The average planning for a Christmas marketing campaign started in June
On average, 17 types of assets are rebranded for Christmas
However, 41% believe this leads to avoidable waste
Creation of this year’s marketing campaigns likely started over five months ago - and 17 kinds of assets, on average, will be rebranded for Christmas.
Bynder, the global leader in digital asset management, surveyed 600 professionals in the marketing industry to find out more about the content chaos that surrounds the rebranding of assets for Christmas.
The data indicates that most brands look to put a festive spin on their company’s branding during the Christmas period, and the amount of resource which goes into this is extensive. With more channels to reach consumers than ever before, the survey found that on average 17 types of assets (such as digital logos, packaging, physical ads) are rebranded for Christmas alone.
A previous survey from Bynder found that the average rebrand takes 7 months and involves changing 251 assets. So in comparison, Christmas rebrands are understandably less time and resource consuming, taking on average 5.7 months.
That said, almost one in ten (9%) of participants reported that they started working on their 2023 marketing campaigns over a year ago.
Do other seasonal events get the same treatment? Marketers report that they rebrand content for 9 different holidays on average, such as Black Friday, Halloween and New Year’s Day.
However Christmas and Black Friday top the charts in terms of which season even needs the most assets. The data suggests that Christmas requires the most new marketing assets, followed by Black Friday and then New Year’s Eve/Day.
Particularly for physical assets such as packaging, waste is inevitable for seasonal rebrands. In fact, the majority (41%) of survey participants believe that Christmas rebranding leads to avoidable waste.
The biggest challenges involved in managing seasonal marketing assets were found to be:
Managing the high volume of assets - 35.50%
Ensuring they are aligned with the brand - 21.17%
The speed required to deliver the assets - 21.17%
Ensuring that there are assets for every channel required - 20.17%
Commenting on the findings, Steve Vinall at Bynder said:
“This research shows just how normalised rebranding assets for Christmas has become. With marketing campaigns expected to have started in June, and 17 asset types required to be rebranded, it’s important to get it right.
“Marketing teams continue to be challenged with the need to manage and distribute a growing volume of targeted content. Delivering time-bound seasonal campaigns adds to this pressure. However, with the promise of Christmas profits it’s an important sacrifice for marketers to make. Brands need to deliver the right content to the right people through the right channels and at the right time - getting one of these steps wrong can undermine all efforts in a Christmas campaign.
“Professionals reported that the most difficult element of a seasonal rebrand is juggling the high volume of assets. That’s why organisations that centralise their marketing assets in a Digital Asset Management platform and integrate it with their marketing ecosystem can benefit from a more efficient rebranding process.
“A DAM platform can help by providing a single source of truth for all marketing assets, making it easy to identify and update the right assets.”
Find out how Bynder’s Digital Asset Management software can tackle the chaos of managing seasonal content here.