Seasonal partnerships can deliver long-term benefits
Everyone loves a seasonal holiday, whether it be Easter, a half-term break or Christmas – and an increasing number of brands are realising the opportunity offered by seasonal events to interact with their customers in an out-of-the-ordinary setting. In our day-to-day work at Mando-Connect, we’re also seeing more brands than ever partnering-up to create experiences and rewards for customers that they couldn’t deliver on their own.
Seasonal holidays open up new opportunities to marketers, / Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash.
Here is a selection of our favourite seasonal activations of recent times:
Easter
This Easter, British Gas Rewards partnered with Mando-Connect, Spark Lab and Centrica XR Solutions (a team dedicated to promoting immersive technologies) to create an exceptional and brand-new augmented reality experience for their members, which was accessible online (so there was no need for them to download a separate app). Members had the chance to win millions of prizes (including family holidays, Amazon Echo’s, Hive Products, Merlin Passes and Sky store vouchers to name just a few) by helping Wilbur the Penguin (the lovable British Gas mascot) to locate Easter eggs – a family friendly activity. This innovative new gamified and augmented reality experience was available to all British Gas Rewards customers during April 2019. This is a fabulous example of a promotional partnership.
Half-term holidays
This May half-term Hampton Court Palace hosted the Terrible Tudors from the Horrible Histories collection. This was a brilliant experiential partnership that brought families across the country together while also educating children in the history of the royal Hampton Court Palace residents.
Christmas
Last Christmas, The Evening Standard and the Independent teamed up with Sir Elton John to support Aids Free. To raise money for the appeal, the Evening Standard ran an Aids Free auction, where readers could bid for a number of prizes, including a “personal styling session with Victoria Beckham and a limited-edition photograph signed by Sir Elton John” as well as tickets to his farewell world tour.
Valentine’s Day
Valentine’s Day this year saw Deliveroo and Snog partner to create Oyster Fro-Yo. While the partnership between Deliveroo and Snog was logical, the concoction created was not. Snog combined frozen yogurt with freshly caught oysters to create an aphrodisiac fro-yo. This is an example of an innovative product partnership.
Partnerships are a popular choice for seasonal events, often encouraging the whole family to get together and experience a fun time together, such as the British Gas Reward game, or the Terrible Tudors experience at Hampton Court Palace. We do love a partnership here at Mando-Connect and we believe that having partnerships specifically around big events such as Easter, Valentine’s Day and Christmas are key to engaging families and can really surprise and delight customers with something they aren’t expecting.
Charlie Hills is managing director at Mando-Connect.
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