embrace what makes your brand special and recreate these campaigns with your own twists.
Create your own holiday content at picsart.com or by downloading the Picsart app.
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