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The holiday season presents unique challenges for communications professionals as we navigate a crowded landscape of messaging and marketing. With many shoppers planning their purchases well in advance—some starting as early as Labor Day—it's crucial for brands and organizations to strategize their communications well ahead of time.

Abbie Fink, president of HMA Public Relations, emphasizes the importance of starting holiday conversations early to ensure messages reach the intended audience amid the noise of competing campaigns.

Abbie and Adrian also discuss the need for sensitivity in holiday messaging, considering the diverse range of celebrations and the emotional complexities many individuals face during this time. Ultimately, the key takeaway is that effective communication during the holidays requires a thoughtful blend of strategy, empathy, and timely outreach to break through the clutter and connect meaningfully with audiences.

Key Takeaways

• The holiday season requires early planning for effective communication and marketing.
• Shoppers are beginning their holiday preparations much earlier, often starting before Halloween.
• Emotional storytelling can be powerful but must avoid manipulation to resonate authentically.
• Nonprofits must engage donors continually beyond just the holiday season to ensure lasting support.
• Culturally sensitive messaging is essential during the holidays, considering diverse celebrations and experiences.

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Copper State of Mind is a project of HMA Public Relations, a full-service public relations and marketing communications firm in Phoenix.

The show is recorded and produced by the team at Speed of Story, a B2B communications firm, and distributed by PHX.fm, the leading independent B2B podcast network in Arizona.

If you enjoyed this episode, you might also like the PRGN Presents podcast, hosted by Abbie Fink, featuring conversations about PR, marketing, and communications with members of the Public Relations Global Network, "the world’s local public relations agency.”

The holidays are upon us. It is the most noisiest time of the year. It's a very crowded landscape for messaging, for marketing, for communication.

And of course, all of us in our personal lives are trying to navigate the holidays we celebrate and trying to find our way through all that. I mean, I'm old enough to remember when the most challenging thing about shopping around Christmas was finding a parking spot at the mall.

Now the holiday rush has moved online. It's moved onto our phones and social media feeds and the channels that we all consume. So that's what we want to talk about today.

How do communications professionals get through to people who need to hear your message during this time of the year? Joining me for this conversation is Abbie Fink, president of HMA Public Relations, who lives and breathes communication all year. Abbie, what's on your mind?

Well, you know, I think that the holiday season has extended itself significantly. I mean, you talk about, you know, the biggest issue is could you find a spot at the mall?

And now it's, you know, do I start my holiday conversations at Labor Day? Should I back them up, maybe thinking about them at 4th of July?

We know that we bypass, you know, Thanksgiving pretty much from Halloween straight into the, the Christmas Hanukkah season.

So I just, in the last handful of days, and I readily admit that I was doing the exact same thing, is the hustle and bustle to get my holiday cards ordered and ready to go and what am I going to say this year and did I order enough stuff for gift wrapping and other things and my Amazon delivery is later than I wanted it to be and oh my goodness, there's just so much going on. But from a communications or marketing perspective, these kind of conversations, really, if you're talking about them now, you're too late.

The holiday season, from a communications person's perspective or a marketing perspective is really give yourself the benefit of January 1st and celebrate the new year. But you better be starting your conversations right away if you want to impact the end of the year cycle.

And it's interesting about how to do that, right? What's going to be the thing 12 months from now? That's going to be the all knowing, all important way of making your conversation break through the clutter.

I think that's such a great point. I saw a report that 50% of shoppers plan to make their purchases before Halloween. So I guess you've got to start planning campaigns in February these days.

But how do you think about this? Because there's obviously much more going on than selling stuff. Although in our consumer driven economy, that is a big part of what we're talking about. But you represent a lot of nonprofits, a lot of other folks who really need to communicate about the mission, who need to do their fundraising.

Giving Tuesday is a sort of half hearted nod in that general direction. Folks out there trying to do good, not just make money. But how do you think about planning campaigns and messaging for your clients during this time of the year?

Well, and I think that's an important distinction to make is whether or not the holidays are important to your business strategy. Certainly the retail, community entertainment, you know, the theater, movie theaters, et cetera, focus a lot of energy on this time of the year.

Nonprofits utilize that year end giving as do something good. And it also helps you from a tax perspective. So, you know, if you haven't been charitable all year round, you still have got 45 days or so to make an impact.

So those that are directly related to the holiday timeframe, and let's for the purposes of our conversation, say it's Halloween through New Year's is our timeframe, you really need to be, and all joking aside, a year ahead of yourself, right. You need to be thinking about what are we going to be doing, what is our budgets going to look like, are we messaging appropriately during the time?

And because of the planning in advance, where's the flexibility in what you're doing? You have to be able to pivot in the event that something unbeknownst to you at the time presents itself and you need to accommodate appropriately.

It's not a set it and forget it kind of marketing strategy anymore. The way that we have tools at our disposal to make decisions quickly.

But it's the other businesses and organizations that may not be as driven by a particular time of the year that really have to understand the impact of what that marketing effort is doing. And how do we break through and still have our messages be heard by the people that we need to manage that for?

