WORKWEEK

Several years ago at BigCommerce, I put together a content plan to build out a nostalgic piece of content pre-holiday. The thought went something like this:

BFCM has everyone’s attention over Thanksgiving, and even December. But by then, my content teams have usually published all we can to help the audience get ready. So, what if we did something else this time of year––what if we tapped into that holiday spirit, and brought joy through nostalgia? 

So, we created a 150 years of holiday marketing campaigns program in which we, well, detailed the biggest holiday marketing campaigns of the last 150 years. That content still exists in bits and pieces (like this one) but that campaign is when I learned the truth about good ol’ Rudolf––he was a content marketing creation! 

That’s right, a copywriter at Montgomery Ward was asked to come up with a Christmas story they could print and give away free to kids for the holidays. Prior to this, the department store would buy and print coloring books to give away––and them coming up with their own story would save them money, while still drawing kids in (and subsequently their parents) with the free goods. 

More than two million copies were printed. 

That copywriter’s name was Robert L. May. His brother in law, Johnny Marks, later turned that story into a song, which was recorded a decade later by Gene Autry. 

Now, Montgomery Ward lost out on the longevity of that content marketing. After all, nothing about them is mentioned in that song. But, so it goes with all content marketing eventually––companies move on to the next shiny thing, and the ideas the writers so loved end up deprecated, lest they do something themselves. 

One lesson here is that people love free things. And you see this nowhere better than at events (looking at your NRF!). Companies print tons of material to bring to those events, but the material that always flew off the booth the fastest at BigCommerce were our books. 

That’s right––we published books and gave them away for free at events. They had notes sections in them. And you’d often see attendees at speaker sessions either using that note section, or flipping through our content and reading it as a means of distraction. 

The overall lesson, though, is this: unique, free print content that helps folks achieve their goals or taps into nostalgia is incredibly effective. Perhaps especially so in an age of AI and digital media prominence. It’s a good way to stand out among the crowd. 

P.S. PostPilot did this recently––I received a print magazine from them that looks like an old-school version of Seventeen. It was awesome!