Brands are rethinking when to promote sales, thanks to the election and a shortened holiday season
Election years tend to bring a sense of uncertainty for retailers and customers, and this year is no different.
This year, brands are questioning when to start promoting Black Friday sales, and when to release end-of-year collections, as they anticipate that shoppers will be consumed with the U.S. presidential election for much of November. Another factor this year is the shortened holiday shopping window, with the period between Black Friday and Christmas being nearly a week shorter than last year.
It’s yet another challenge that brands will have to contend with this holiday season, on top of the fact that customers are already price-conscious. In turn, brands are plotting before-and-after November 5 promos to keep customers engaged. Some brands are also teasing their holiday sales early. According to executives, it’s a balancing act of giving customers breathing room while reminding them of deals and discounts throughout the season.
Pushing up marketing campaigns
Britany LeBlanc, CEO of skincare brand Herbivore Botanicals, told Modern Retail, “we are definitely thinking about the election’s impact on marketing.” As such, she said in anticipation of the holidays, the company is “focused on messaging both our top gifting items like body and lip care as well as self-care and self-gifting rituals with our facial oils, serums and tools like gua sha and jade rollers.”
Herbivore’s new holiday kits, for instance, will be available as a sneak preview for loyalty members in late September. From there, the plan is to continue to promote the products throughout the fall and into the Black Friday period.
“We’re also anticipating Meta to become highly competitive as far as rising CPMs, so we’re pivoting into other advertising channels like Pinterest and podcasts,” LeBlanc said.
Other direct-to-consumer brands are also pushing up their fall promotional events to account for a noisy October and November.
Laura Osier, executive director at leather goods brand Leatherology, said the company also made a strategic decision to move Leatherology’s marketing and product launch timeline this fall to avoid being drowned out by the saturated media coverage in November. “We accelerated our product development cycles to launch new items earlier than usual,” Osier explained. This is important, as Leatherology relies on fourth-quarter sales due to its products’ giftability. This year, the fall and holiday launches have been pushed up to early September and October, rather than the usual late October and early November rollout. “The goal is to capture consumer interest and secure market share before the election news cycle reaches its peak.”
Thinking through messaging
In addition to deciding when to run a sale, brands also have to think through what kind of messaging they want to use to promote their products around the election. At the recent Modern Retail Marketing Summit in Santa Barbara, California, Louis Monoyudis, chief marketing officer at Japanese snack startup Bokksu, said that his brand would start promoting its Black Friday promotion earlier than usual, at the end of October.
He acknowledged that it sounds early, but “I just know those first two weeks of November are going to be a crazy news cycle no matter what happens.”
According to Monoyudis, at one point, someone on the Bokksu team wondered, “Would it make sense to do an election freakout snack pack?” But, he went on, “We decided it is probably in bad taste to do it — but I think every brand is going to have its own point of view on it.”
Some brands, for example, are looking for ways to promote their products during a contentious period for a number of Americans.
Chris Salgardo, CEO of the men’s skincare brand Atwater, said the company’s strategy is to position its products as a self-care reprieve. That also includes showcasing Atwater’s wellness products, with plans to release the holiday collection in early October.
“In times of uncertainty, consistency in self-care becomes even more crucial,” Salgardo said. “By offering our clients early access to our holiday collection, we aim to provide a sense of stability and routine, even when everything else feels unpredictable.”
It can be tricky to figure out promotional language during these big national moments, and marketers say they are keeping the media landscape in mind as they plan campaigns.
Philip Atkins, founder of marketing agency Phidel Digital, said the agency is working with brand clients on “looking at ways to make it easier and faster for consumers to shop post-election, knowing that the timing between Black Friday-Cyber Monday and Christmas is also five days shorter than last year.”
Atkins said there are several tactics he is encouraging his clients to implement. For example, heavily encouraging site visitors and email subscribers to create wish lists to shop later in the season, promoting the ability to save a cart pre-promotion or offering free expedited shipping for late shoppers, among other additional customer service touch points. “I also think brands should consider less content pollution and deeper ad buys to ensure that their ad dollars stretch as far as possible,” Atkins said.
While this year’s election poses yet another challenge in reaching customers, some are optimistic that retail therapy could play in the favor of brands during a high-stress period.
“As a brand, we’re really trying to be a respite from all of the election coverage and the marketing noise in general,” Herbivore’s LeBlanc said.