{"id":102004,"date":"2017-04-12T12:53:20","date_gmt":"2017-04-12T12:53:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/?p=102004"},"modified":"2017-04-12T12:53:20","modified_gmt":"2017-04-12T12:53:20","slug":"its-never-too-early-to-start-thinking-about-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/blog\/its-never-too-early-to-start-thinking-about-christmas\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s never too early to start thinking about christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sure, we haven\u2019t even eaten our Easter eggs yet but some marketing and communications departments are already busy thinking about Christmas. In fact, retail bosses at Marks and Spencer take the festive season so seriously they start thinking about Christmas before Christmas.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s right, according to an article<\/u><\/a>\u00a0in Campaign, M&S will soon be ready to strategize their Christmas 2018 activities.<\/p>\n

Marks and Spencer\u2019s head of International marketing and Christmas (what a job title), Ira Dubinsky, told journalists: \u201cChristmas is such a critical time for retailers, and it’s crucial they connect with customers.\u201d<\/p>\n

While many other big brands don\u2019t start their Christmas planning until January, Marks and Spencer needs such a long lead time in the run-up to Christmas to work with product developers and designers.<\/p>\n

John Lewis is another retail brand that takes Christmas very seriously and starts their planning efforts early.<\/p>\n

Richard Brim, creative director of Adam & Eve\/DDB, who produced John Lewis\u2019 \u201cBuster the Boxer\u201d Christmas advert last year, described festive campaigns as an \u201conslaught\u201d.<\/p>\n

Brim said: \u201cBecause the planning is done so far ahead, brands and agencies take a certain amount of risk by trying to predict the future. One way of offsetting the risk is to remember that the ad is there to sell the story, and the story can be timeless.\u201d<\/p>\n

The question is, as PR professionals, how soon should you be talking about Christmas to your clients?<\/p>\n

Too many businesses leave their planning until after the Summer months when in reality they should be ready to go in October. I cannot help but think, if you are just starting to formulate plans around (or after) Halloween \u2013 you\u2019re really missing an opportunity.<\/p>\n

Should businesses hoping to celebrate a successful festive season in 2017 (and even 2018) take a leaf out of Marks and Spencer\u2019s forward thinking strategy? Or is any mention of Christmas pre-Easter or even pre-summer just too soon?<\/p>\n

Leave your comments below and, erm, have a very happy Christmas (OK \u2013 a little too early for that).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sure, we haven\u2019t even eaten our Easter eggs yet but some marketing and communications departments are already busy thinking about Christmas. In fact, retail bosses at Marks and Spencer take the festive season so seriously they start thinking about Christmas before Christmas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":423,"featured_media":102063,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7272],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102004"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/423"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102004"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102004\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":102069,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102004\/revisions\/102069"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}