Why Marketers Should Care About 'Once-a-Day' Moments

They can foster inspiration for brands

We’re all already familiar with the once-a-year or once in a while moments that brands activate around, whether it’s Taco Bell offering Friendsgiving recipes each year or Bed Bath & Beyond marketing its Campus Checklist to incoming freshmen. Brands have long been building campaigns around these annual holidays and life-stage milestones.

However, marketers are just starting to consider why once-a-day moments—rituals or routines that happen each and every day—also provide ample opportunity for building campaigns. These moments happen all of the time and are both persistent and consistent. How people talk about and gather around these moments can drive creative inspiration for brands.

All over the world, people are turning everyday life into meaningful connections and a compelling narrative. Here’s how more marketers should follow suit and turn these ordinary moments into something extraordinary.

Focus on the daily inflection points

Brands associated with once-a-day moments can be easier for people to recall, which can help them move more easily from consideration to conversion. One of the best ways that brands can activate around once-a-day moments is by building on daily inflection points.

Harry’s, a DTC startup in the business of selling men’s razors, for instance, created an entire campaign around one of the most common daily inflection points: the morning routine. Recognizing that shaving isn’t the most fun thing to do, Harry’s created a campaign around it to drive positive brand association. Using the hashtag, #OwnYourAM, Harry’s posted images and encouraged others to do the same, featuring just about everything, from coffee-drinking habits to breakfast choices, but shaving. The campaign’s emphasis on the morning routine was relatable and provided a daily opportunity to engage with customers in an authentic way.

Consider the opportunity to build community

Once-a-day moments provide ample opportunity to build community as well, especially during unexpected moments of the day.

One company that has built a community around a daily activity is Outdoor Voices. The athleisure brand asks users to post pictures of themselves #DoingThings and has made this motto the core of its messaging. To them, #DoingThings means everything from taking a yoga class or completing a half marathon to walking the dog or running errands. By activating around a daily activity, whatever that may be, Outdoor Voices empowers its customers to continue living an active, healthier life and has built an active online and offline community from it.

As a marathoner, I can’t even begin to count the collective hours I’ve been #DoingThings. What I find interesting is how much the advent of mobile has made what was once a solo activity for me a community moment. If it’s a long run, you can find me posting my runner highs and lows on social media; the real-time “You can do it!” commentary from the virtual crowd propels me forward.

If done right, there’s a way that companies can enter in and help foster those kinds of communities and be a part of that everyday moment of training.

Meet your intended audience where they are

To be clear, connecting in once-a-day moments doesn’t necessarily mean that marketers must adopt an always-on approach or increase frequency. Rather, strategic once-a-day campaigns meet audiences where they are.

Purple Mattress teamed up with Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim of Adult Swim’s Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! for a six-part campaign airing exclusively on their social media pages. The short and quirky videos featured the comedians as sleep experts providing the “sleep tools” necessary to beat sleeplessness. In this way, Purple Mattress surprised and delighted potential customers by delivering content that was relevant, timely and convenient.

Moments have always brought people together, and with the evolution of mobile, people now have more ways than ever to share—and share in—these moments that matter to them. Brands must recognize that these familiar points in the day can be just as impactful from a marketing perspective as national or global events because they are a core part of everyday lives. This is a true opportunity for marketers to turn the ordinary into the extraordinary.