Friday 25 November 2011

The Psychology of the Season


No sooner have the jack o lanterns been swept from our doorsteps then we begin to hear that familiar sound of Christmas carols streaming through speakers in the stores.  The shelves start to fill with red and green and toy ads with happy old St. Nicholas can be seen and heard everywhere.  We feel compelled to get into the holiday spirit – whatever that means.  Our tummies start grumbling for that turkey dinner before we have barely digested the first one from Thanksgiving.  Hurry, hurry, hurry – we need to get prepared for the biggest event of the year.  The pressure starts to build long before our southern friends prepare for their Thanksgiving and this carries through at a frenzied pace until we ring the New Year in and finally take a moment to breathe and reflect on another year gone by.


This time of year is a marketers dream! They know that people love to get into the spirit and they can use this to their advantage to make their entire year’s profit in one fell swoop. If there is anyway to spin your product into a holiday-necessary item than the average consumer will flock to the stores to keep up with their friends and neighbors. This is a brilliant strategy.
Every avenue possible is used to spread the “good cheer” – radio, television, social media and newspapers.  The marketers play on every one of our senses – we can feel it, see it and smell the holiday season everywhere we go. Advertisers and marketers alike have this time of year down to a science. Play on the primal competitive nature of the average consumer.  Common techniques like sexual appeal, lifestyle, and humour are all used to pull in consumers – we simply cannot wait to open our wallets! So all I can say is “Happy holidays”!

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