People spend more heavily during holidays. Trends can go upwards or downwards year over year but the peaks of the spending curves never fall off at big occasions. The holiday sales can contribute more than 20% of the total year value. To start “blowing up the balloon” for festival celebrations, spend some time understanding the key growth drivers of a brand and how big an idea can be scaled up in the brand’s multiverse.
1. A GREAT PRODUCT WILL SELL ITSELF ?
It is undeniable that possessing a superior product probably is the core of the brand’s success. Yet, without a profitable or scalable business model, not many brands can survive through their product-market fit stages. The recipes of pull and push for each brand may be different even in the same category, depending on its rights-to-win. Learning how to maximize the “growth” model by leveraging big occasions is strategic for brand builders. For specific industries where sales majorly depend on seasonal events, the prizes are too sizable to be missed.
As retail and media landscapes have become more and more fragmented, Go-to-market (GTM) practices have taken various forms per changing consumption and shopping behaviors. Customer-centric approach or customer experience (CX) may be the trending term at the moment as the omnichannel concept is reaching its peak popularity. Thus, seasonal marketing campaigns can be designed from product innovations, and GTM programs to CX-enhanced activities. Be choiceful on the expected scales and how targeted your seasonal campaigns are so that the “maximization balloon” will not exhaust the base operations nor margin “healthiness”.
2. ARE GOLD & DIAMONDS SUFFICIENT FOR GROWTH?
Brands can easily count on sales promotion tactics to win big in the short term. However, over-exploiting or over-relying on sales promotion may not drive incremental units in the longer term.
If you are not familiar with selecting and designing promotion schemes, you can be fond of mixing up to create new recipes. Be careful of over-promotion. It is acceptable to have cannibalizations provided that the total sum of the post-promotion period value compared to the pre-event is positive. In most cases, sales promo cannibalizations happen due to overlapping or off-strategy objectives:
- A seasonal SKU can just replace the regular SKU for the occasional event, adding zero sales uplift.
- A weak-equity brand that survives through tactical price discounts and deep promo values may experience a dip post the seasonal hype as a result of excessive forward buying.
- A luxury or premium brand will not bet too far from its consumer price point to avoid minuses in brand equity. The more you count on sales promotion, the less brand power you grow.
Source: https://www.artefact.com/
Sales promotion eventually aims to drive either new trials or consumption. To avoid producing negative equations, check out how typical shopper promotions can be applied for different objectives.
3. ARE YOU READY FOR A BIG BANG?
The most brilliant way to explode your business growth is to “multiply” a big idea holistically across touchpoints and channels. The big idea can be inspired by the most prominent promotion scheme with a soft touch of emotion or reversely done through emotional insight build-up.
According to Kantar, the 2022-2023 Tet holiday witnessed a squeeze in Vietnamese shoppers’ wallets following the year-round economic downturn despite the recovery of optimization post-2022. Rising concerns about income and job security were key factors driving a “mindful” Tet. Although in the first half of 2023, economic growth appeared doomed, we can be more “hopeful” on Tet 2023-2024 since The World Bank forecasted a pick up in pace by then. Ensuring you are planning to grow more than the category average to maintain or gain share. The budget bucketing should be done at the beginning of the year taking different cash flow, growth, and cost inflation scenarios into consideration. Media vendors normally increase their rate cards due to the surge in booking demand. Unit prices will look more costly than usual, but the investment payout may be more proportional.
Below is the seasonal execution formula widely observed across brands and categories to create scalable holiday maximization impacts:
- Seasonal Product: Offering the special version for the regular best-selling SKU is normal market practice. Remember to balance the volumes of pre/during/post the seasonal period for both versions to avoid high inventory.
- Sales Promotion (Shoppers): Driving more “value” rather than deeper price-off will require a strong understanding of market promotion practices and retailers’ insights. Think beyond trade marketing to maximize brand-driven value creations.
- Communication, Media & Activation: Both top-down budget-based planning and the how-high-is-high approach are applicable as long as base awareness is secured. Don’t sacrifice your base if there is no cash left for incremental investment. The add-on thematic campaigns can be generated as a brand-building series year over year and linked to the biggest promotion and activation activities. Don’t forget internal engagement and VIP customers. The mass theme can be customized and personalized easily. Everyone loves special treats.
For categories that only sell during festive seasons, the above formula will need to heavily focus on innovating the “core and more” of product innovation before taking care of GTM elements. This requires strong brand power as well as agility in RD and product packaging renovation to keep shoppers and consumers entertained after a “long time no see”. Nostalgia-driven flavors and brand storytelling are key to winning. New players, whose advantages are not their brand heritages, should learn to master the twist of trendiness to win younger audiences.
Bonus tips for seasonal gambling are exclusive deals with strategic partners to acquire “captaincy” privileges over competitors. Normally, the acquisition process should be done top-to-top at the firm joint business planning stage. Don’t worry if you are small and medium players. Stick with the base growth formula, then take your time to test and learn new ideas until a new growth model is found.
Wish you the BEST OF LUCK to win FESTIVE BIG.
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Author: Nguyet Nguyen (Azurie)
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