Christmas & Branding: How To Make It The Spirit of Giving

The Christmas of 2018 gave me a very valuable insight. Of what Brands should not do.

As children growing up, amongst other festivals, Christmas was the best, for we were showered with presents. In millions of homes, all over the globe and in the countless movies, when Christmas Day dawns and kids get up, there is race to the Christmas tree to identify the gifts with your name on it and then rip apart the wrapping paper to see what you got. In sheer numbers, excitement usually overshadows disappointment.

As we are taught, Christmas is the spirit of giving without a thought of getting. It is happiness because we see joy in people. It is forgetting self and finding time for others. It is discarding the meaningless and stressing the true values.

Really? You gotta be kidding me. The biggest non-believers are the business community. Knowingly. Or unknowingly.

Let me explain.

Last Christmas I was in Mauritius. From the first week of December, the Christmas trees went up in Restaurants, Bars, Pubs, Shopping Malls, Banks, Offices, Hospitals, Schools, Clubs, all categories of Hotels, Clinics, Churches, Golf Resorts, Factories, the list is endless.

Under each tree were piles of beautifully wrapped gift boxes which looked wonderful. But guess what? Every single box in all the above-mentioned places (with the exception of may be, one or two) were empty. There was nothing inside. Zilch, zero, nada.

Shocked? But that is the absolute truth. Although painstakingly gift-wrapped, each box was empty. My question to you is: “Why go through this whole charade for an empty box?” Is it really worth it? Who are you giving joy to? Is this really the spirit of giving?

The above story is the same (in many countries) and with many Brands, who look appealing, but fail to live up to their Brand promise (that is if they have one). How unfortunate? Will these Brands survive in the long run? Certainly not. In an ever-evolving world, thousands of Brands are being launched each day and the challenge is to remain top of mind.

Keeping in mind the spirit of Christmas, here is what I would do. Identify an organisation – it could be an orphanage, an old people’s home, a hospital, needy schools or charitable institutions. Find out the number of inmates. Preferably select those who have between 50 -100 inmates. Get their names. Tie-up with a gift shop where the value of items selected are not obscenely expensive, but reasonably priced. Buy the required number of gifts, get them gift wrapped, put the name of the receiver and the name of the organisation they belong to. Now place these under the Christmas tree for all to see.

On Christmas day, along with the gifts, get food delivered. Let each inmate get a gift and partake of a Christmas meal. This would then constitute the true meaning of Christmas.

One question you may ask is, “Where is the money going to come from?”. Simple. Inform all your employees what you plan to do for Christmas this year, how much the gifts are going to cost and how much you are willing to contribute. Then ask for contributions from the staff. Put up a notice near the Christmas tree appealing for donations. I can bet, many kind-hearted souls will be happy to donate more than a gift. In big Hotels, for those who are far away from home, the need to do something good during Christmas is always an appealing emotional factor. These guests will donate generously. Ask them to be a part of the group that goes to deliver the gifts. This is called spreading joy, in the true sense of the word. This will be one soul-fulfilling Merry Christmas.

Back to Brands. If you can over deliver on your brand promise and keep your customer close to your heart, they will remain with you life-long. Do things that would surprise them. Make them feel you care for them. As Maya Angelou, American author and actor once said — “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.'

Here is my take-away. How do you get going, Branding in the digital age? Will the conventional methods still work? Will you have to do things differently?

Technology may change, but people don’t.