Calendar Says October; Retailers Say It’s Christmas

The following is an excerpt from an article in:


The New York Times
Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Calendar Says October; Retailers Say It’s Christmas

By STUART ELLIOTT

COME the hell of political ads or the high water of Hurricane Sandy, many retailers still plan to begin their Christmas shopping campaigns this week.

The idea that holiday marketing efforts would get under way in earnest before Thanksgiving was once startling. But in recent years, “Christmas creep” has become standard operating procedure, leading to jokes like Stephen Colbert’s last week on Twitter: “Halloween is right around the corner. You can tell because all the stores are decked out for Christmas.”

One company, which specializes in online coupons, is spoofing the phenomenon. RetailMeNot, a Web site operated by WhaleShark Media, is running a campaign saluting “OctoNovemCember,” which features a hybrid holiday character called Pumpkin-Headed Turkey Claus that has its own Twitter feed.

The uncertain economy has been a major reason that holiday ads are arriving early the last several years. Retailers sought to get cash registers ringing as soon as they could, regardless of tradition. As it turned out, many consumers welcomed a longer Christmas shopping season, seeing the sales prices as a way to help stretch their gift budgets.

So even as surveys suggest consumers are growing more confident about the economy, campaigns for this holiday season are still playing up bargains. For instance, Target, which seems to be the first big retailer to have started running Christmas commercials, is concluding them with this promise on-screen: “Dream big. Save bigger.” The spots, which began appearing three weeks ago, are by 72andSunny in Los Angeles, part of MDC Partners.

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