As Canadians sat down with their families for turkey on Sunday, how many said thanks for real-time marketing? Close to zilch, we’re pretty sure, but consumers were fed it anyway.
Thanksgiving is one of the requisite holidays on the social content calendar – one marketers are reluctant to stay silent on for fear of missing out (on their own dinners, maybe?). The trick is to relate the holiday to your brand in a way that’s clever, unique or heartwarming, not forced or thoughtless.
Let’s see how these six brands fared.
Hits:
Target Canada:
Happy #Thanksgiving! Now, stop checking social media and help yourself to mountains heaps of food. pic.twitter.com/U1MxQy9S7X
— Target Canada (@TargetCanada) October 13, 2014
At first glance, you might not notice that this is an edible portrait. In fact, those hills are made of mashed potatoes, around a gravy lake. We love that Target built something special for the holiday. In doing so, it showed ingenuity and care. We also liked this sassy take on the turkey stock photo it tweeted just before the gravy lake.
RBC:
Some fun facts to share around the table. Happy #ThanksGiving to our Canadian clients, employees, friends & family! pic.twitter.com/B8IPONiUh2
— RBC (@RBC) October 13, 2014
RBC offered followers a little utility: factoids to share around the table. Instead of slapping its logo over a stock photo of a dinner, they came up with a by-the-numbers concept, telling us, for example, that on Thanksgiving Canadians eat enough potatoes to outweigh 65 airplanes. There’s no overt brand tie-in, but the numbers theme feels more on brand than what many other social marketers delivered this year.
LG Canada:
Life’s Good when you’re enjoying a slice with family and friends. Happy thanksgiving from LG! pic.twitter.com/RuLFHi1RVA
— LG Canada (@LGCanada) October 13, 2014
It may seem lucky that a Thanksgiving favourite (pumpkin pie!) is shaped a lot like the LG logo, but it’s really not – pies are round and so are tons and tons of logos. LG clearly brainstormed about Thanksgiving and found the best way to tie its brand in. This is very clever real-time.
Misses:
Telus:
Happy Thanksgiving! pic.twitter.com/vxvBSuEdbB
— TELUS (@TELUS) October 13, 2014
Listen, we love the Telus animals as much as everyone else does, but this feels lazy. All Telus did was slap some Thanksgiving text on top of the brand materials it has been using for years. It’s inoffensive, but boring – a great sin in advertising.
Starbucks:
Thankful for family. Friends. The autumn harvest. Togetherness. And love, all around. #happythanksgiving pic.twitter.com/y4wiaqY1gP
— Starbucks Canada (@StarbucksCanada) October 13, 2014
This is so tired that it could double as a satire of the type of thing Starbucks might use as its marketing. The inoffensive collage of warm, fuzzy phrases has nothing to do with Starbucks and the photo is too on-the-nose and obvious. Then again, it has received 101 retweets – the only Thanksgiving post we saw that garnered more engagement was this equally inoffensive photo collage from Tim Hortons.
Amex Canada:
Today we are thankful for YOU. Enjoy your day with friends & family. Happy #Thanksgiving! pic.twitter.com/6LeUkIlXrl
— Amex Canada (@AmexCanada) October 13, 2014
If Starbucks phoned it in, Amex barely even bothered sending a text message. This autumn stock photo and a throw-away line about how it’s thankful for YOU, the customer (read: money), is probably worse than not sending a Thanksgiving message at all. Maybe we should be thankful for the brands that did that?
