As the seasons change, so do consumer needs and attitudes
While the reasons for thinking long term when it comes to advertising are many – agencies and clients need time for strategizing, creating, purchasing time slots, etc. – the bottom line is that companies that keep the seasonal ebbs and flows of consumer needs and attitudes in mind have another weapon in their advertising and marketing arsenal.
In itself, thinking seasonally and creating campaigns with a certain time of year in mind can be related to specific holidays or perhaps be more generally related to seasonal feelings and concerns.
As an example of a holiday-focused ad, a Gillette ad takes aim at Father’s Day and effectively links the company’s products to the gratitude that sons have for their fathers and the sentimentality that exists between them, not to mention the tradition of fathers teaching sons how to shave.
From a more general perspective, different times of year can mean different consumer desires. This ad for the British grocer The Cooperative Food, while opening with the words “2 weeks until Christmas,” focuses in general on consumers’ desire for warmth, comfort food and friendship during the colder months, as opposed to on Christmas itself.
Planning ad campaigns well ahead of time in order to take advantage of seasonal trends isn’t easy, but helping companies take a long term view is part of what any good advertising agency does.
As one of our account executive puts it, “Planning ahead is key, and that’s kind of our job. To get our clients in the mindset of long term thinking.”
A good advertising agency also helps clients keep their overall branding in mind, and helps them apply that to seasonal or individual ad campaigns; moreover, a good agency understands the best mediums – and times and places within those mediums – to reach a company’s target audience.
