The average household in Ireland spends €1,019 more during the Christmas period than any other time of year. Christmas is huge for retailers and brands need to stand out during this time of year. Adding a Christmas Promotion can help your brand/store cash in on the extra footfall and get the most out of the season. We are a shopper promotions and In-Store promotions agency and thus help brands and retailers elevate their products.

Here are our top Christmas Promotion Ideas for Retail.

1. Personalisation

There is no better time of year to introduce personalisation than Christmas time as it transforms a gift. Personalisation services work great in department stores however with Augmented Reality they can be achieved online too. LUSH celebrated their renowned Christmas scent ‘Snow Fairy’ by creating an AR portal that included an exclusive face filter and access to personalisation services to gift a Snow Fairy product.

Image Caption- 8th Wall

There was a QR code in-store or the promotion could be accessed online. This is a great idea to promote purchases for gifts and create an immersive brand experience.  Watch the full experience here.

2.Packaging

Christmas themed packaging is great way to standout from the crowd at Christmas. Increasingly brands are investing in Christmas themed packaging. When those lovely red Starbucks coffee cups start appearing, your know it’s Christmas. You can also level up your Christmas themed packaging with Augmented Reality overlays by providing hidden content, shareable content inside the packaging.

3. Augmented Reality Decoration

What better way to be part of the conversation at Christmas time than to create Christmas themed content that shoppers can use as part of their Christmas preparations. We created a ‘decorate your Christmas Tree AR lens’ prize mechanic experience for Kerrygold. Users scanned the Kerrygold butter to magically transform the iconic golden Kerrygold butter foil into a Christmas tree star. Participants could share their creations for a chance to win a prize.

The promotion helped Kerrygold stand out in the busiest retail season of the year and create a fun experience for consumers.

4. Advent Calendar Promotions

Advent Calendar promotional mechanics are designed to keep your brand top of mind over the run up to the Christmas period. The cool thing about advent calendars is that the content or reward behind each window changes as the holiday season progresses. This creates anticipation and because the human brain loves completing puzzles and hates not completing tasks, it makes shoppers more loyal.

Image credit: https://www.weareactivation.com/

5. Spin the Wheel

Spin the wheel promotions are a tried and tested way to engage shoppers and foster loyalty. Similar to advent calendar promotions prizes can be awarded daily and refreshed as the holiday season progresses.

The design of the wheel UI can also be refreshed as the ‘free spins’ promotion continues like the below promotion for Pokerstars.

Also by simply adding a QR code to a product or display this too can link to a virtual spin the wheel to win prizes.

Christmas is also a great time to acquire opt in data from relaxed, happy, shoppers who will gleefully handover their data to be re-targeted later in the year.

6. Countdown to Christmas/12 Days of Christmas

Twelve Days of Christmas promotions promote brand loyalty as they spread the promotion across the twelve days leading up to Christmas. These can be held by a retailer. For example, a supermarket could decide to apply a discount to a new product or brand every day in the run-up to Christmas. However, brands can also host these discounts themselves. Dortiots ran an advent calendar countdown click here to check it out.

Image Credit- 8th Wall

Scanning Doritos packaging led users to an advent calendar which unlocked a new experience every day. Some days these prizes were filters or games and sometimes they were discount codes or coupons. This kept consumers invested in Doritos throughout the festive season. This sort of promotion is great to advertise on the packaging and proves very lucrative for driving sales.

7. Augmented Reality Filter

Augmented Reality filters unlock limitless opportunities to wow. Many brands acknowledge the nostalgia of Christmas by creating augmented reality filters based on past campaigns. Corona used AR to allow consumers to experience the O’Tannenpalm Tree Lot featured in the 1990 ad.

Image Credit- Corona

Similarly, Guinness created an AR filter that allowed people behind the gates of the Guinness Storehouse to explore the snowy Christmas scene for themselves.

8. Games

Gamification in Marketing is highly effective and uses neuroscience to keep people interested in a brand/product. Jameson created an Augmented Reality tree game that required pattern recall to win.

Image Credit-Jameson

9. Competitions

It’s hard to beat a good old prize promotion for cash strapped shoppers at Christmas. Prizes can be either cash based or experience based where shoppers can win holidays to Lapland, Christmas Markets or ice skating in Times Square ( although from experience, cash prize promotions always perform best). As a company we have lots of experience running competitions and can help with competition website design, adhering to T&Cs, advertising on packaging and even creating an app or Augmented Reality experience for your competition if needed.

10. Augmented Reality Experience

There are many fun ways to incorporate AR into your Christmas promotion. Niantic transformed the traditional meeting Santa experience by creating a virtual Ask Santa Anything experience.

Similarly, McDonalds created software that enabled customers to decorate the outside of their local McDonalds with Christmas decor.

Image Credit-Darabase

The Good Crisp company created an instant win promotion and greeting card all in one.

Chanel created a snow globe shake to win prize mechanic.

That’s a wrap on our top ten promotion ideas for Christmas – Happy Christmas!

To plan your 2024 or even 2025 Christmas promotion get in touch.