Season creep is real — and it’s getting more and more pronounced, which makes figuring out the optimal timing of seasonal marketing activations an increasingly daunting challenge.
Take the 2024 holiday shopping season, for instance. Though the National Retail Federation says that the holiday shopping season officially starts on Nov. 1, the reality is that retailers are increasingly going all-in on launching their holiday marketing across October and even September.
This past September, Anthropologie opened a six-day pop-up Holiday House on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Walmart launched its Holiday Deals event on its website on Oct. 8, while Amazon said its Prime Big Deal Days (Oct. 8-9) were designed to give Prime members access to “millions of early holiday deals.” And, like many retailers, Big Lots has decided that Black Friday shouldn’t be limited to just the day after Thanksgiving — and so the discounter announced the 2024 return of weekly “Black Friday Fridays” holiday deals starting in September.
“Seasonal marketing timelines have been moving up across the board throughout the year — not just for the holiday shopping season — so retailers and marketers are having to get ahead of the game weeks or even months earlier than they might have in the past,” says Ashley Wacht, Head of CPG Product Marketing at Quad. “But leveraging innovative solutions and technologies can ease a lot of the pain points surrounding marketing seasonality.”
Here’s what retailers and marketers need to know about streamlining and optimizing their seasonal marketing:
Take a data-driven approach to planning seasonal marketing timing and execution
When it comes to seasonal/holiday marketing, keep in mind that the early bird doesn’t always get the worm. For instance, around 75% of Valentine’s Day sales at Walmart occur on Feb. 13 and 14, The Associated Press reports. And early shopping certainly isn’t universal among consumers even when it comes to the extended holiday shopping season. Gartner reports that just under a third (32%) of U.S. consumers said they planned to start their holiday shopping in the July-through-October period this year, while 29% will start shopping in November — and 8% in, yes, December.
In other words, your seasonal marketing mileage may vary not only based on the timing of campaigns and activations, but on the various proclivities of different segments and subsegments of your audience.
“Marketers need to take a personalized, data-driven approach to seasonal marketing to reach the right consumers at the right time with the right message across channels,” says Lily Wen, Director of Product Marketing – Data & Media at Quad. “There is no one-size-fits-all approach to omnichannel marketing, so brands can end up wasting a lot of their seasonal marketing dollars if they don’t target smartly. The key is to monitor, test, design, control and measure campaign performance against KPIs.”
As a marketing experience (MX) company that works with thousands of brands across every conceivable sector — from CPG and retail to health and financial services — Quad tracks over 3 billion data points across 92% of U.S. households and 97% of the U.S. adult population to help marketers get the big picture on the best moments to activate campaigns across seasons, holidays and year-round.
Take a test-and-learn approach to seasonal package design and retail displays
Given how quickly, and how early, retail environments get saturated with seasonal merchandise and displays, it’s increasingly hard for marketers to cut through the clutter.
“Too many brands and retailers just slap seasonal or festive graphic elements onto their products and displays at various times of the year,” says Erik Spooner, Marketing Creative Director at Quad. “Which means that too many marketers are just fitting in, rather than standing out.”
What’s actually working and what’s not? Marketers need to test and learn — by turning to the data. Package InSight by Quad, for instance, brings together a suite of state-of-the-art technologies — including eye tracking, facial coding, galvanic skin response and electroencephalograms — to help brands understand how their package designs and in-store displays are, and aren’t, engaging consumers.
Take advantage of the latest in in-store retail media networks
In-store retail media networks (RMNs) are having a major moment. According to the latest Emarketer projection, U.S. in-store retail media spend is set to hit $1.06 billion by 2028 — rising from a projected $370 million in 2024 (up 31.9% year-over-year) and $540 million (up 46.5% year-over-year) in 2025.
The reason: In-store media lets marketers reach consumers when they’re 100% ready to buy — particularly in the grocery sector. In-Store Connect by Quad, for instance, positions networked digital screens and kiosks throughout stores to give retailers and CPG companies the opportunity to deliver relevant promotions, share key product information and connect adjacent product options to shoppers.
“In-store retail media gives brand marketers the ability to reach consumers with unprecedented immediacy and precision during their in-store shopping journey,” says Kevin Bridgewater, Quad’s Senior VP of Strategic Retail Initiatives. “For marketers with seasonal marketing imperatives — like the need to move limited-edition seasonal variations of a CPG product in a tight time frame — digital in-store done right can bring rigor and measurability to in-store merchandising.”
Focus on producing versatile visual assets that can work across seasons, campaigns and channels
One of the best ways to get ahead of relentless seasonal campaign deadlines is to have plenty of versatile visual assets banked — with the key word here being versatile.
Emerging technologies, such as next-generation 3D scanning, are giving marketers the ability to quickly generate large libraries of product imagery that can work across not only various channels but seasonal marketing campaigns.
At Quad, we’ve partnered with Covision Media to install the first Covision Media 3D-Twin scanner for client-facing projects in North America. The installation, at our Mooresville (Charlotte), North Carolina studio, marks the launch of 3D Commerce by Quad, our scalable, automated solution for creating “digital twins” with omnichannel applications for brands. The Covision Media system comprises a series of 30 cameras in a spherical array for mass-production scanning without the need for extensive manual post-production work.
“Our approach at Quad is to help marketers evolve from thinking of assets as things that need to be produced separately for various channels and campaigns,” says Jimmy Richardson, Group VP, Studio & Creative at Quad. “You can scan a product once, for instance, and then you can use it across channels and campaigns year-round, because what you’re working with is a versatile, photorealistic 3D model that is totally repositionable and relightable. The same photorealistic product ‘shot’ can be seamlessly composited into a Mother’s Day digital activation or a back-to-school social campaign or a holiday print catalog.”
Work with a partner that has mastered seasonal marketing logistics
“In working with retail and brand marketers over the years, we’ve seen again and again that one of the biggest pain points with seasonal campaigns and activations comes down to logistics,” says Raquel Hudson, Director of Product Marketing at Quad. “For instance, can you get all the elements of an in-store display manufactured in time and then delivered on time to hundreds or even thousands of store locations across the country? Are your in-store display kits ready to be quickly, easily assembled and installed by retail teams across all those locations?”
As part of our MX: Production suite of solutions, Quad produces in-store experiences — everything from signage to floor stands and end caps to pallet displays and power wings — by leveraging a state-of-the-art technology platform to produce materials across every facet of the production process.
From concept, design and testing to printing and finishing services — including mounting, die-cutting, iCutting and hand assembly — as well as kitting and fulfillment, Quad serves more than 20,000 retailers and delivers more than 150,000 kits on time, every month. And our workflow is built to accommodate seasonal and holiday-related production surges.
Want to learn more and continue the conversation? Reach out to Ashley Wacht, Quad’s Head of CPG Product Marketing, at ALWACHT@quad.com.
