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 Hey Marketing Bestie, Us marketers sure can learn a lot from our Marketing fore-fathers and fore-mothers. Consider this a parade for the greatest marketing campaigns in memory. Welcome to Marketing Classics 411, a new kind of ancient history. In place of hieroglyphs, expect to decipher the campaigns of yesteryear. Professor Millennial teaches every Tuesday (remotely), via electronic mail. Class is now in session. Was this email forwarded to you? Sponsored by Vibe.co You spend months building email segments. SHOP ‘TIL YOU FLOP How The U.S. Government Created The Biggest Sales Of The SummerMemorial Day weekend’s coming up, and you know what that means… 3-day weekend. Summer vibes. (Even though summer technically starts June 21.) And…MAJOR SALES. Memorial Day exists to honor U.S. military members who died while serving. So how did it also become the most popular time of year to…buy a mattress? 🤔 It wasn’t by accident. It was basically an engineered outcome of a federal law. Once you know the history, the rest of the retail year starts to make a lot more sense. This is the story of… Memorial Day sales.  I asked ChatGPT to make a picture of Memorial Day Marketing LOL In 1868, just 3 years after the Civil War ended, General Order Number 11 declared May 30 a new holiday. Not Memorial Day (yet). Decoration Day. The purpose was to honor Union soldiers who died in battle by decorating their graves.  The origin glory, circa 1908. The May timing meant flowers would be widely available. A patriotic AND practical decision. For obvious reasons, individuals who supported the Confederacy weren’t initially on board. They celebrated their own version of the holiday on their own schedule. That changed over time. Conflicts like the Spanish-American War in 1898 united the country. By the time the U.S. joined World War I in 1917, Decoration Day had lost its Civil War association. After World War II, it became a day to honor ALL Armed Forces members who’d died while serving. In 1967, Decoration Day was officially renamed Memorial Day. READY FOR THE 3-DAY WEEKENDSA year after the Memorial Day name change, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act.  Not as important as several other acts signed by LBJ, but I do love me a 3-day weekend. Starting in 1971, Memorial Day would be celebrated on the last Monday in May. The same bill also moved Washington’s Birthday (now called Presidents’ Day to honor Lincoln, too), and Veterans Day to Mondays. Just like that, 3-day weekends became the law of the land. A few times a year, anyway. Here’s how LBJ explained it: “The bill…will help Americans to enjoy more fully the country that is their magnificent heritage. It will also aid the work of Government and bring new efficiency to our economy… The Monday holiday will stimulate greater industrial and commercial production, sparing business and labor the penalty of midweek shutdowns.”  “Is it the 3-day weekend yet?” What LBJ didn’t say: Travel and tourism groups had been lobbying for more 3-day weekends since the 1950s. More time to travel = more $$$ generated by traveling. Employee unions got on board, the government listened, and suddenly, Americans were looking for something to do with their time off. THE BIG TICKETMemorial Day sales started in the ‘70s and accelerated in the ‘80s. It turned out, that spring/summer moment is a natural time to shop for certain items. Certain BIG items.  Sweet ride. Some products naturally align with holiday timing. Others, not so much. Savvy Marketers considered the consideration cycle. The long weekend created the perfect retail window for big-ticket purchases for a few reasons: 🔮 Predictability: Before 1971, Memorial Day happened on a different day of the week every year. A fixed Monday gave retailers a guaranteed 3-day sales window to plan around. 📆 Calendar position: Late May sits at peak inventory turnover. Winter stock needs to move as summer goods arrive. Retailers were motivated to discount. 🔆 Weather: For most of the U.S., Memorial Day weekend is the first warm long weekend of the year. Consumers are willing to leave the house, visit stores, and get large purchases delivered. 