Christmas PR Campaign: Why July is the Time to Start
The weather’s finally playing ball, holidays are on the horizon and Mariah Carey is months away from defrosting. But in the world of PR, Christmas is well and truly underway.
If a Christmas PR campaign is part of your plans this year, July is exactly when you should be getting started.
It might sound offensively early. Most of us would rather enjoy summer before thinking about stocking fillers and festive round-ups. Unfortunately, journalists don’t have that luxury.
Many start planning Christmas content months in advance. That means brands need to be ready long before the supermarket shelves start filling up with Quality Street.
Why your Christmas PR campaign should start in July
One of the biggest misconceptions about Christmas PR is that it starts in autumn.
By then, many of the biggest editorial opportunities are already taking shape.
Print titles work to long lead times. Journalists need time to plan gift guides, commission features and narrow down the products they want to include.
Digital publications offer more flexibility, but that doesn’t mean brands should wait. Online publishers now produce a huge variety of festive content throughout the season.
Starting your Christmas PR campaign in July gives you time to get in front of journalists early. It also means you can build relationships before their inboxes become a festive free-for-all.
At LRR, July has long marked the start of Christmas. Our annual Summer Showcase puts products directly in front of national, luxury, lifestyle and specialist press ahead of the peak gifting season.
Yes, there is usually a Christmas tree involved. Yes, it feels ridiculous in the sunshine. But there is method in the madness.
Why Christmas gift guides matter
For many brands, Christmas gift guides deliver some of their most valuable coverage of the year.
Unlike general brand awareness coverage, gift guides reach people who are actively looking for recommendations. They have a reason to browse, compare and potentially buy.
They can also introduce brands to entirely new audiences.
A technology brand might normally focus on tech publications. At Christmas, that same product could appear in fashion, lifestyle, luxury or national media.
An interiors product could find a home in a guide for design lovers, new homeowners or hard-to-buy-for parents.
That wider reach is part of what makes festive PR so valuable.
Publications including British Vogue publish gifting content across different audiences, interests and price points. The Guardian also produces dedicated Christmas gift-guide content.
Getting onto those lists tells readers that an editor thinks your product is worth considering.
Unsurprisingly, competition is fierce.
Gift guides have changed
Christmas gift guides aren’t what they were five or ten years ago.
Print remains hugely influential, but digital publishing has transformed the festive media landscape.
There are now far more opportunities beyond the traditional “best Christmas gifts” round-up.
Publishers create guides around specific audiences, interests, budgets and occasions. Think gifts for design lovers, runners, gamers, foodies, frequent travellers or people who already seem to own everything.
There are luxury edits, stocking fillers, Secret Santa guides and last-minute recommendations.
This is good news for brands.
Instead of fighting for one place in a broad Christmas feature, PR teams can identify several angles for the same product.
The trick is knowing which ones actually make sense.
Christmas PR is about more than sending a gift-guide pitch
At Little Red Rooster, Christmas planning starts long before the decorations come out.
We work with clients to identify hero products, shape gifting angles and prepare media assets. We also organise product seeding and map out the publications most likely to care.
Starting early means we can become part of festive conversations from the outset.
It also gives us room to think beyond the obvious.
Our previous Christmas gift-guide work has included everything from audio products and footwear to smart-home technology and interiors.
That matters because some of the best coverage comes from taking a product outside its traditional category.
The question shouldn’t simply be: “Which gift guides can this product go into?”
It should be: “Who could want this, and where do they go for recommendations?”
Does starting early actually work?
The proof is in the Christmas pudding.
Last year, we secured more than 300 pieces of festive coverage for our clients.
That included national newspapers, premium consumer magazines, specialist publications and leading online titles.
Our clients appeared across FT HTSI, FT Weekend, The Times, The Guardian and London Standard, alongside titles including Vogue, Grazia, Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, Metro, Stuff and T3.
That helped brands reach millions of readers during one of the busiest shopping periods of the year.
But success isn’t simply about volume.
The right piece of coverage can introduce a brand to an audience it may never normally reach.
That might mean placing headphones in a fashion title, introducing lifestyle products to luxury media or finding a fresh angle for a specialist product.
Those are often the opportunities that make a Christmas campaign particularly exciting.
The best Christmas PR campaigns start before Christmas feels remotely close
Christmas may still feel a long way off.
Good.
That means there is still time to get ahead.
A strong Christmas PR campaign needs time to identify the right products, develop angles and prepare assets. It also needs time to build the journalist relationships that make the difference when gift guides start coming together.
Waiting until autumn means joining the conversation when everyone else is already shouting.
Starting in July means being there from the beginning.
If festive coverage is part of your plans this year and you’d like a piece of the Christmas pudding, drop us a line at everyone@littleredrooster.co.uk to see how we could support you.
