Brand Loyalty and the Holiday Season

By Bronwyn Stoddard, Director of Strategy and Marketing

I’m probably a little too into advent calendars. I’ve always appreciated them as an individual human and consumer, but a couple of years ago I really started thinking about them from a brand perspective. I’m not talking about the advent calendars filled with waxy chocolate that were a December staple in my childhood. (I loved them as a child, but my tastes outgrew them a while ago.) I’m not talking about the more modern candy calendars, either—a Reese’s a day sounds delicious, but not particularly special.

No. I’m talking about the branded, curated calendars that range from accessible, everyday premium brands like Bonne Maman all the way to the super luxe Tiffany & Co. calendar. For easy reference, we’ll just put them all together in the very loose category of luxury advent calendars. And this category has been picking up steam in recent years, with hosts of brands from several product categories jumping on the holiday bandwagon, to varying degrees of success. Here are my thoughts on what makes the difference between an awesome advent and a Christmas catastrophe.

Photo by: Jan Romero

Packaging with an Impact

A luxury advent calendar is a series of daily gifts, and it should look the part. It will be in your customer’s home for almost a month during a time when a lot of people are very tuned in to the aesthetic of their home. Your packaging needs to look appealing and celebratory, and it needs to be sturdy enough to survive frequent usage.

Some brands go the extra mile to make their calendars serve double-duty as holiday decor. Rituals has done this well in the last few years, creating 3D calendars shaped like Christmas trees and delivering gifts in boxes that become little buildings in a winter scene.

Photo by: Rituals.com

The Decision for Brands

In my many years of purchasing advent calendars, I’ve seen three major routes to take with your calendar. Some products are better suited to one route than another. If your business isn’t set up to test, develop, and introduce new products quickly and easily, it may be more difficult to do something exclusive just for an advent calendar, but you can play to your strengths and thrill your customers in other ways.

1) Curated Classics

Following the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” line of thinking, these calendars are filled with standard products that are available to purchase on their own. This is a popular move for beauty brands, who use each day as an opportunity to give customers a little bit of something they already love or introduce them to a core product they haven’t tried yet. The winning strategy here is generosity: sample sizes are okay if your price point is lower, but travel sizes are better, and a few full-size products will really feel special—a good way to build customer loyalty. The Body Shop is one brand that consistently delivers on curated classics.

2) Limited Editions

Offering something unique for the holiday season is another popular play, one that Lego has employed to great success for about 25 years. The Lego advent calendar is full of festive minifigs and other pieces that work together to build holiday magic brick by brick. Bonne Maman is good at this tactic, too, wooing their loyal customers with exclusive offerings and developing new flavours each year to delight their followers. 

These brands know what their customers like, and they use their knowledge to play within that space and create rewarding new experiences. It also creates a little bit of seasonal FOMO, encouraging customers to make a specific brand’s advent calendar into an annual tradition.

3) The Dumping Ground

Okay, look. This is definitely a choice I’ve seen a lot of brands make, but it’s not one I recommend. These haphazard collections of products of unequal values aren’t carefully crafted customer experiences: they’re discount bins. There are a ton of review videos on YouTube that feature lackluster advent calendars filled with products that feel cheap or tacky, including Chanel’s somewhat infamous first advent calendar from 2021.

The entire goal of a luxury advent calendar is to make customers feel special, and filling a box with branded leftovers doesn’t achieve that. If this is your brand’s only option, skip making an advent calendar and focus on other holiday offerings.

Reward Customer Loyalty 

I’ve mentioned the idea of creating something special a couple of times now, and this is why it’s so important: luxury advent calendars are for brand enthusiasts. 

Casual customers won’t spend extra cash during a very expensive time of year to get something they might like. But people who already feel a strong affinity for your brand will make that purchase decision because they know it will be worth it. A great advent calendar strikes a balance between good value and customer experience. It’s an opportunity for your brand to reward customer loyalty, but it’s also an opportunity for you to deliver a positive brand experience 24 days in a row.

The Bottom Line

If you’re a consumer packaged goods brand, an advent calendar could be a great way to boost your sales going into the holiday season. But think carefully about how you execute it and make sure you understand the opportunity and the risk.

And if you need a hand putting it together, give us a call. We’d love to help!