Here's Why Advent Calendars Are a Marketing Godsend for Brands This Holiday Season

The London Zoo doesn’t normally make news across the pond, but it did last week when its resident mob of meerkats (Timone, Penelope, Meko, Frank and Dracula) got together to begin counting down to Christmas. And how might meerkats do that? By gathering around what’s possibly the world’s first meerkat Advent calendar. Hammered together from plywood, the calendar features 24 doors notched for easy opening by meerkat paws. Since the box was simple enough to build, the issue for zoo staff was deciding what to hide behind its doors. After all, human treats like chocolate aren’t good for meerkats, who generally aren’t into reading Bible verses either. In the end, the zookeepers opted for a suitable delicacy: crickets. If introducing Advent calendars to a bunch of weasels seems a bit of a stretch, well, then ’tis the season for marketing stunts. Because the London Zoo isn’t the only outfit to adopt the Advent calendar this year. Countless consumer brands have also done it, including beauty companies like Sephora and The Body Shop; luxury brands like L’Occitane, Jo Malone and Tiffany & Co.; gourmet purveyors like Godiva and David’s Tea; plus a slew of mass-market brands from Lego to Disney. Williams Sonoma is selling several branded Advent calendars this year, including a Dolly Parton model (long sold out) that features the country star’s favorite candies. Lingerie brand Enclosed is offering a $1,200 advent calendar featuring drawers loaded with lacy panties. Then there’s Purina’s Fancy Feastivities Advent calendar, stocked with 24 3-oz cans of cat food behind each door that, in the words of senior brand marketing manager Amanda Zaydman, “is a great opportunity for cat lovers to share the joy of the holidays with their cats.” Fancy Feast's calendar features seasonal dishes. The secularization of a religious tradition Share the holidays... with your cats? Did our forebears do that? The questions looming behind the proliferation of commercial Advent calendars are many, foremost among them: Why have so many brands suddenly gotten hip to what’s historically been a Christian ritual—and why now? For the sake of the uninitiated, Advent is the liturgical season that, through daily prayer and reflection, observes the 24 days leading to Christmas. It first emerged in the fourth century, though calendars to help the faithful mark each day didn’t appear until 1851 in Germany. As many an older Catholic or Episcopalian will attest, Advent calendars used to be simple cardboard placards purchased in the church vestibule and then taped to the refrigerator at home. Each of the 24 doors often revealed a quote from the Bible and, as an incentive for the kids, contained a small piece of chocolate. But the jump from ecclesiastical observance to brand marketing has been a quick one. And, as with so many other branding maneuvers of the last two years, it’s one accelerated by the pandemic. Just as Advent has become secularized into a “countdown to Christmas,” the Advent calendar has become the holiday brand sampler to go along with it. Nicole Greene, senior director analyst for Gartner, pointed out that Covid forced brands to scramble for ways to let customers try out and experience their products in the safety of their living rooms. And as America approaches its second holiday season in pandemic times, Advent calendars have become an ideal vehicle for that. Turning a Family Tradition Into a Holiday Marketing Juggernaut “A lot of companies are innovating their product offerings to better align with consumers who are at home more,” Greene said. “How do you deliver things that you can touch and taste and feel and smell, but still feel protected and safe? [Advent calendars are] a natural evolution of that hybrid experience.” This Christmas, try something new Perhaps understandably, brands contacted for this story didn’t much want to talk about the transmission fears and social isolation that’s been part of daily life since the pandemic began. They did, however, talk about the Advent calendar’s marketing aptitudes—foremost, its utility as a sampling tool. Ask Justin DeGeorge. As vp of marketing for Nespresso, DeGeorge watched the coffee company’s Advent calendars debut several years ago in Europe (the Nestlé-owned brand is based in Switzerland) and is now instrumental in selling them in the U.S., where they debuted last year. Because Nespresso not only sells coffee and espresso machines but the 50-odd signature coffee pods that go into them, the Advent calendars are an effective means of encouraging customers wed to, say, Melozio, to try the Cafecito de Puerto Rico. Nespresso's calendar acts as a sampler pack, introducing shoppers to new flavors. “We have a wide range of great coffees that a lot of our consumers haven't fully experienced,” DeGeorge said. “So it's a natural way to invite that discovery.” What’s more, the Advent calendars are more effective that ordinary sampler packs because the holiday season, marketers believe, tends to put customers into a more receptive mood. “We’ve found it’s been very well received by a broad range of customers,” DeGeorge said, “largely because it just connects to kind of a happy anticipatory holiday season—and they really do enjoy discovering new coffees that they haven't