Our best Christmas marketing campaign ideas for brands to try out
14 October 2022
It’s never too early to start thinking about your campaigns for the festive season! And you have the choice with Black Friday, Christmas and New Year’s following each other. So brands must look for the best Christmas marketing campaign ideas to build meaningful relationships with digitally savvy consumers and deliver original experiences.
And guess what? We have exactly what you need for that. You’ll find in this article our best Christmas marketing campaign ideas to try out this year.
The best Christmas marketing campaigns ideas imagined by our team
1. The ultimate Christmas movie quiz
If you are used to reading our articles, you know that we love suggesting and creating campaign ideas around movies ?
We created the campaign below as part of our loyalty program last year “Christmas with Qualifio: 7 days of rewards”, launched for our users. This action aimed to give them a good dose of fun and a chance to win some great rewards while showing them the capabilities of our Loyalty module.
It’s your turn to play now! Show us how much you love Christmas by guessing the ten movie references hidden in the image.
2. The coolest Christmas makeup
Did you see how pictures and videos shared by users get more likes, shares, and comments than branded content? User-generated content (UGC) is more trustworthy and authentic than any other content, so it’s not surprising if it leads to higher engagement.
We have imagined here a photo contest asking consumers to share their most fabulous Christmas makeup. If you’re a fashion brand, you could even ask them to do their makeup with your products only. The main benefit of UGC is that consumers take care of promoting your business ;-)
3. Jingle Jackpot
The jackpot is a trendy gamification format amongst our users and is an excellent way to boost your audience engagement and go viral.
In the campaign example below, we have created a jackpot with Christmas baubles. Participants need to get three identical baubles for a chance to win their Christmas decorations.
4. Countdown to Christmas
We couldn't write an article about the best Christmas marketing campaign ideas without mentioning the number one must-have campaign: the Advent calendar.
The best thing about Advent calendars is that you can shape them to your liking and put any content you want behind the little doors (articles, games, discounts, videos, prizes, infographics, etc.). But that's not all: with the Advent calendar you can build audience loyalty by encouraging users to return to your channels daily and increase your website traffic.
This format is super easy to set up in Qualifio (thanks to our ready-to-use template ;-)), but you can always contact our Studio team to make a bespoke Advent calendar for you based on your briefing.
5. Catch your Christmas dinner!
Because Christmas isn’t Christmas without a hearty dinner with your loved ones, we have thought about a catcher game where participants need to catch their Christmas dinner. Imagine a Turkey, potatoes and vegetables falling and on the bottom a plate to catch them :-P
Offer discounts or gift cards to participants who catch the most food in the least amount of time!
6. “Did you know?” Christmas special
We’re fans of the “Did you know?” type of quiz at Qualifio. Firstly, because we always learn lots of things we didn't know and secondly, because it's great fun!
In the example below, we have created an all-in-one quiz mixing our different kinds of question formats:
- True or False,
- Instant answer check,
- 4 pics, 1 word,
- Spot the difference,
- Guess who?,
- Etc.
Want to try it out and discover fun facts about Christmas? Take part in our quiz and be inspired to create yours for your audience! ?
7. Christmas waste recycling
Every event is a good excuse to raise awareness about environmental issues, such as the importance of recycling, for example! Don't see how? Well, create a click-on-image quiz and ask consumers to sort out the different types of Christmas waste.
To make your quiz complete, add some ideas for wrapping a gift without using paper or tape at the end!
8. The records broken in 2022
The holiday season is also an opportunity to look back on the events that punctuated the year. And you have thousands of possibilities to do so. In the example below, we have decided to create a quiz based on the records broken in 2022. From the most outlandish to the most impressive records, participants need to answer whether the records presented are true or false!
9. How should you celebrate New Year's Eve?
New Year’s Eve celebrations can sometimes be overrated because there’s always pressure to make plans or do something spectacular. But the secret is to do what makes you happy with the people you love!
That’s why we came up with this personality test for your brand to help your audience to put together the best plans for their New Year’s Eve celebrations, knowing that it can also just be staying at home and chilling.
10. Have a cheesy Christmas!
Finally, keep your audience happy and promote attractive offers and giveaways thanks to a wheel of fortune! The one we created below is about food, and more precisely, cheeeeeeeese.
The wheel is in the shape of a fondue machine and the slider is the stick. It’s up to you to choose the price or discounts you want to put in each slice based on your best-sellers or the product of your choice.
The best Christmas marketing campaigns ideas from our users
1. NRJ Music Awards’ challenge
As mentioned above, the festive season campaigns are also the perfect opportunity to reflect on what happened during the year. The radio station NRJ tested the celebritie’s musical knowledge with the All Star Challenge made up of 5 games.
- The masked singer: guess who is hiding behind the mask
- Emoji songs: guess the song title behind the emojis
- Deepfake: guess which singer has been added to the video clips
- General knowledge: answer different questions about the most popular songs of the year
- The not super mix: listen to a song and recognise the artists in the mix
At the end of the five games, NRJ displayed a leaderboard with the top participants. An engaging, original and addictive challenge, perfect to end the year.
2. Toulouse FC’s sponsored Advent calendar
This calendar was 100% sponsored by Toulouse FC’s main sponsors. Each calendar box was dedicated to one of them with an exclusive game and prize to be won.
To highlight their sponsors’ visibility, they added an automatic redirection to the sponsor’s page at the end of each game and displayed all their sponsors’ logos on the footer of the calendar. The cherry on the cake: they promoted their Advent calendar via Instagram and their newsletter.
Want to discover more about Toulouse Football Club’s digital strategy? Check out Qualifio’s success stories and discover what TFC and our other customers have accomplished with our solution.
3. Ardennes-étape’s unforgettable days
Ardennes-étape, specialised in holiday home rentals in the Belgian Ardennes, launched a campaign highlighting five international or national days not to be forgotten:
- Animal rights Day (10/12)
- Ding-a-ling Day (12/12)
- The Battle of the Ardennes (16/12)
- Bicycle enthusiasts Day (21/12)
- Hug a tree Day (27/12)
For each day, they proposed an exclusive game (photo contest, quiz, vote campaign, etc.) for a chance to win one of the five getaways in beautiful holiday homes, each combined with an exclusive experience. To encourage users to participate, they suggested their audience follow them on social media and launched a nice teaser.
Psssst! Don’t want to miss any of the international days throughout the year? Download our marketing calendar!
Want to discover other inspiring campaigns created by our users?Check out our all-time favourite campaign catalogue!
