5 Non-holiday Campaigns to Lift the Spirits this Season

Let’s face it. Not everyone is in the mood for the holidays.

The days are getting shorter as the temperature drops. Nature loses its colour, conforming to a uniform blanket of white. Overplayed Christmas music blaring in every public space you set foot in and overconsumption disguised in gift wrap—these commercialized practices can drain you.

Whether you celebrate the holidays or not, they’re unavoidable every year. So, how do we make the experience enjoyable, or at the very least, tolerable?

I did some digging and picked out the most socially relevant entertainment to make the experience less cringe-worthy for all of us.

Companies have released some entertaining and insightful video campaigns on their respected social media channels that may cheer you up, or even serve as temporary comedic relief for your inner Grinch.

Look, there are no promises that you’ll change your mind about the holidays and establish a whole different outlook for this time of year. Nonetheless, it’s nice to see the humanity and relatability in businesses through humble marketing strategies.

Stay tuned and keep reading to (possibly) revive your faith in ad culture.

1. BSSP’s Gag Recreation of the Nike ‘Jogger’ Ad

We’re starting off strong with the most dated social media campaign of the bunch, from marketing agency BSSP. BSSP is a small business that won Ad Age’s Small Agency Of The Year’s 2012 award for their homage (and parody) of the ‘Jogger‘ segment in Nike’s infamous Find Your Greatness viral campaign, hence their campaign title Change Your Smallness.

Nike is widely known for being crowned with the best marketing campaigns time and time again, yet considering their budget, notoriety, and reputation—they’re so predictable, it’s lackluster (and debatably considered woke-washing).

BSSP President Patrick Kiss might have recycled a concept, but he made it better. He highlights the struggles of small businesses that are otherwise overlooked if not referenced by brands like Nike to gain company exposure.

The voiceover seems to have it together but eventually goes on a tangent until the end of the video. The informal dialogue is a clever strategy that emphasizes how most of us don’t have it easy. And what’s better than feeling seen amidst all the corporate virtue signaling?

Follow the scenic jog.

2. Vienna Tourist Board’s Racy OnlyFans Account

We get it, Zuckerberg. On Instagram, we keep it PG.

Remember the #freethenipple movement? The Vienna Tourist Board took it to a whole new level. The Austrian marketing organization grew fed up after social posts about their art collections were taken down from their Instagram and Tiktok profiles for “nudity” against community guidelines.

With OnlyFans as the leading online subscription service for sexual content, the only logical thing to do with their rejected masterpieces was to promote their collections through a platform that doesn’t shy away from the female form.

“Of course you can work without that, but these artworks are crucial and important to Vienna – when you think of the self-portrait by Schiele from 1910, it’s one of the most iconic artworks. If they cannot be used on a communications tool as strong as social media, it’s unfair and frustrating. That’s why we thought [of OnlyFans]: finally, a way to show these things.”

– Helena Hartlauer, spokesperson for the Vienna Tourist Board

Feast your eyes on the teaser.

3. UN’s Girl Up Live Reacts for Female Empowerment

UN's girl group — *“When one girl rises, all girls rise”*

What better way to celebrate women than by gathering us to do it together?

The UN dropped an inclusive video campaign triggered by a socially relevant and pivotal moment in American politics. And quite frankly, it carries a powerful feminist message.

Girl Up is a social movement that works toward implementing more women in governmental affairs. So, when they launched their video campaign, Today We Rise, to commemorate Vice President Kamala Harris’s inauguration as the first female Black-South Asian vice president in US history, the UN knew it had to be done right.

The video displays clips of diverse women, of all ages and backgrounds, as they watch Kamala’s inauguration on live television. Not only emotional and inspirational, but the ad also brings forth positive energy that is new and compelling for American women: the sense of political liberation.

Join the excitement with them.

4. SeatGeek Gives a Spotlight to Talking Backsides

Ticket distributor platform, SeatGeek, weren’t talking out their asses for their Get Your Seat in a Seat campaign. Instead, they let derrières do the talking. And it got a lot of online trolls and conservatives to increase their online presence and boost their social media engagement.

They increased their budget on social media by 60% in the past year, with a Youtube channel of nearly 11k subscribers. The payoff? Their talking butt shorts have an average of 1 million views per video, and they reached 51k of sales in seats since the return of in-person events.

Hey, maybe bums aren’t as biased as people trying to save face!

5. Spotify Embodies Public (Musical) Disassociation

If you haven’t been in the loop, nepo models have brought back headphones and wired earphones as part of the prevalent Y2K trend while they strut on New York streets.

We’ve had major tech advancements with music platforms that allow us to become more disconnected from reality than ever—advertisers like the team at Spotify cleverly found a way to flaunt their streaming services in the All Ears On You campaign video.

Spotify took the “in your own bubble” metaphor and ran with it. The video follows various people trekking A-Z through the city with music as their propeller⁠—literally. The bubble has evolved from Jake Gyllenhaal’s role to a universal embodiment of how we feel in our daily lives, consumed by the music we listen to in transit.

Instead of feeling like you’re in the music video, you are the music video.

Find out which bubble archetype you are.