Category: Marketing Automation

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Pillar pages should be an integral part of your content strategy. Creating pillar pages is one of the best ways to strengthen your SEO strategy, boost your website traffic, and generate more inbound links to your website. A pillar page is generally a detailed guide or helpful resource on a specific topic. Most successful websites…
The post How to Create a Pillar Page that Ranks appeared first on Benchmark Email.

Last Updated on November 1, 2021 by Rakesh GuptaTo understand how to solve the same business use case using Process Builder. Check out this article Getting Started with Process Builder – Part 49 (Running Lead Assignment Rules From Process Builder). Big Idea or Enduring Question: How do you run the
The post Getting Started with Salesforce Flow – Part 77 (Running Lead Assignment Rules From Salesforce Flow) appeared first on Automation Champion.

Jarvis, I suppose you’re my new BFF since you managed me achieve my first $10,000 in just 75 days. I work on Upwork as a content writer (with a focus on blog writing and web content). Jarvis has helped me with blog post content, UW proposals, outreach messaging, and my profile (basically every step of my approach). Link to Jarvis 10,000 words FREE
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When searching for a soul mate, you look for someone that’s smart, funny, caring, but above all — consistent. Because if you’re going to invest your life in a person, you want someone you can trust, right?

Falling in love with a brand isn’t all that different. Brands pull us in with witty slogans and timely discounts, but that’s not the only reason we stick around. Think about it, inbound marketing is all about content and communication that people love. The key to being your leads’ and customers’ soul mate, then, is providing brand consistency they can count on.
But how? What’s at the heart of brand consistency is your message, and marketing plays a huge role in that. In this post, we’ll dive into what branding consistency is, its importance, benefits, and share 15 businesses that have done a stellar job showing it.

The Importance of Branding Consistency
Branding consistency sets the stage for a business to gain and maintain credibility and trust. You have to position your brand and its content in a way that appeals to its target audience and carry that same messaging over time. After all, your customers are putting their trust in you, and like any relationship, you want the foundation to be dependable and consistent.
So, not only is this concept important in business strategy, but the benefits speak for themselves.

Benefits of Brand Consistency
Maintain customer expectations.
When creating marketing content, your team can share collateral that delivers the same visual cues from logo, color, and tone that won’t negatively impact customer perception. This standardization of branding let’s them know exactly what to expect every time they come across your business.
Align separate business units.
In creating a uniform brand identity, business teams create varying forms of content across departments that still ring true to clearly specified brand guidelines. While each team won’t be working on the same projects directly — the brand’s story will still shine through.
Establish a more visible, uniform identity.
Brands that are consistently presented are 3 to 4 times more likely to experience brand awareness and visibility. Just think about the iconic Nike swoosh, or Adidas’ signature stripes, these consistent visuals let customers know what brand a product comes from in the blink of an eye.
Now that we’ve gone through the importance and benefits of branding consistency, let’s look at some brands that have used it successfully.

Branding Consistency: 15 Brand Examples
1. GymIt
Fitness centers can be intimidating to the average person. GymIt gets it, and takes the intimidation out of the equation by talking to its clientele like real people. The Boston-based gym calls itself “hassle-free” and keeps working out simple.
One of the brand’s slogans is “Get In, Work Out” — clean, to-the-point, and clever. To prove that GymIt doesn’t cater to protein-shake, bodybuilder types, its marketing doesn’t take itself too seriously, either. Below are some snapshots of GymIt’s playful copy across social media, merchandise, and unintimidating website.

2. Dropbox
The cloud-based file sharing platform, Dropbox, is great at consistent design and personalization across channels.
You won’t find any Dropbox communication or platforms without its signature open, blue box logo nearby. This style is behind all of the brand’s designs, whether it’s a sleek homepage or a creative error page. Dropbox’s email marketing aligns with that fun, artsy messaging. See the screenshot below of some colorful collateral found across.

