Thanksgiving is a time for friends and family, but it’s also a time for Black Friday deals and innovative marketing campaigns. In fact, if you’ve spent any time online over the last week or so, the chances are that you’ve seen Thanksgiving marketing campaigns all over social networking sites and been bombarded by emails.

But not all marketing campaigns are created equally, and for every brand that hits the headlines with its Thanksgiving campaign, there are thousands of others who barely made a dent. So what exactly is it that makes a Thanksgiving campaign a success? Let’s take a look at a few of the best and see what they have in common.

The Best Thanksgiving Marketing Campaigns

Let’s get started with Stouffer’s and their #AllToTheTable campaign. The idea here was to focus on how Thanksgiving brings people together around the dinner table. They used a range of different social networking sites to get their message out including YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram. They even tapped into user-generated content by encouraging people to share photos of their own Thanksgiving parties. And of course, they shared recipes and other resources that linked through to Stouffer’s microsite.

REI had a fantastic campaign, too. The brand is all about celebrating the great outdoors, which is why they chose to run their #OptOutside campaign. What’s smart about this campaign is that the brand knew that people were sick of being overwhelmed by Black Friday deals and so they decided instead not to celebrate it. Instead of trying to sell as many products as possible, they gave all of their employees a day off (with full wages!) and encouraged them to spend the day outside as well.

REI supported this campaign with a video that ostensibly showed the company’s CEO sitting in his office and explaining the decision. Then the camera pans out and we see that his office is actually at the top of a mountain. This helps to underscore the authenticity of both the brand and its CEO while simultaneously promoting their marketing campaign.

And of course, no article like this would be complete without a mention for American Express. They launched their Small Business Saturday campaign back in 2010 with the goal of encouraging people to go shopping (with their American Express card) at small businesses instead of large chains. It started out as an individual marketing campaign and has since grown into an annual celebration of small businesses. It now drives $5.5 billion of spending every year.

Conclusion

Seasonal marketing can be a great way to get people talking about your brand, but it can also be difficult to cut through the noise, especially at a peak time like Thanksgiving. The good news is that the companies in this article have shown us that it’s possible, and there are plenty of lessons that we can learn from them if we want to follow in their footsteps. It might be too late for Thanksgiving this year, but there’s still plenty of time until Christmas!

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