Retail / news
Creators Shift Holiday Content Calendars Earlier as Brands Line Up Deals in July
Content creators and the brands that sponsor them are launching holiday campaigns months ahead of the season, with Christmas-themed material appearing as early as August. Brands began approaching Christmas-focused creators for partnerships as early as July this year.
Christmas content is increasingly a year-round job for some creators, and brands are adjusting their outreach to match. Devin Cordle, who has more than six million followers and is known for posting about the holiday throughout the year, said companies started contacting her about partnerships as early as July.
To position herself for those deals, Cordle spent the summer building out seasonal material, posting hauls of fall decor and listening to Christmas music while she worked. She described the process as pitching herself to brands in the hope they would notice and commit to a brand deal in time for the holidays.
The shift is being driven in part by a retail calendar that keeps moving forward. With fall promotional events such as Amazon's Prime Big Deals Day now in the mix, some shoppers are already doing their holiday shopping in October, pulling campaigns earlier along with them.
Cordle has several brand and retailer campaigns scheduled to go live in the coming weeks, though the details remain under embargo. Last year she secured holiday-focused content deals with Grinch x McDonald's, Hallmark and CVS, and she is set to run similar campaigns across her social pages this year.
She is one example of a broader pattern in which creators and brands are strategizing on holiday content well before shoppers encounter discounts and deals, using the earlier window to build awareness and test sales strategies.