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14 Agency Pros Share Their Favorite Holiday Marketing Campaigns

The holidays are often a crucial time for businesses seeking to end the year with strong enough revenues to maintain a healthy profit margin. While a survey conducted by Gartner over the summer found that almost 30% of consumers are planning to spend less this holiday season, a marketing campaign that gets shoppers excited about a brand’s seasonal offerings can make all the difference in boosting its bottom line.

As the global economy evolves and inflation continues to rise, a marketing strategy that leverages fun, creative tactics can inspire cost-conscious prospects and turn them into satisfied customers. Below, members of Forbes Agency Council share their favorite holiday marketing campaigns they’ve worked on in the past. Read on to learn what made them so memorable.

1. Showcasing All Of The Different Versions Of Santa

One of the coolest brands that I ever worked with did a campaign showing all of the different Santa Clauses throughout the ages. It was really neat because it connected to other campaigns around the world, showcasing the ways people in different places connect to their version of Santa. It was a diverse and very inclusive idea. – Jon James, Ignited Results

2. Giving Bikes Away To Underserved Communities

We work with a client who does an annual bike giveaway to underserved communities. They give out about ten bikes per year, and seeing the faces of the happy children every year while we are putting together the social graphics is always very heartwarming. You can tell that the giveaway is really making a difference in their lives. – David Kley, Web Design and Company

3. Building Momentum With ‘12 Days Of Deals’

Last year, we ran a fantastic campaign with a “12 Days of Deals” structure. Each day leading up to the week before Christmas, a new deal was unlocked. It took a ton of preplanning and structuring to nail down, but watching the snowball build momentum each day and seeing more and more conversions was really exciting. It was the client’s best holiday season to date. – Bernard May, National Positions

4. Personalizing Automated Emails And Landing Pages

We built a strong email marketing automation campaign that based the number of emails to be sent on the type of customer or prospect. Additionally, their actions—opening the email, clicking through it, using a code—would then determine what further emails they would receive. While we created dozens of emails and a few landing pages, it was totally worth it to personalize this campaign. – Daniel Kamen, Serial Scaling


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5. Setting Up A Christmas Wish Exchange On Twitter

My favorite campaign involved leveraging the instantaneous nature of the Twitter platform to create an environment where users could exchange Christmas wishes, getting an opportunity from the brand to communicate with their loved ones during the forthcoming year. – Oksana Matviichuk

6. Offering A Timely Solution Of Cultural Importance

Our favorite holiday campaign involved a client who was offering something really timely that was of cultural importance, as the world was experiencing the Covid-19 pandemic at the time. Our client was providing a solution to keep people connected during the holidays when they couldn’t be together in person. – April (Margulies) White, Trust Relations

7. Highlighting Teammates’ Personalities In A Video Ad

We created a Christmastime video ad for a 100-year-old bakery in which the entire team was involved. They showed their personalities, rounding the video off by sprinkling the boss with flour as if it were snow. It went on to be a very successful ad campaign that received a lot of local notoriety, and it all stemmed from the bakery team being themselves! – Tony Pec, Y Not You Media

8. Increasing Conversions With ‘10 Days Of Giveaways’

Last year, our team had a new client with a great product. Needing to come up with a plan to increase conversions and results, the team decided to do a “10 Days of Giveaways” campaign. We created social media posts, ads and email blasts announcing the noteworthy giveaway. The results were amazing! More people converted, and the brand had a remarkable increase in sales. – Kamaljit Singh, AMZ One Step

9. Spreading Christmas Cheer To Hospitalized Children

Years ago, I helped 7UP bring Santa’s gnomes (which were featured in a holiday TV commercial) to life to visit 25 children’s hospitals on a 25-day countdown to Christmas. The expertly costumed and trained actors spread cheer during a difficult time for kids to be in the hospital. The brand activation involved 7UP bottlers donating $5,000 to their local children’s hospital, and heartwarming, branded news coverage flowed. – Jim Heininger, Dixon|James & Rebranding Experts

10. Creating A Magical Experience For Terminally Ill Kids

We recreated a well-known house from a film, then invited terminally ill children to come and experience the “real life” version of the film with character actors while, at the same time, raising money for the hospital in which they were being treated. It was both magical and moving, and a moment in time I will never forget. – Jules Herd, Five in a Boat

11. Capturing A Brand’s Unique ‘Flavor’ With A Prank

My agency represents a CPG seasoning brand that represents the culinary and cultural flavor of Louisiana. In keeping with the brand’s spicy attitude, this past April Fool’s Day, we posted a fake, branded “Cajun Bath Bomb” for sale online. The post garnered 13,000 shares, 3,000 comments and 1,500 likes—huge impressions for an organic post—and serves as a testament to what happens when you capture a brand’s authentic uniqueness. – Kevin Moehlenkamp, Garrand Moehlenkamp

12. Delivering A ‘Cookie Campaign’ To Local News Media

My favorite was the 20-year “cookie campaign” to local news media our agency conducted every Christmas. We personally delivered tins of cookies with our logo on them to every newsroom and key reporter in town. They were a hit, I hear. I can’t exactly measure the positive effect of this campaign, but I do know that we’d get calls from media outlets if the cookies were late, so I guess someone noticed. – Jeff Bradford, Dalton Agency

13. Bringing Partners Together To Fight Hunger

We work annually with a global CPG brand that brings together some of the top corporations in the U.S. to fight childhood hunger. It’s a campaign our team looks forward to supporting every year, and one that our influencer partners proudly get behind every holiday. Social good campaigns are always a win-win, and even more so during the holidays. – Cooper Munroe, The Motherhood Inc.

14. Starting Christmas Campaigns In The Summer

How do you make a holiday campaign memorable? We start holiday campaigns earlier. Christmas in July? Yes! Shock your audience by showing them Christmas ornaments and Santa in the summertime. It makes your audience stop and think about what is going on, capturing their attention, which is every marketer’s dream. – Marilyn Cowley, PREM – PR & Social