3. charity:water
This organization donates 100% of its donations to building water wells in Africa where women and children use yellow jerry cans to carry water back to their villages. charity:water’s logo is a stylized jerry can and not only keeps the branding present across channels, but keeps the issue the charity is helping solve top of mind, as well.
While many traditional nonprofits stick to old-school marketing tactics, charity:water recognizes that in order to inspire people to support a cause, you need to have inspired marketing. The organization’s birthday campaign has attracted supporters in fashion which charity:water uses to show how nonprofits can be trendy — using jerry cans in annual Charity Ball runways. This brand consistency makes it a leader in reinventing nonprofit marketing.
4. Naked Pizza
Naked Pizza — a revealing name for an honest brand. This business offers healthier pizza than the average chain by using only all-natural ingredients and a crust packed with grains and probiotics. Naked Pizza’s promise of all-natural is enforced by its refreshing style and tone seen across its marketing assets.
Like GymIt, Naked Pizza suggests it doesn’t take itself too seriously and that pizza can be guilt-free and fun. The brand is lovably sarcastic and keeps its design clean and appealing while communicating its delicious message.

5. Wells Fargo
You don’t have to use conversational tones or playful designs to be a lovable brand. Wells Fargo, a leading bank worldwide, keeps its messaging traditional and old-school — in a good way!
The brand is committed to its core values, including ethics and putting customers first, and they communicate this consistently through font, colors, layout, and keeping its logo ever-present across channels. Its slogan “Together we’ll go far” inspires copy that is rooted in family and building relationships.

6. World Wildlife Fund
This organization fights for a great cause with great marketing. The WWF’s style and imagery create a mood across channels that forces you to reflect for a moment on how we treat our wildlife and ecosystems.
Below are three examples of how the brand communicates that same strong message in creative, thought-provoking ways. Its logo, print ad, and interactive piece all have a darkness to them through suggestive messaging or tone because of how serious the issue is.

7. Warby Parker
Warby Parker “creates boutique-quality, classically crafted eyewear at a revolutionary price point.” The brand communicates this boutiquey vibe through all its promotions and marketing assets.
For example, Warby Parker offers a luxurious touch to prospective customers by sending five pairs of glasses to try on for free (top left). Attention to style is also evident across channels: its website (bottom left) is clean and easy to navigate. Even its annual report (bottom right) feels “classically crafted.” The brand calls its style “vintage,” and its Citizen’s Circus event at SXSW was dripping with vintage touches from signage to tents.

8. Lush
The international handmade cosmetics company, Lush, believes in “making effective products from fresh organic fruits and vegetables,” and in “happy people making happy soap.” Lush stores, products, packaging, and employees (top right) all tell that story.
Lush’s commitment to natural, organic ingredients is totally aligned with how it displays its products (bottom left); Lush’s soaps, powders, and shampoos sit in their raw form in-store until the cashier wraps the product up once it’s purchased. Foregoing packaging oozes a natural vibe. Products that require packaging, like face masks (top left), don’t hide the ingredients and encourage customers to recycle after use. All packaging also has a sticker on it with the face and name of the employee who packed it. Every piece of marketing collateral at Lush has a personal, no-frills approach.

9. Boloco
Boston-based burrito company, Boloco, pays attention to consistency in detail in its online and offline marketing. The brand’s slogan is ‘inspired burritos’ and its menus, flyers, napkins, events, website, and other collateral all have a playful, hand-made touch that suggests the business is fueled by more than tortillas and guacamole. Boloco partnered with Life is Good by making a yummy Life is Good burrito with 50 cents of each purchase donated to the company’s charity, Life is Good Playmakers; this partnership fits with Boloco’s inspired brand perfectly.
Boloco keeps branding present by using a playful signature font. No matter the marketing channel, we go loco for Boloco’s consistency.

10. Museum of Fine Arts Boston
Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts promotes its brand throughout the city and under its own roof with such finesse in execution, that the brand’s presence is always incredibly recognizable, yet still subtle. All MFA Boston marketing assets are easy to connect to the source.
The brand has a two-tone color palette on all collateral, with red being the MFA’s signature color. Below are examples of its use of color, as well as its consistently minimalist design on an employee’s apron, outdoor banners, website, and brochure. With a museum full of colorful exhibitions and impressive canvases, the MFA keeps its own branding simple but strong.

11. Intercom
Intercom is a web-based customer service platform. “Treating customers with respect will always be good for business,” the brand says. “And we believe that making customers jump through hoops to try to get help is incredibly disrespectful.” Looking at Intercom’s various forms of communication and marketing tactics, it’s visually apparent how much it doesn’t want its customers to “jump through hoops.”
The brand presents information in a clear, comprehensive way by using imagery instead of written explanations. After all, a picture says a thousand words. Intercom introduces its company with photos other content with simple graphic design. Enticing me with visuals definitely takes hoops out of the equation.

