Every who down on earth liked traditional Christmas a lot
But the marketer and their team did NOT
The marketer hated Christmas! The reason for the season!
Now if you ask why, I will tell you the reason.
Marketers – as they so often do, have found ways to exploit just about anything for commercial purposes. Whether it’s exploiting charity campaigns, festivals or seasons, marketers find the dollar value in just about everything. Including Christmas. If you haven’t noticed your social media feeds crammed with Christmas posts from companies, then Id presume it’s because your eyes have glaized over them. They are so prevalent you learn to skip over them! Tis also the season for Briscoes “One Day ONLY” Christmas sale.
Now don’t get me wrong. There isn’t anything bad about companies holding sales around Christmas time. A factor of Christmas is giving gifts and so it makes sound commercial sense to offer sales. But these sales messages become so prevalent around the time of Christmas that the season loses it’s meaning.
Christmas has grown to have many meanings. Although it initially started as a Christian celebration (read: Christ mas) it’s evolved to fit the masses. It evolved to allow atheists and others to celebrate time with their friends and family. But this too is changing.
One third of Christian Americans don’t perceive Christmas as a religious holiday. And they were likely just the honest ones! As people skip around buying gifts, wrapping them, and hoping to receive gifts in exchange, they likely aren’t doing it for religious purposes.
PewResearch did an interesting study about how Christmas’s meaning has evolved. Participants compared their festive activities between when they were a child and now. See for yourself:
Traditional Christmas celebrations have lessened in value. People are now just as likely to meet with friends or family as they are to buy gifts. Also secular Christmas traditions can be seen rapidly declining. And so it’s not just the Christian’s who are seeing Christmas lose its meaning.
At the end of the day, the holiday’s changing nature isn’t just because marketers are becoming more cutthroat. Marketer’s would not be so persistent if there wasn’t a demand.
So maybe it’s the consumers who stole Christmas. You and I. Even though we groan when yet another Christmas ad shows it’s face on TV, it’s likely we secretly love it. Because those ads are the face of our new Christmas.
As people have become more materialistic yet more in debt, we crave savings. We crave marketers finding clever ways to link a holiday into a sales pitch. So while people are arguing about changing “Christmas” into “Xmas” or “Merry Christmas” into “Happy holidays” there may be a bigger argument that needs to be spoken of. That is the transition of Christ mas into Christ marketing.