tried.” Along the way, Nespresso has also used its advent calendars as a way to maximize the creative partnership it recently started with fashion designer Johanna Ortiz. The Colombian artist, who draws inspiration from the rainforest, designed Nespresso’s holiday coffee collection, so it was only logical that she design the Advent calendars, too. An extra kick to the holiday campaign For The Body Shop, Advent calendars have served as a vehicle to push a holiday marketing message a bit further. This year, for example, the beauty brand has partnered with Care USA as part of its “Spread the Love. Share the Joy” campaign. Those slogans also function as the names of the brand’s Advent calendars. The Body Shop sees its Advent calendars as extensions of its holiday marketing campaign. “Each year, our [calendars] introduce customers to our holiday campaigns, which gets people talking about our important charity partners,” vp of brand and activism Hilary Lloyd told Adweek. “We hope that with the added awareness, we can help drive positive social change.” In the meantime, however, the calendars (there are three of them for 2021) are encouraging buyers to experiment by smearing on a few of The Body Shop’s emollients they might not have tried. To create each year’s Advent calendars, the brand selects its bestselling items—24 palm-sized portions of stuff like coconut soap, pink grapefruit shower gel and watermelon lip butter. First offered in 2013 as a single gift item, the calendars “quickly evolved into a sellout surprise each year,” Lloyd said, “so we developed bigger and better versions, which have changed over time to epitomize each year’s holiday campaign.” A good deal for pandemic times A gift with 24 spaces for a daily treat is obviously an effective way to nudge customers into trying out a brand’s entire portfolio. It’s a low-risk proposition, since the calendars tend to be attractively priced. For example, Godiva’s Advent calendar (now sold out) was only $39, not bad for a box of premium chocolates. The Body Shop’s basic Advent calendar is $79, which comes to just $3.29 per daily surprise. A notable exception is Tiffany & Co.’s second-ever Advent calendar, featuring the artwork of Jean-Michel Basquiat and “the 24 most extraordinary gifts of the season.” Price: $150,000. At $150,000, Tiffany's calendar features "extraordinary" gifts. But leaving the Tiffany example off the table, Gartner’s Greene noted that brands aren’t just relying on these calendars to immerse shoppers into their sprawling product ranges, but play to the pandemic-wrought craving for a good deal. So while the Advent calendar’s main attribute might be “that ability to present new products and experimentation, they’re all bundles—they’re a value,” she said. “So it makes you feel like you’re getting a good deal at a time of economic uncertainty.” And don't forget Rover Since the last 20 months has witnessed a historic increase in the rate of pet adoption (up 59% in 2020, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association), it’s probably no surprise that the Advent calendar trend has come to include non-human residents of the American home, too. Dog biscuit and puppy treat Advent calendars have appeared on Etsy. Dog treat brand Wufers’ $119 Advent cookie calendar sold out this year. The good news for dog and cat parents is that mega pet brand Purina appears to have made plenty of its own calendars which, though sold out in some places, can be still clawed at or fetched from the shelves of major retailers like Walmart and Target and online via Chewy and Amazon. Shaped like a dog house, Purina's Advent calendar sells at Walmart and Target. For pooches, there’s the 24 Days of Treats calendar ($21.99), which is shaped like a doghouse and features 24 doors on the roof. And for cats—very spoiled cats—there is the $24.99 Fancy Feastivities. Among the 24 cans tucked into this Advent calendar are two limited-edition flavors that push the gourmet envelope by any standard: Hearthside Salmon Platter with pumpkin and spinach pâté; and Yuletide Turkey Feast with sweet potato and tomato in gravy. Odds are these flavors won’t make it into the permanent roster, but Zaydman said the calendar serves to get felines (which generally cleave to routine) turned on to something new, which is probably another way of saying: It’s a way to get cat parents to try more of the Fancy Feast product line. “Sometimes cat owners find a certain recipe that their cat loves, and they stick with it,” Zaydman said. “But the Advent calendar allows cat owners to delight their kitty with different tastes and forms, including our two new limited-edition holiday recipes. So, in addition to sharing a new holiday tradition with your cat, you may also discover their new favorite recipe.” Meanwhile, back in London, Martin O’Sullivan had little choice but to announce that while the meerkat Advent calendar was an initial success (“the meerkats had great fun,” the zookeeper said in a statement), there was no way this countdown to Christmas was going to last 24 days. Timone, Penelope, Meko, Frank and Dracula pulled open all of the doors at once and ate every cricket they found. “It’s safe to say that patience isn’t a meerkat’s best quality,” O’Sullivan added. This Dutch Grocery Chain Created a Tiny, Furry Love Story for the Holidays