12. Innocent Drinks
Innocent Drinks is a playful smoothie and juice brand from England that keeps its innocent reputation strong with marketing that will make you feel like a kid again. The meta description reads: “hello, we’re innocent and we’re here to make it easy for people to do themselves some good (whilst making it taste nice too).” How cute is that?
Below are examples of more lovable approaches to branding like its Facebook game (top left), product images (bottom left), and inventive website navigation for the brand’s annual event, Fruitstock. Innocent Drinks stays true to its personality in its tone and creative execution.

13. Zendesk
Zendesk is a cloud-based customer service software system that has built a charming brand through sleek, bright design. The “zen” in this company’s branding can be seen through its mellow yellow and natural color palette.
It’s important to communicate a consistent brand image to the world, but Zendesk recognizes that consistency comes from within as well. Its office carries the theme to keep the feeling strong within company walls. The brand’s signature green is used consistently across channels and compliments the brand’s identity.

14. Lululemon Athletica
Sportswear brands often promise that their products will make you a better athlete, but the process and hard work it takes to get there is sometimes forgotten. Lululemon Athletica, a yoga and sportswear brand, keeps the act of working out alive across its assets. The brand hosts free yoga classes in its stores, as well as public outdoor classes.
Its confirmation email (top left) for joining its mailing list is a large image of a woman doing yoga, and the brand’s Twitter profile (top right) displays yoga mats waiting to be rolled out. The brand designs yoga clothing and gear, so why skip to the gratification of doing it when you can cultivate a feeling around the process?

15. ZocDoc
ZocDoc is an online service for finding and booking appointments with physicians in your area. The brand aims to improve access to healthcare, and it communicates the ease of the process with cartoon mascots across all of its marketing communication channels.
After all, cartoons make us feel like kids again, and boy, were things easy when we were kids. See ZocDoc’s charming collateral on the website’s personal account page.

Build Better Branding Consistency
Now that’s soul mate material, right? A lot of these brands use playful, creative, and conversational tones, while others prefer more serious, thought-provoking approaches. Whatever the tone, be sure to keep it consistent across all channels to give your customers a brand they can count on.
Editor’s note: This article was originally published in March 2013 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Every year, as soon as Halloween is behind us, it seems like the floodgates open. Without warning, there are holiday marketing campaigns everywhere, with countless businesses rushing to cash in on a spending frenzy. There are holiday emails, social media posts, and TV ads — oh, my.
It might seem like holiday marketing is out of control. But some brands do it very, very well.
How? Well, these brands create campaigns that actually delight customers instead of adding to holiday noise. They evoke emotions and promote sharing, sometimes even connecting people with their loved ones, or partnering with a charitable organization.
Great holiday marketing campaigns come in many different shapes and sizes. Check out our favorites below, and use these ideas to fuel your own holiday marketing ideas.
What To Expect This Holiday Season
Before we get into the examples, let’s talk about what this holiday season will bring for marketers.
A June 2021 survey by Google and Boston Consulting Group revealed that this year, online shopping will play an important role in consumers’ buying journeys.
In 2020, there was a sharp shift toward e-commerce due to the COVID-19 crisis. However, in 2021, over 80% of consumers are seeking out in-person shopping experiences.
With this new balance, brands have to create marketing campaigns that cater to the omnichannel shopper – building offline and online touchpoints.
When it comes to social media, Sprout Social estimates that retailers across all business sizes will receive about 18% more messages per month.
To prepare, brands should develop a strategy to account for the increase in communication, such as:

Making FAQs readily available to your followers, whether it’s on your Instagram Highlights, pinned on your TikTok page, in your profile link tree.
Having a system in place for social media managers to field requests and concerns.

The holiday season is also a perfect time to engage your audience through gifts. With Sendoso, you can nurture your audience with custom e-gifts, company swag, handwritten notes, and more. The platform automates prints, delivers, and fulfills orders for you so you can focus on the results.
Another great tool to nurture your customers in the holiday season is Rybbon. The digital rewards management system allows you to automate your rewards program with a user-friendly dashboard, advanced workflows, reporting tools, and more.
Now, let’s get to some examples of great holiday campaigns from recent years.

