Attempting to continually construct new ideas and themes for easter advertising campaigns can be both challenging and mentally exhausting. But like kids, customers have a penchant for novelty and a delicate attention span in need of igniting to gain brand attention. Nowadays, advertising must infuse panache, surprise, and excitement to forge deeper brand impressions.
Advertising is considered a necessary evil for many businesses. They are never entirely sure if it works, they just accept that when they don’t do it - sales drop. But it isn’t that dichotomous. There are certain measures you can undertake to craft truly effective and impactful Easter advertising. These include:
1 Curate Brand Positioning
Brands need to decide on their positional strategy for their upcoming Easter advertising campaign. Does this strategy align with the brand’s overall identity? Is it consistent? Ultimately a merger needs to be found between the brand personality and the emotions we associate with the time of season. Easter is a time of indulgence, fun, and general craziness. Successful advertisers at this time of year will play into this. They will be bold, creative and a little bit wild.
Easter after all is associated with kids and easter hunts and devouring your favourite chocolate guilt free. Because, hey, everybody else is doing it! It also reminds us adults of our childhood. Let’s admit it, we like to be childlike ourselves at this time of year. Most adults will treat themselves to an Easter egg whether they have a child or not. They will also treat their loved one.
So Easter is about more than just commercialism. Easter serves as a vehicle of expression for the deep feelings we harbour relating to our loved ones, whether they’re our kids or a partner. And as emotionally stunted Irish adults, we prefer to express our feelings through gifts rather than purer expressions of emotion. Nothing says I love you like an Easter egg I guess.
This Easter, position your brand to tap into all these feelings dwelling within consumers to strengthen brand connection.
2 Select a Message
Our advertising budget is wasted if the customer doesn’t understand what the brand is attempting to tell them. You don’t have to be loud but you should be clear (if even subconsciously). Decide what message your Easter advertising campaign is trying to communicate? Easter is great for launching new seasonal products to surprise customers and test out new recipes or product ranges.
Check out Cadburys new egg they released especially for Easter. This creates a perception that a brand is innovative and responsive to the changing needs of customers. The status quo is boring. You need to continually excite customers with new products (if only briefly).
Decide on the message you’re communicating and the action you want customers to take. Whether it’s highlighting your delicious new Easter eggs or great deals on seasonal goodies. The advertising message theme should coalesce with the overall seasonal brand positioning.
3 Choose Mediums
Different mediums will suit different budgets and businesses. It’s also important to bear in mind that different audiences can be reached more effectively on certain mediums. Millennials, for example, are easier to reach online and with social media advertising than print. Any business in the present environment will likely have to examine all online and offline opportunities available to them.
Offline can include - print adverts, poster campaigns, instore displays, product tasting and promotions, billboard, television and more. Online encompasses the Google search and display network, social media advertising -facebook ads etc, influencer marketing, video advertising- youtube ads, Tv players etc, to name a few.
If your audience is wide like retail supermarkets, then television will still likely be in your thought process. In this instance, it’s best to launch a fully integrated marketing campaign across all offline and offline mediums to reach the widest variety of people possible maximizing sales opportunities. Examine what suits your brand best and invest strategically.
4 Pick a Delivery Style
The way your message is delivered must match your brand positioning for the season and overall. If you’re going for a fun, customer friendly, and authentic brand then the way you deliver this message is important. In this instance, creativity and humour should be utilized to garner attention and cultivate a positive and light impression of the brand. Check out M & M’s style of advertising at Easter communicating their colourful brand personality.
Choice of colours presents your products in an appealing way for Easter. Bright colours attract attention and elicit feel good emotions in the reader. Think baby blue, purple, light red, yellow, and similar hues. Minimally presenting your products without excess text, shapes or contrasting colours also makes the message easier to digest for audiences. Watch Aldi’s Easter ad last year and notice the bright colours and engaging tone contributing to great message delivery.
5 Deliver
Create ads that people would enjoy reading, watching, or consuming. Put yourself in your audience’s shoes. Don’t waste their time, don’t oversell, and don’t confuse them with jargon or conflicting messages.
Make communication a pleasant yet informative experience for the audience.