It’s Your Brand’s Birthday: Should Your Content Mark The Occasion or Skip It?

The rules of celebrating a company/brand’s birthday are, perhaps mercifully, different from the rules of celebrating our own.

Brands that hit 40 don’t have to put up with jokes about “it being all downhill from here.” Brands don’t have to worry about surprise birthday parties. Brands don’t receive novelty cards from seldom-seen relatives in the post (at least, I don’t think they do).

And unlike mere mortals, some bigger brands are lucky enough to hit the grand old age of 200.

Yes, I’m talking about you, Cadbury.

Cadbury’s website has a whole page dedicated to their 200th anniversary. Some of the highlights include

• The opportunity to buy classic Dairy Milk packs for a limited time only
• A visual timeline that allows website visitors to explore the company’s history.
• The ability to learn more about what’s in their products.
• An announcement of their donation of ￡200,000 to Alzheimer’s Research

But do audiences and consumers care about a brand's birthday? Writing recently for Marketing Week, Mark Ritson didn't think so.

“Despite the obvious minor advantages of brand birthdays – the sliver of PR, the momentary buzz inside HQ and a fleeting reinforcement of brand heritage – anniversaries fall foul of a basic premise of positioning. Namely, that we end up talking about ourselves and our organisational history rather than speaking to consumer needs. It’s not about us. It was always about them. Even on our birthday.”

I see the point of Ritson's argument. Most consumers or customers won't care how old you are - they just want to know what you've done to benefit them recently.

Ritson argues that a brand talking about its birthday is inherently backwards-looking. Brands should, by definition, be forward-looking. So-called 'iconic' brands are known for their past, not their present.

And then there's the fundamental problem with the Big Brand Birthday Celebration - budget. Is it wise to blow a big chunk of your advertising or marketing budget on campaigns that just focus on how many times your company has rotated around the sun?

I agree with Mark Ritson - don’t blow your budget on campaigns that are just a big exercise in talking about yourself.

But instead of looking at pure advertising & marketing spend, let’s look at this through the lens of content marketing instead. Is it possible to use the brand birthday to resonate with your audience? Here are a few ways I think it can be done.

Understand current awareness of your brand

Let’s be honest. There are very few businesses in the world with Cadbury’s brand recognition. Cadbury could afford to run a backwards looking campaign because they’re so beloved. They surely knew a well-planned campaign would tug at their customers’ heart strings.

Most companies don’t have that luxury. You could be one of thousands of businesses that offer your products and/or services. Or you could have the good fortune of being one of only four or five companies in the world operating in the same sector. But you’ll still be facing stiff competition for people’s attention.

Focus on what you’ve achieved, not how long you’ve been around.

Mark Ritson’s right. Anniversaries and birthdays are irrelevant if you’re only talking about how long you’ve been in existence (and again, only companies with the stature Cadbury can get away with this).

It doesn’t really matter if your business is ten years old, twenty years old or forty eight years old. If you’re going to dedicate content marketing resource to your anniversary, talk about what you’ve achieved.

And when I say ‘achieved’, I’m not talking about metrics like how many customers you’ve onboarded, or how many global offices your multinational has opened.

Instead, I’d focus on the ways that a birthday can serve as one giant case study for your brand and your business.

How much time has your product or service saved for your customers? Who are the people for whom your business has been truly transformational? What have you done to solve the day-to-day challenges of your target consumer?

Celebrate using your existing content channels

You don’t have to dedicate an entire campaign to marking your anniversary. Remember that old rule of storytelling: show, don’t tell.

Are there existing or perennial content pieces you could publish that show the value of your products, your services, or your market insights?

Whether it’s a flagship survey of market sentiments in your industry, or a white paper that looks at long-term trends during the time your company has been in existence, there are lots of ways you can turn a simple anniversary celebration into a sophisticated piece of thought leadership that helps to build your authority in the long-term.

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