1. Apple: Make Someone’s Holiday
This commercial gives all the feels.

It starts out in a very relatable way, showing a family traveling during the holiday to visit family.
The magic of the commercial is that throughout their entire journey, the iPad seems to be the one thing helping to maintain the peace.
And just when you think that’s the point of the commercial, it takes a bittersweet turn as the product is used to create a gift for a loved one.
Why it works: Apple often creates feature-heavy commercials, highlighting function over all else. In this ad, they prioritize emotional appeal and use the product as a vehicle to tell the story.
2. Coca-Cola Canada: Give Something Only You Can Give
In a recent holiday commercial, Coca-Cola brings us the story of a dad doing everything possible to deliver his daughter’s letter to Santa.
The dad enjoys a Coke while deciding what to do with the letter. We can sense that he’s not sure whether he’ll get there in time.
We see him sail through a sea, hike through a forest, ride across a desert, and climb a snowy mountain as he searches for Santa. Finally, he gets there, but Santa’s closed for Christmas. Just when we think the situation’s hopeless, Santa saves the day by cruising in on a Coca-Cola-branded truck and taking the dad home.

His little girl’s wish? For him to be home for Christmas. (This ad will definitely make you cry.)
While we’re always tempted to give expensive gifts, the best thing that you can give to your loved ones is your presence and time.
This installment is just one of the latest in the Coca-Cola company’s legendary holiday marketing campaigns — I mean, who doesn’t love the annual debut of the Coke-drinking polar bears?
3. Microsoft: Find Your Joy
The year 2020 was difficult for many of us. We spent more time on Zoom than ever before, and we heavily relied on technology to distract us from the COVID-19 pandemic. But that doesn’t mean we still shouldn’t celebrate the holidays and make the most out of it with our loved ones and pets.
Microsoft’s holiday commercial takes a fun spin on this theme. The commercial begins with a puppy named Rufus. Rufus longs to play and approaches each member of the family, but everyone, from the mother to the grandpa, is enjoying a Microsoft product and doesn’t pay attention.

Rufus grabs his best bud, a puppy from next door. Together, they go on an imaginary adventure involving the games and activities their humans had been enjoying. The ad not only showcases Microsoft’s offerings, but reminds us to cherish our loved ones (and to pay attention to our pets!).
4. Macy’s: In Dad’s Shoes
Macy’s campaign offers a new spin on what might be considered an overdone gift: socks.
“In Dad’s Shoes” takes a little girl through a “Freaky Friday”-like adventure, where she finds herself literally walking in her dad’s shoes for a day. Even though we see her as the daughter, everyone else, from neighbors to passerby, greets her as if she’s her dad.

Throughout the ad, she realizes how much work her dad does and how many places he frequents throughout the course of the day. He spends a lot of time walking. That’s how she gets an idea for what she’ll get him: socks. We all know that you can’t get anywhere without a good pair of socks.
We love that Macy’s showcases a simple gift borne out of empathy. This ad tells us that gifting doesn’t have to be complicated, expensive, or over-the-top.
5. Airbnb: Airbnb Hosts Ring Our Opening Bell
This is a great example of an ad that doesn’t explicitly allude to the holidays, but rather emphasizes the value of community and gratitude.
Airbnb celebrates the season by thanking its four million hosts for opening their homes to strangers all over the world. The video shows various hosts from different countries ringing the bell and opening the door. We go from the United States to Japan, from Kenya to New Zealand, from Brazil to Spain. (We love that each of these countries were listed in their original languages!)

This campaign demonstrates that you don’t need string lights or artificial trees to create an amazing campaign that embodies the holiday spirit. You can uplift your company’s values, celebrate your wins, and appreciate those who’ve played a role in your success.
6. Amazon: The Show Must Go On
If you lived through the 2020 pandemic (which you most likely did if you’re reading this), then you know how much it derailed any and all plans. Being quarantined keeps us from achieving things, it turns out. Unless it requires alone time.
In this ad, Amazon effectively punches us in the gut with the story of a ballerina who was chosen to play the lead in her dance school’s winter show. The girl is thrilled to be chosen, but as the months pass and the pandemic gains traction, the event is canceled. Ballet classes are moved online. The girl’s initial thrill fades, a feeling we can all relate to.