🤔 Consideration cycle: Buyers stew for weeks or months before making big-ticket purchases.May’s a good time to pull the trigger, especially when there’s a deal. PUT IT IN PRACTICEDoes a Memorial Day sale make sense for your brand? Not always. Run a product-holiday fit audit on your top SKUs. Here’s your homework: 1️⃣. Answer these 3 questions about your top SKUs: How long is the buyer’s journey from awareness to purchase? Is it days, weeks, months? What triggers the final decision? Is it a price drop, life change, weather, urgency, or social proof? Does physical delivery or in-person evaluation play a role? 2️⃣. With these answers, map your top SKUs back to the holiday calendar. → Long stew + price trigger + physical product = Memorial Day, July 4th, Labor Day → Short stew + impulse + gift-coded = Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Valentine's Day, Mother's Day → Life-event triggered = New year, tax season, back-to-school → Experience-oriented = Summer, graduation, retirement, births 3️⃣. If your top SKUs don't fit into Memorial Day, feel free to sit it out. There’s no need to force a promo on products Memorial Day shoppers don’t want. THE MATTRESS MATHMattress companies didn’t sleep on product-holiday fit. In the U.S., more than HALF of all moves happen between May and September. New homes = new furniture. Soon, Memorial Day weekend became synonymous with mattress shopping.  God rest the USA. For years, manufacturers introduced new models in June, so there was a need to clear older inventory. But retail - and shopping habits - have changed. Mattresses are still a big purchase with a longer consideration cycle, but many top brands release new models earlier now. Plus, DTC mattress companies have snagged market share by bucking the traditional model. Memorial Day sales have grown broader, with more focus on smaller purchases. The calendar fit is the same, but the category mix has evolved. A 2026 RetailMeNot survey found Americans’ most planned Memorial Day purchases this year are grills and outdoor cooking equipment, clothing, and home goods and decor. Mattresses didn’t make the list. Beyond inflation numbers, the job market, and other current economic factors, this is a Black Friday/Cyber Monday trend, too. Consumers have several opportunities to buy products at a discount. Many (maybe too many) ONLY shop during sales. SUN’S OUT, MON’S OUT 🤑Memorial day is also a kickoff to a whole SEASON of summer sales. Memorial Day → Father's Day → July 4th → Amazon Prime Day → Back-to-School → Labor Day. 6 months of retail structure, anchored at both ends by Monday federal holidays that Congress deliberately created. Meanwhile, the summer leisure economy has BOOMED. According to AAA, 45M Americans will travel at least 50 miles from home this Memorial Day weekend. 🚘: 39.1M by car 💺: 3.7M by plane That’s larger than the population of California!  Have crowds, will travel. Meanwhile, a range of surveys indicate that more than 50% (that would be around 171M people) plan to shop sales. They may have already found a good deal. Also just like Black Friday, many Memorial Day sales start earlier now. But that doesn’t mean every brand should dive in. The U.S. retail calendar is a manmade construct, NOT an organic event. Because it was built, it can be read, mapped, and decided against intentionally. If there’s no product-holiday fit, sitting it out can be a lot more productive. There’s always another sale around the corner, anyway. MARKETING CHEAT SHEET (WHAT TO LEARN FROM THIS STORY): 1️⃣. The retail calendar is manmade, not a naturally-occurring entity. Congress built the 3-day weekend structure to stimulate commercial activity. Understanding why specific holidays exist tells you what consumer behavior they're designed to activate and can help predict which categories will benefit. 2️⃣. Consider the consideration period. Memorial Day sales traditionally focused on big-ticket items, like mattresses and appliances, that consumers stewed over and had to see for themselves. When choosing what holiday sales to align with, think about the consumer journey and what makes customers pull the trigger. (It’s not always price!) 3️⃣. Calendar sales only work IF your product has calendar fit. Memorial Day sales don’t work for everything. Running a sale because "it's Memorial Day" is a non-strategy. Match the holiday to your buyer's decision cycle or sit it out. IN A MEME  Ahh, the bell has rung. Please be sure to do the reading (follow The Marketing Millennials on LinkedIn and me, Professor Millennial, on X). Off you go, passing period is only 11 minutes and there’s already a line at the vending machine that sells air fryers up to 70% off. Until next time, Professor Millennial | |||||||||||
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