And we, you know, to some extent we just came through a very similar scenario from all of the advertising, marketing, messaging that was happening as it related to the elections here in the US and you know, we were working with a particular client that basically said, let's just pause, let's just not try to be in the message at that moment. We are not. Nothing will change with what we're doing.

If we wait a couple more weeks and we can bank the money, do some other things, we don't need to be out there. And I think that was a smart strategy. For us to consider because we didn't need to be fighting with the limited space that was available.

Let's wait till it clears itself out and focus on where we need to be.

And so the kind of conversations that we're having right now as we're in the middle of it, but more importantly, looking forward and into the new year, is where is the channel that makes the most sense for our messaging to be? And based on that, who are we trying to reach and when is the timing for that to happen?

And if that 60 day timeframe at the end of the calendar year makes sense, then let's plan how we're going to be able to get through that. Is it cause marketing activities? Is it a connection to a nonprofit or a cause that is important to us?

Is it a focused social media strategy that's highly targeted to our demographic? Is it media relations and earned media opportunities? Are we trying to tell our story through the printed word or over the airwaves?

And honestly, that's not significantly different than what we would do any other time.

We just have an added layer of everyone else trying to get that coveted space in the local newspaper or the top of the news cycle on your local television station.

Yeah, I think that distinction about whether even any kind of holiday campaigning is necessary or appropriate is really important. There's no need to get caught up in the melee, as it were.

There are a couple things that stand out for me as I reflect on what kind of messaging and what kind of communication happens around this time of year. Certainly one thing is we have to balance the challenge of multiple holidays. I mean, we live in a diverse world where many holidays are celebrated around the same time. A friend of mine once joked that this is the Chrisma-Hannu-Kwanzika season.

But of course that still leaves out Festivus, which will make some other people very upset. This brings up questions, though, about culturally sensitive and appropriate communication, how to be inclusive in all of those ways.

But one thing in particular that I think about is the way that emotional storytelling gets deployed around the holidays. I mean, quite frankly, this is a fraught time of year for many people. It's not all joy and candy canes. There's a lot of nostalgia.

For many folks, this can bring up a sense of loss, regret, pain. There's just a lot that's packed in here for humanity, for our human condition.

And I think of some campaigns in the past that have tried to tap into some of these deep human emotions around this time of year. You know, as I've mentioned on here Before I worked for a number of years in Africa.

Some of the more nostalgic commercials on television really tap into some of the emotion around families that haven't seen each other coming back together again. You know, elderly grandparents preparing to see the young kids.

And quite honestly, some of that can be beautiful and compelling, can certainly win awards for the agencies that produce these things.

And some of it can just be over the top and, like, a little bit manipulative because of how directly it's trying to tug on the heart strings, to loosen the purse strings, to coin a phrase. What are your thoughts about emotional storytelling during the holidays?

There's so much into that. And, you know, it continues because it does work.

What I've noticed probably more so around Mother's Day over the last couple years, where the emails were coming with a pre message that said, if you would like to not receive our Mother's Day information, if this is a triggering moment for you, click here and we will remove you from the list.

And I thought that was a very interesting tactic, recognizing that for some who recently lost their mothers or don't have a particularly good relationship with their mothers, that might really be an inappropriate type of advertising to receive or a message to receive. And so here was the option to remove yourself from those communications from that particular organization.

So we're in that same sort of situation now, right?

If the holiday time is not particularly good for you or this was a, you know, you're having a difficult time yourself, short of turning off every method of communication you have, you can't get away from the information that's coming at you. Now, what do I feel about the emotional types of campaigns? Look, we all have that human emotion, right?

And so the part that wants to reach to you and say, here's the impact of what you can do and what your $1 a day for the next 10 days can do for this particular organization or this particular family is it works and it's meaningful for some, and it's why it will continue.

I think the challenge that marketers have is balancing, at least this is my view Balancing the story and the good work that the organization is doing with the manipulation, as you say, or taking advantage of the sad story of that particular family. And that is not, in my view, where we want these things to go.

We want to show the work that we're doing and we want to show the impact it's having on individuals.

But I think we walk a very fine line when we bring forward and make people feel sorry for, you know, Adrian and his family who, blah, blah, you know, that's not where I think that belongs.

And so, but I know from a, you know, from a personal perspective, the, you know, there were you mentioned Giving Tuesday hundreds and hundreds of emails and social media posts and things that were talking about very, very worthwhile, very, very important, you know, organizations and causes that were worthy of your attention and consideration. But not every one of them is going to move me to make a financial contribution or volunteer my time.

But the purpose of doing those sort of that strategy is how many ever individuals do choose to support you is better than no one at all. And it will resonate. And the goal of Giving Tuesday is really to capitalize on this idea of, you know, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Giving Tuesday.

We've got one more day to spend some money.

Don't forget Small Business Saturday.

Small Business Saturday. That's true.

