The 5 Sweetest Tips for Your Valentine’s Day Campaign

As Christmas lights and trees slowly disappear, it’s time to look towards the next big occasion. After all, holidays are huge when it comes to marketing campaigns. Considering it’s a $19 billion event, Valentine’s is no exception. Cupid day certainly offers a plethora of opportunities to generate a spark with your audience. And celebrating with carefully crafted ads should be essential to every brand. Here are the best strategies for courting your prospects this V day. 

Be true to your industry 

Understanding your audience is central to any good advertising campaign. Heat things up for Valentine’s by considering plans, gifts, and overall mindsets which are particular to this day. For instance, if you work for a food CPG brand, keep in mind that 2 out of 3 people opt to actually eat at home for the holiday. 

Whole Foods created a strategy around this fact. In their campaign, Whole Foods enlisted food blogger influencers to use their products in recipes for a three-course meal. The post was then shared through social media. 

Travel and entertainment brands are also in stellar positions. Especially since 63% of US adults prefer experience gifts to material ones. Not to mention, 35.1% of consumers will collectively be spending $3.6 billion on travel and entertainment plans, such as a vacation or performance. 

Let’s get down to retargeting 

Let’s be honest, Valentine’s Day is all about the presents. And buying just the right gift requires diligent browsing. Every marketer knows what that means — it’s time to retarget! Be sure to leverage all of your potential mediums for doing this. 

Interestingly, the largest Valentine’s spending group was predicted to be 25-34 year-olds. Social media, anyone? To maximize your displays, be sure to cleverly target certain groups with certain products. Facebook offers the option to target  relevant factors for the day such as relationship status and age. Plus, Facebook’s carousel (which performs 10 times better than the average ad) can exhibit several products. The Facebook ad below hits the mark. It promotes engagement through tagging, offers a deal, uses the carousel, and makes the transition to purchase readily available. 

We ❤️humor  

It’s a well-known fact, Valentine’s Day can easily arouse the cheeseball in even the best brands. While this tactic may be successful in certain cases, opting for comedy creates a more memorable message. In fact, 53% of consumers said they are most likely to enjoy and remember an ad if it’s funny. This was the leading factor compared to trustworthiness, novelty, relatability, and informational. Take a look at the IKEA example below. It’s undeniably entertaining. It’s also an image you’ll probably remember.

This phenomena is due to two factors, it increases attention and improves the encoding of information. Additionally, it makes your creative standout amongst a sea of hearts and sunsets. For instance, this Spotify ad stands out. It not only takes a humorous approach, it pokes fun directly at its audience. 

Family & friends

Spread all types of love in your messaging, not just the romantic type. The market for Valentine’s Day gifting is all-encompassing, so your ads should be too. Limiting your offer or story will exclude big groups of consumers. In 2016, more than 45% of Americans were single, and that number is growing. Even those who are married often buy gifts for various people in their lives. 

Overall, American consumers that celebrate Valentine’s Day spend:

• $3.5 billion on family members including children and parents.
• $991 million on teachers.
• $982 million on friends.
• $654 million on coworkers.

Accentuating self-care (a $450 billion industry), brand-consumer relationships, or even fundamental human compassion (like in the example below) serve as effective tactics for playing into the holiday. 

Think outside the (chocolate) box with creative 

The reality is most brands are currently considering how to leverage their Valentine’s Day campaigns. But we want yours to have an edge. Creativity is the name of the game when it comes to advertising. That’s why we found unique campaigns from years passed to get your creative juices flowing before sending you off. 

Naturally, Tiffany & Co had to go big for the day of love. In its honor, they created a mini-site that allowed users to customize a sticker tattoo for photos. Tiffany’s asked their audience to share the photos on Instagram with the #BelieveinLove hashtag. Ultimately, Tiffany’s was able to collect branded photos featuring their customers while users enjoyed an interactive experience with a cool photo opt. A hashtag campaign creates a lot of buzz. Add a cool feature to it and people really have a reason to show off your brand. 

In this video by Deliveroo, the brand tells a story from a new perspective for Valentine’s. The brand humorously acknowledges the widespread romantic themes this time of year while also making use of information they’ve collected. According to a “third wheel” survey of 2,000 adults conducted by Deliveroo, 37% would actually be happy to have a third join their meal. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=53&v=rOWSSyQ2qSo&feature=emb_logo

T-Mobile took a more competitive approach. To inspire some UGC, they had people write in “break-up” letters to AT&T. This was a brilliant campaign. It allowed T-Mobile to understand the core problems their audience faces, prove a timely method of teasing their competitor, and collect UGC to share.  

On the surface it seems like Valentine’s Day is all about sickly sweet candies and cheesy Hallmark cards. However, it can also offer your brand an opportune time to make a connection with the right consumers. Using our tips, you can ensure your campaign will deliver a compelling message, through the proper mediums, to get to the heart of your audience.

Ready to roll out your best campaigns? Reach out today.