When I was younger the 1st of December was always such an exciting day. It meant the first day of the advent calendar where I would be receiving chocolate every day, just for waking up and tearing open a new door on the calendar. To be honest with you, not much has changed in that respect except I'm not quite as young now.
Whilst inevitably we may grow up physically, sometimes we take these traditions with us. That's why so many brands are now getting on board and creating their own unique online advent calendars for the Christmas season. It's a way to recapture some of that nostalgic excitement, whilst connecting with your audience over the festive period. Here is a selection of brands using advent calendars creatively in their marketing to kick of the month.
1. Modern Toss
These guys are described as cult cartoonists and create strips with a humorous slant to modern life. If you don't like profanity then you probably won't enjoy their comics but they make some great sarcastic and witty Christmas cards every year in the UK and have turned some of their designs into an advent calendar for 2014.
2. Love Magazine
Love Magazine is a style focused magazine and every year they release an online advent calendar with potentially NSFW content from their models. This tactic already seems to be working for them with lots of online commentary for this years catalogue in mainstream media and around the web already.
3. The Economist
In all honesty this is probably one of the least exciting calendars in the collection however it s clear and simple and is already building up a collection of social shares. It is designed to get people over to featured content on their site daily and the fact that they have been making and hosting these since 2011 goes to show they are probably getting what they want out of it.
4. Advent Wellington
This interactive advent calendar for Wellington has partnered with local businesses to bring a different promotion every day such as a free coffee or chicken wings, to encourage commerce with local businesses in the area. It also collects emails in exchange for redeeming the promotions to build an email marketing list.
5. The Modern Entrepreneur
Last but not least, we're also running our very own advent calendar for the second year running. It's all powered by the Promotion Calendar WordPress plugin we created for this very purpose, so it would be rude not to. You can expect gifts and discounts throughout the month for your business. From a marketing standpoint we we're already getting extra traffic and leads from this page before we have even begun promoting it properly!
In the age of content marketing and social media it seems that online advent calendars are definitely in, no matter how old you are. We'd love to hear from you if you're running your own advent calendar promotions this year? Feel free to share it in the comments below :)