But that, that, that's a point of entry and the, and if we're to go down that path a little bit with the nonprofit organizations that participate in Giving Tuesday and get contributions that day, have a responsibility then to continue to engage with that donor for the rest of the timeframe. Right. Because it's, if it's a one and done, the effort was not, in my view, successful.

How are you going to keep that, that customer, that donor engaged with your mission throughout the year? Can you relate that to the retail sector? Of course you can. I come in and purchase that. Friday morning, 7:00 am Only 100 left. Got to get in there, got to get that gift for the loved one in my life.

But will I go back to that retail location in March when I need something again? What was the customer service that I received? What was the atmosphere, the experience of being in that, that location? Does the business itself, you know, want my business beyond just this particular, you know, particular moment in time.

So there's a lot that, you know, sitting around boardrooms talking about these things that, you know, it is a very now driven, we need to get them in there now.

But I think the smart marketers say, well, what are we going to do once we have them you know, to keep them engaged and participatory in whatever it is our organization is about.

And of course, balancing out the emotional and the deeply human side of messaging around this time of year is the proliferation of new technologies to automate and augment all of the communication strategies. Everything from the things we've been dealing with all these years.

You know, the personalization that happens as you use platforms that track your behavior and then, you know, put messages in front of you.

Like everything from the abandoned shopping cart email, "oh you forgot something," to the targeted ad placements when you just made a purchase on Amazon. "Oh, if you like that, you might like this."

And of course we also have to mention would be remiss not to that AI is now a full player in this game and is enhancing a lot of holiday marketing strategies, from customer insights to personalization, optimizing all those ad campaigns, creating new content.

Of course, visually, a lot of the over the top holiday images are now being generated by AI much cheaper than they could be by having a graphic designer spend her time working on it. So as I keep saying in this episode, there's just a lot going on.

We're seeing this crucible of the deeply human and the deeply technological coming together. And it really does have me wondering where this all ends up. I mean, as I joked in the opening remarks, I remember Christmas shopping at the mall, we don't do that anymore.

No, we don't.

Now we stare at these little screens in our hands all day long and I do wonder what's next and where this is all headed for us.

Well, you know, my family, we don't exchange gifts with each other any longer. We do the adopt a family, you know, find those in our community that need some, a little additional support this time of year.

And that was so the shopping thing was the thing. We would get the list that these families would need and we'd meet at the mall or at a local retailer and we'd divide and conquer and we'd, you know, meet up at the, at the cash register and did you find everything? And then, you know, and then yay, we did. And we'd come home and we'd wrap all the gifts and it was amazing.

And you know, I would see other families shopping and you know, ask the mom that had a, you know, an eight year old son, did he like this? Because I have an 8 year old on my adoptive and it was awesome.

Now I am online and frustrated right now because my Amazon delivery might be a couple days later than I needed it to be. Here but so the retail side of things is certainly, you know, adjusted in things.

But, you know, the excitement and the enthusiasm around the holiday season, you know, I don't think ever stops. I think we as consumers think differently about some things.

There's a lot of other, you know, conversations that are taking place about, you know, being careful about your finances this time of year. You know, you watch your wallet so that you're, you know, there's just a lot, a lot of messaging, all sorts of things coming about as consumers.

And, you know, this has sort of been our rallying cry in a lot of conversations about being a smart consumer of this kind of content.

So whether that's, you know, from the news side of things, reading the stories or watching television or being, you know, inundated with, you know, advertising and marketing promotions that are trying to get you to take action, you are, you know, in control to the extent that, you know, that you are, you're responsible for, you know, how much of this you want to participate in. I still, you know, love watching the commercials.

The, you know, the Folgers coffee commercial where the big brother comes home and the little and the sisters in the kitchen with waiting for him from. And of course, I still cry. And, you know, the, I think it was.

There's a couple of, you know, cell phone commercials where the father and son and the growing up. I mean, I love those things. I love the, the heartwarming part of it. And I like a good cry.

You know, I'm a sucker for the holiday movies and all those things.

And so, you know, the season that we're in is certainly, you know, from a business perspective, has a lot of conversations and a lot of strategy and a lot of tactics.

But, you know, when it comes down to it, if it's a, you know, a time for you to reflect and a time for you to be with your family and enjoy the beauty of what this season is supposed to be. And maybe that's really the messaging that we should all be focusing on and just take a moment to reflect on all of that.

And then maybe these messages that are tugging at the heartstrings and the by the latest and greatest might just settle in a little bit differently if we put them in the right place and remember the reason for the season, as they say.

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We publish new episodes every other Friday. Copper State of Mind is brought to you by HMA Public Relations, the oldest continuously operating PR firm in Arizona.

The show is recorded and produced by the team at Speed of Story, a B2B communications firm in Phoenix, and distributed by PHX.fm, the leading independent B2B podcast network in Arizona. For all of us here at Speed of story and PHX.fm, I'm Adrian McIntyre. Thanks for listening and for sharing the show with others if you choose to do so. We hope you'll join us again for another episode of Copper State of Mind.