Her little sister remedies the situation by putting together a DIY event next to their apartment building. All of the tenants look down on her as she dances. The event is socially distant, and the girl gets to dance the ballet she’d been practicing for since the beginning of the year.
What we love most is Amazon’s tasteful product placement. Rather than showing everyone ordering all supplies from Amazon, the ad showcases the purchase of a single product: a flashlight. The flashlight is the critical piece that allowed the tenants to watch the show from their balconies.
7. Woodie’s: #WereAllHomemakers
This one made us cry. Woodie’s, an Irish home improvement store, reminds us of what the holidays are about through the story of Mrs. Higgins, an elderly woman who’s beloved in her neighborhood.
Throughout the ad, we see multiple people greet her. Neighbors and passersby are fond of her. Even the rowdy teens who loiter in front of her house love her. She has one problem: the door that leads to her yard is missing a hinge. In the United Kingdom, homes typically have a fence with a gate. Every time she leaves and comes home, she struggles opening and closing that door, as one corner drags across the ground.

 
When Mrs. Higgins comes home on one particularly snowy day, she finds that her door opens smoothly. The picture focuses on the new hinge that had been installed.
Who fixed it? It turns out it was one of the teenagers who loitered in front of her home. With this advertisement, Woodie’s not only subverted expectations but also effectively communicated what’s so wonderful about the holidays.
8. Hinge: See What We’re Thankful For
This holiday season, what are you thankful for? Recently, dating app Hinge sent around an email posing the same question to its members, using the opportunity to talk about its recent rebrand and subsequent growth — something for which Hinge itself has enormous gratitude, according to the email.
The timing for this sort of marketing is impeccable. The holidays are notorious for the sentimentality they invoke among the masses, and the desire to spend them with “someone special.”
Hinge used this email to harness the holiday spirit and redirect attention to an app that helps people find meaningful relationships, instead of, well, shorter-term alternatives.
[Click here to see the full email]
9. Lagavulin: Nick Offerman’s Yule Log
This one is an oldie but a goodie. Actor, writer, and humorist Nick Offerman loves his whisky. He’s sung about it before, and during a previous holiday season, he joined his favorite whisky brand, Lagavulin, to film a 45-minute video of — wait for it — Offerman sitting in a leather chair next to a crackling fire, drinking whisky and looking calmly at the camera. Where do we sign up for that gig?
“This is smart branding on Lagavulin’s part,” Kristina Monllos wrote for AdWeek. “Creating an extended ad that can serve as a conversation starter — should consumers swap the traditional Yule Log video for Offerman’s at parties — will also get everyone talking about the brand.”
Since the video was initially released, a new 10-hour version of it became available. Consider it our gift to you.

10. BarkPost: Yappy Thanksgiving Eve
Holidays are traditionally a time to be spent with family. For many of us, that includes our dogs.
BarkPost is no stranger to marketing campaigns that help “dog ruvers” include their furry friends into day-to-day life. In November, the pet-friendly brand showed how to do that at Thanksgiving, with a clever email that included holiday-themed cartoons and videos, feeding safety tips, and other holiday survival techniques — which, of course, involve your dog.
Plus, check out that adorable call to action at the bottom of the email: “Stop getting cute dogs in your email. Unsubscribe.” I mean, who would want to unsubscribe from that?
11. reMarkable: Keep Your Goals for the New Year
You may not have heard of reMarkable, but no matter: this company is the definition of cool and simple. Their single offering is a tablet that acts as a “digital notebook.” When you jot anything down, the reMarkable tablet automatically turns your writing into typed notes. Pretty cool, huh?
In its New Year email ad, reMarkable embodied the simplicity of its product by creating an equally simple campaign. In the email, they entice you to splurge with a $50 discount. Everyone knows that New Year is a time to make plans, set goals, and get your things in order.
reMarkable presents its product as the way to do that. They want to help you save time, which will help you spend more time with your loved ones and pets in the upcoming year. And who likes transferring notes from a notebook to a tablet?

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12. Kool-Aid: All I Really Want for Christmas feat. Lil John
In a music video-style ad, rapper Lil John quietly sits down to drink a glass of Kool-Aid as the Kool-Aid man smashes through his wall.
At that moment, the bass drops as a festive music video begins, showing Lil John rapping in front of a family Christmas gathering. The video goes on to show Lil John, the Kool-Aid Man, and Santa dancing along with shots of holiday food, presents, and Lil John’s Christmas list.

