Valentine’s Day can be a great time for marketing your goods or services, but in a sea of pink, red and black, how can you make your business stand out? Here are a few ideas for creating a marketing piece that is in keeping with the sentiments of the day.
Make a cheeky statement.
While not exactly reflecting the fairy tale sentiments we expect from a Valentine’s Day advertisement, Virgin Mobile created a stir with their ‘Tell them you’ve found someone with a bigger package’ campaign. The humour came from the slight shock value of going against the usual, ‘soppy’ phrases that accompany Valentine’s Day messages.
You don’t have to completely shatter people’s romantic ideals of course, but creating a wry statement that reflects a more honest view of modern love is a great way of getting the singletons, exhausted parents, not so happily married and jaded serial daters on side as well as your usual target audience.
Visual humour
Perhaps one of the funniest recent Valentine’s adverts came from MacDonalds, featuring a faceless man in a suit opening a box with a Big Mac in it, as if it was an engagement ring. Not a gesture likely to go down all that well in the real world, but a cheeky idea that draws in the eye due to the unexpected twist on what you initially expect to see.
Is there a way you could do this with your product or service? Even if your industry doesn’t easily lend itself to romantic gestures, having a Valentine’s Day offer flyer or postcard is still a great way to wish your customers a lovely day and remind them you’re there all year round.
Good things come in…twos
Whether you’re a restaurant, clothes shop, a fruit shop or a bar, some of the most memorable (and silly) Valentine’s Day adverts reflect the power of two. Virtually anything you sell that traditionally goes hand in hand with something else can be used as a photographic or illustrative design idea. Salt and pepper, apples and pears, a bra and knickers, two rows of false eyelashes…the list is more or less endless.
Accompanying your image with some kind of phrase or quip about how some things are just destined to be together is all you have to do to make your point in a way that is both funny and cute at the same time.
Reflect diversity
Valentine’s Day is one of those public holidays that many people feel somewhat on the outside of. The vast majority of Valentine’s advertisements are very much targeted at middle class heterosexuals.
While it may be difficult to create a campaign that includes every permutation of modern, loving relationships, one way of getting round this problem is trying to create something a bit more neutral to let your customers know you love them for who they are – and that your products or services are for everyone.
If in doubt…make it heart shaped
There is no doubt that the heart is one of our most universally understood symbols, and if you’re struggling for inspiration, anything you can make into a heart shape that reflects your goods or services is going to be perfect for a simple and possibly funny visual statement. Whether its two staplers, a pair of shoes, a kitten in a box or a misshapen potato, if you can make it heart shaped it will tell your customers exactly what they need to hear.
Valentine’s Day is a great day for showing your customers how much you ‘love’ them.
