10 marketing wins on hard dates
The other half of the argument: brands that walked into a loaded date and came out ahead. See the fails →
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2021Cadbury India 🇮🇳
One Diwali film, thousands of local shops
In a festive market, distribution beats storytelling. Anything that makes the local retailer's month makes your quarter.
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2018KFC UK 🇬🇧
KFC rearranges three letters
In a crisis the audience wants three things in order: acknowledgement, information, and only then tone.
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2018Nike 🇺🇸
Nike picks a side and stays there
Taking a political position is survivable when it is consistent with what you already are and you can hold it under fire. Half of one is worse than neither.
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2017Heineken 🇬🇧🇺🇸
The answer to the Pepsi ad, three weeks later
A brand can host a difficult conversation. It cannot resolve one.
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2015Coca-Cola Middle East 🇦🇪🇸🇦
Cans with no label, for Ramadan
Ramadan rewards restraint and generosity. The brands that win the month are the ones that visibly give something up.
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2015REI 🇺🇸
REI closes on the biggest shopping day of the year
On a saturated commercial date, the cheapest way to be seen is to do the opposite — but only if the opposite costs you something.
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2014Sainsbury's 🇬🇧
A Christmas ad made with the Royal British Legion
You can work with a commemorative subject if the custodian organisation is a partner rather than a footnote, and if the money goes the right way.
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2013Google India 🇮🇳🇵🇰
Two friends separated by Partition, reunited by search
A historical trauma shared by two hostile markets can be handled — from the human scale, with no political framing, and with the product doing work rather than talking.
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2011Patagonia 🇺🇸
A Black Friday ad telling you not to buy it
Anti-consumption messaging on a discount date only survives if the operational commitment behind it is real and checkable.
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1966Amul 🇮🇳
Sixty years of drawing the news by Friday
Topical marketing works as a habit, not as a stunt. One post a year on the safest date builds nothing.
Check your own dates before you become one of these
Every case above happened on a date somebody could have looked up. Pick your markets and the calendar will tell you what the next three weeks look like.
Open the calendar → See the fails All markets
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