By launching a full-fledged music video with a prominent rapper, Kool-Aid both entertains prospects and demonstrates how “Kool” their brand is. Along with being humorous and entertaining, this ad also reminds you that you can still drink Kool-Aid during a time of the year where you’re mostly thinking about hot beverages.
13. Resy: Where to Spend New Year’s Eve
Don’t want to cook for New Year’s Eve? We don’t want to, either—mostly because washing dishes is a chore.
That’s what Resy bets on in a recent New Year email campaign. In a short but effective email, the company invites its subscribers to the best places to dine in the San Francisco Bay Area for the New Year. (If you’re not in San Francisco, you have the option to look for local eateries near you, also curated.) Like OpenTable, Resy allows you to make effortless reservations for you and your loved ones.
We love that this simple email keeps the focus on what we can do to celebrate New Year’s Eve. And what better way to do that than through delicious, local food that we don’t have to cook ourselves?

Image Source
14. Erste Group Bank: #EdgarsChristmas #believeinlove #believeinchristmas
You might not recognize this company, but you’d definitely recognize their holiday ad from 2018. Remember the cute porcupine who couldn’t get any friends because his spikes were, well, spiky? The short film has more than fifty million views on YouTube and touched millions of people’s hearts on other social media platforms.
Erste Group Bank did it again during their 2020 holiday campaign. This time, they made it just a little bit more clear what they offer: loans that can help you purchase something that may feel out of reach, but that may help bring your family together.

The ad begins with a granddaughter handing her grandfather his hearing aids. Throughout the video, the grandfather seems unhappy. We later find out that it’s because he’s been wanting to play music, but has no way to because he doesn’t own a piano.
The granddaughter purchases a piano for him. In the end, the grandfather gets to play a song he’d written for his mother. The entire family joins in, and they play the song together.
15. Sonos + Spotify: #PlaylistPotluck
One great way to celebrate the holiday season is with an event. And with events typically come music. Spotify is aware of that tradition, which is why it created #PlaylistPotluck.
It started with a partnership with Sonos. The brands got together to turn playlists into something like a potluck in which everyone contributes something to bring the event together (the tagline of the campaign is “One home. One host. Everyone brings a dish.”) Only, instead of contributing food or drink, everyone contributes a tune to a collaborative playlist.
Oh, look. That feature is available with Spotify!

The idea is delightfully interactive. Instead of using traditional invitations, guests RSVP to the potluck by adding songs to the collaborative playlist. And the cherry on top? Both brands also partnered with the PBS series “Mind of a Chef” for a televised holiday special, in which various celebrity chefs will be using the feature for their own meals.
What we love about this campaign is the fact that it incorporates several different elements and media formats to make it cohesive — a speaker system, a music-streaming app, and a televised special. Plus, if you participate, you’re entered for a chance to win your very own dinner party, hosted by a world-renowned chef. Bon appetit — and rock on.
16. Google: Santa Tracker
While Google’s Santa Tracker has been around for a few years now — and we recommend checking out the back story here — its features have evolved over time. Now there are interactive mini-games such as “Santa Selfie,” “Wrap Battle,” and “Build & Bolt.” Additionally, you can watch delightful short films such as “A Day at the Museum,” so you can see what Santa’s day-to-day looks like.
It’s hard to narrow down what makes the Santa Tracker so delightful, but if we had to summarize it, we’d say this — it combines the holiday wonder of a belief in Santa with real-life technology. What a wonderful way to teach kids about the web, while also allowing them to be kids. (Although, we adults certainly appreciate it, too.)
Google even introduced a B2B element of the Santa Tracker by sharing the code with developers and releasing other elements of the tool as open source. Why make all of that information public? To inspire developers to create their “own magical experiences based on all the interesting and exciting components that came together to make Santa Tracker,” writes Google’s Developer Programs Engineer Sam Thorogood.
Up until Christmas Eve each year, visitors can have a peek at the “North Pole,” to see what Santa’s elves are up to as the holiday approaches.

17. Disney: From Our Family to Yours
Culture, history, and holiday cheer come together in this holiday advertisement from Disney. The media giant takes advantage of their long-standing name to take us back to 1940, when a young girl gets her first Mickey Mouse plush toy.
As the video goes on, we see the little girl grow older until she becomes a grandma. She hands down the plush toy to her granddaughter, who doesn’t appreciate it as much as she becomes a young adult.

