KaMIST
Hello, OptiMIST People!
Back at it again with KaMIST! Your weekly dose of insights into the latest marketing trends. This week, we're immersing ourselves in the holiday cheer with the iconic line that serenades us through December:
"All I want for Christmas is you"
Mariah Carey's iconic winter jingle never fails to squeeze its way into everyone's holiday playlist. Whether you hear it being played at your local shopping mall, music streaming platforms, brand advertisements, or in the form of a TikTok meme. There's never a Christmas season without it.
Apart from its catchy tune and brownie points for nostalgia, the Mariah Carey song is a wonderful example of seasonal marketing.
"All I Want for Christmas is You" was first released in 1994, gaining immediate traction and topping the year-end song charts. Even after its initial release, the song became a Christmas song staple that always manages to reappear on the charts every holiday season.
With its seasonal virality and predictable success every year, brands line up to center their year-end marketing in tune with the iconic song. From Walmart, Netflix, Victoria's Secret, and most recently, Sephora; these popular brands have all leveraged Mariah Carey and her song as the theme for their holiday marketing strategies.
Marketers understand the unique power that the song has. Unlike other temporary holiday trends, the song owns the season, it embraces the same nostalgic feeling and the everlasting festive and joyful message year after year. Millions of people associate the song with Christmas time and there is no other seasonal marketing strategy better than something people already know and love.
Experts speculate that brands who leverage Mariah Carey and "All I Want for Christmas is You" in their holiday season marketing garner millions of dollars in revenue. This success is driven by increased brand visibility, emotional connection, and seasonal consumer spending. The song acts as a bridge to holiday cheer, allowing the yearly marketing campaigns to feel familiar, festive, and instantly relatable the moment they launch.
The holiday cheer isn't only relevant to the month of December, a meme surrounding Mariah Carey and her song has maintained its relevancy in the months leading up to the holiday season. The meme usually shows Mariah melting from a block of ice, complete with themed captions like "It's time…" or "Mariah's finally defrosting." The story behind it being: Mariah Carey has been "frozen" all year and is finally defrosting and her song "All I Want for Christmas Is You" will be played all month long once more.
Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas Is You" proves that the best seasonal marketing doesn't rely on temporary and unreliable trends. Instead, it embraces nostalgia and owning tradition to spread the holiday cheer.
Wanna get more insights into marketing? Tune in every Thursday for more KaMIST!