“Just to be clear this is not a Christmas commercial.”
Oh but that is simply not true. That was the opening line to a Kmart ad in Sept. promoting a Christmas sale.
But instead of Christmas, the ad said, “However, let’s say you have an event in late December that you need a lot of gifts for…”
The name of the event is Christmas. And that ad was aired in the middle of Sept. With a whole quarter of the year to go before Christmas, Kmart thought that showing a (not) Christmas commercial was a good idea.
I understand that stores need holiday sales, but Santa has no place dancing across my TV when I am trying to watch my Giants play the Royals during the World Series.
Kmart went straight from back to school shopping season to Christmas, completely skipping over Halloween, Columbus Day and Thanksgiving. There are so many great ad possibilities for such lame holidays like Columbus Day. Such as “In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue, to great mattress sales.” That was a real ad from Mattress Discounters in 2009.
I first noticed holidays moving between pages in the calendar last year, when watching the World Series. The World Series is always played in late October, so when a Best Buy ad ran I turned and looked at my dad, wondering why that commercial was playing. It is the World Series the prime situation for Halloween ads so why is Santa on my screen.
Last year Christmas ads came so early that Time ran a column about the new found early start to the winter holiday season. The articles reasoning for why Christmas ads are moving up is relatively simple.
The big retail conglomerates such as Kmart, Wal-Mart, Best Buy and Target all appeal more to low income families. Those retail companies early holiday season commercials promote layaway, which is when you buy an item and then pay for it over time before you pick it up. This naturally appeals to lower income households, and so those companies are competing to be the first ones to have their retail purchased on layaway because then that consumer will not buy from another store.
As useless as ads are to me, watching Santa Claus fly on a sled through snow when it is still technically summer bothers me. The way seasonal ads use to work was refreshing. Once Labor Day passed back to school shopping was over. Then in Oct. it was Halloween related ads. Then Nov. was Thanksgiving, and then winter Holidays in Dec. It is naturally pleasant to have what is happening on the TV coincide with the weather outside. So please companies keep the Holidays within their season.