The granddaughter realizes how much it means to her grandma and restores the toy back to its former glory. We definitely did not cry when the grandma opened her holiday gift and saw her old toy fixed and restored.
We expected something quite touching from Disney, and this one did not disappoint. We especially love how Filipino culture has been showcased to three million viewers and counting.
18. Black Owned Everything: Jingles and Things (with “Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey”)
Black Owned Everything, an Instagram curator of Black-owned businesses and brands, creates the perfect gift guide in Jingles and Things.
Done in partnership with Netflix and the musical “Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey,” Jingles and Things curates the very best gifts for the holiday season, including items ranging from fragrance to dishware to dolls. There’s truly something for everyone here—and the best part is that we can support Black businesses while completing our holiday shopping.

Zerina Akers, the owner and head curator of Black Owned Everything, introduces us to the shop by explaining that it’s not just a marketplace but an inclusive platform.
There’s nothing more that encapsulates the holiday spirit than inclusivity, community, and belonging, and we love that Jingles and Things uplifts that theme.
19. Heathrow Airport: The Heathrow Bears Return
This adorable holiday commercial from Heathrow Airport shows the journey of two grandparent teddy bears as they decide to pack up, leave their sunny home, and go visit their teddy-bear grandchildren for Christmas.
At the end, you see the bears reunite with their family in London’s Heathrow Airport.

For many, these bears are both nostalgic and relatable. They remind you of the bears you might have played with as a child and the average grandparents.
When you see the teddy bears join their family, you might also remember the happiness you felt when your grandparents came and brought you gifts or hugs during the holidays.
This commercial is a sequel to a similar ad Heathrow Airport launched a year before, titled “Coming Home for Christmas.” This ad follows the bears riding and exiting the plane to meet up with their family at a Heathrow Airport Gate:

This series of commercials has all the great aspects of an ad campaign because it’s relatable, nostalgic, and incredibly heartwarming.
20. Walkers: All Mariah Carey Wants for Christmas
While the holiday season is a time for caring and sharing, Walkers shows musician Mariah Carey doing the exact opposite.
After filming a music video for her famous song, “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” Mariah Carey gets angry with an elf for taking her Walkers chips. To fend him off, she sings a high note which makes him block his ears and let go of the chips.

This is a hilarious commercial because it shows that the only thing you might not want to share on Christmas is Walkers products. It also shows how even stars, like Carey, enjoy the brand.
Go Forth and Be Merry
Out of all the things that we appreciate about these campaigns, there might be one thing we like the most — the fact that they put the fun back into holidays. This season, don’t let the stress get to you. Have a laugh or a cry with these examples, and please, be merry.
From our family to yours, happy holidays.
Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in December 2015 and was updated in January 2021 for freshness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness.

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After one too many 10-hour shifts selling candles at the Canal Street Market in Manhattan, Stephen Tracy wanted to quit his job at Keap Candles.
But he had a problem: he wasn’t allowed to quit.
Keap Candles was not just his job, but his business. He’d also signed a contract promising he’d show up at the market every day. Just a year prior, Stephen quit his job at Google to co-found the company with a friend. And now things were not going as expected. At all.
It wasn’t until Stephen and his co-founder thought deeply about the “why” behind their business did things start to turn around. Even though Stephen admits he was not in a happy place and wanted to quit, he had just enough optimism left to make some drastic changes that ended up saving both the company and Stephen as a person.
Featuring insights from Buffer’s Small Business, Big Lessons podcast episode two and the accompanying unpublished interview, Stephen shared what it’s like to pause on business operations to find your why – even as your business is failing – and use that knowledge to turn everything around.
Stephen Tracy, Founder of KeapStarting with passion and hitting a wall
Feeling unfulfilled by life working in tech, Stephen and his friend Harry Doull would regularly discuss what they enjoyed outside of work. A surprise came one day as both realized how much they loved candles.
“We would meet for coffee and talk about what we were thinking of doing next, and one day candles came up as a topic of conversation and it was a surprise to find that we both loved candles so much,” said Stephen.
Realizing the passion they both had, the duo decided to launch a candle company despite neither having ever made a candle. Within a few months, the euphoria they felt as new entrepreneurs came to a startling halt.
“Three months after leaving our job, we had spent a lot more money than we anticipated and had already done some pretty drastic things like cashing out our retirement savings,” said Stephen. “And we still didn’t have a candle!”
Financial pressure mounting and a few candles made, Stephen and Harry began saying yes to anything they felt would help them sell candles. Eventually, they signed a contract to open a booth at the Canal Street Market in Manhattan. Without really thinking it through, Stephen said the duo committed to staffing the booth from 10 am to 7 pm, 364 days per year. And they signed a year-long lease.
“We had got ourselves into a situation where we were now not spending our time doing the things we wanted to be doing,” said Stephen. “It felt that we were trapped in a way, that we were now having to show up and work a retail shift.”
Keap Founders Harry (left) and Stephen (right)Finding a why that drives you
While Stephen said there was no official “rock bottom” moment in the company, both he and Harry were beginning to feel like failures. Candles weren’t selling all that well, they felt trapped in the Canal Street Market contract, and both of them were thinking about calling the business a loss and moving on.
Not ready to quit though, something changed in Stephen.
“What really happened was we eventually acknowledged that we were not in a happy place individually or as a business, and that something needed to change, and there was enough hope and optimism left in both of us to realize that there was a way out of this,” said Stephen.
“We managed to carve out what felt like very precious time to just spend time together… talking about what is our purpose?” Stephen continued. “… I remember still feeling a little bit lost in that process, but that was what we felt instinctively that we had to do.”
In the end, Stephen said he and Harry realized they needed to get clear on their bigger picture purpose. Otherwise, he said, “we were just going to keep falling into the same habits of saying yes to things.”
The duo also decided to start working with a business coach – Holly from AskHollyHow – in summer 2019. Stephen said it kind of felt like therapy as Holly told them to think about what they want as humans first, then second as business owners. The first assignment Holly gave them was profound for Stephen: “write down where we hoped our lives would be in five years’ time.”
The activity led to some shocking discoveries for the downtown-Brooklyn based startup, the first and biggest being geography: Harry wanted to move to upstate New York while Stephen wanted to move to Long Island or even back to his home country of Guernsey, near the UK, to be by the ocean. Second was wanting the company to help build spaces for conversation and connection, building new moments in an ever-distracted world. It quickly became clear to Stephen the current way they ran their business wouldn’t help them reach those whys.
“A lot of people’s dream to be an entrepreneur is to have personal freedom, so why would you then want to end up feeling like you’re in a place or spending your time doing things you never wished to do or, or in a place you never wished to be?” said Stephen.
Keap CandlesChanging your business to match your why
Fresh from working with Holly, Stephen and Harry approached their 2020 and 2021 annual planning meetings much more mindfully. Instead of thinking about business goals, they thought about alignment between business growth and personal goals with a goal of a “truly integrated sense of the company being the one that we wish to build.”
One shocking change came from this planning: Keap deleted all of their social media accounts.
“So that for us, just to be clear, meant no more Facebook, no more Instagram, and also no more marketing done through those channels as well,” said Stephen.
As a direct-to-consumer company that advertised on Facebook and Instagram, Stephen said the decision should have been a scary one. However, it wasn’t because they acted in alignment to their deep personal desires.
“We wanted to take a stand and say it doesn’t make sense for a company that’s trying to cultivate a conversation and a space to be about connection, to then be forcing you to check Instagram for our latest posts.”
Removing what Stephen saw as “the disruptiveness and distractedness” of social media from how they run their business turned out to give the duo much more time to focus on sales and marketing methods that felt more authentic to their “whys.”
“We’re writing more stories on our blog,” said Stephen. “We’re sending out more emails every month, and hopefully in the not too distant future, we can start doing more things that actually bring us joy.”
Workshop in progress, Keap It’s not (only) about the money
Looking back two years later, he said that growing a business authentically comes back to two questions: 1) What is the business really about? and 2) Why are you doing it?
For a lot of people, the answer to both questions is “money.” But Stephen and Harry realized they had a deeper “why” for themselves as entrepreneurs. Stephen doesn’t judge folks who build businesses just for the money, though. It’s just that he thinks most people have something deeper within them, whether or not they realize it.
“Running the business with a sense of that ‘why’ at its core, I think, is the way to run a business in a way that brings fulfillment, joy, and happiness,” said Stephen.

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