19 Best Holiday Campaigns: Your Ultimate Holiday Marketing Inspiration

The holiday shopping season is coming, and with it come some of the biggest opportunities to boost sales for ecommerce brands everywhere.

That’s not hyperbole—during the 2024 holiday season, Shopify merchants hit a record $11.5 billion in sales over the Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM) weekend alone—up 24% from the year prior. Over 76 million consumers bought worldwide from Shopify-powered brands. 

But holiday marketing is tough—almost every company does it, and standing out feels near impossible. Enter 19 of the best holiday marketing campaigns that will inspire yours, help you reach a wider audience, and boost sales. Let’s dive in.

1. Frost Fair 1683: Commerce meets Christmas

Until the late 1600s, Christmas was a somber affair for those who celebrated. But when a series of freak ice storms hit London in 1683 and 1684, it provided just the excuse people needed to go a bit wild.

The River Thames froze and became the ground for the Frost Fair—a mix of seasonal celebration and popup commerce. One researcher described it as London’s most debaucherous party, “where the main trade was booze and the principal activity was having as wild a time as possible without breaking the ice.”

Based on the time of year and its mix of merchants and merriment, Frost Fair became a cultural hinge in the development of Christmas in the West.

The lesson is one that savvy online-to-offline businesses know well: It’s nice when customers come to you. It’s better when you go to them. But it’s best when the whole thing comes off as one big party. That lesson is still true today.

Take Gymshark, a fitness apparel powerhouse with annual revenue of $400 million. Much of that success comes from the popups they run like full-scale events: one part shopping, one part influencer rock concert, and all parts experiential.

2. Dickens 1843: The new (old) holidays

There was a day, as Time magazine recently noted, when Christmas was “a decidedly second-rate holiday in Great Britain, compared even to Boxing Day.” 

In America, Christmas was outlawed in many states throughout the 18th century. It originated in the US as a pagan festival more akin to Halloween, causing Puritans in the 18th and 19th centuries to crack down on the holiday in response to the Frost Fair–type of revelry described above.

Then, in December 1843, Charles Dickens changed everything. The massive and unforeseen success of his book A Christmas Carol reshaped the holiday along jovial lines and made it about friends, family, and—of course—presents.

Naturally, A Christmas Carol wasn’t so much a holiday campaign as it was a runaway success in and of itself. Still, its success contains a critical lesson we’ll see show up over and over in many of the campaigns below.

Better than discounts, better than sales, better than advertising itself—stories sell.

3. Macy’s 1874: Over a century of holiday innovation

Window displays don’t exactly sound innovative. But during the late 1800s—when plated glass first became widely available—owners and managers who built large windows running the length of their stores were at the cutting edge of holiday marketing.

In fact, Macy’s in New York City was America’s first department store to decorate its windows for Christmas in 1874. It showcased holiday stories for all to watch: the window featured porcelain dolls and recreated scenes from Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

For more than 25 years, Macy’s was one of the only major retailers to create window displays—making it an attraction for local New Yorkers and tourists alike. Eventually, thanks to Macy’s success, the holiday window display competition became fierce in New York City, Chicago, and Philadelphia.

You can stand out with your Christmas window display, or an online holiday marketing campaign, by putting your own spin on the usual holiday themes.

4. Sears 1933: The OG holiday gift guide

Long before social media, the internet, or TV advertising, there was the Sears Wish Book.

For more than 80 years, Sears ruled over the holiday dreams of children and parents alike through an annual piece of direct-mail brilliance. Its first Wish Book—then named the Sears Christmas Book catalog—came out in 1933.

The Wish Book included everything from the Miss Pigtails doll and an electric train set to fruitcakes, a five-pound box of chocolates, and live singing canaries. And as tastes, styles, and trends evolved, so did the Wish Book, making it a staple of holiday list-making.

While the Wish Book saw its final printing in 2017, holiday gift guides and lookbooks are still holiday campaign magic. Sam’s Club sent out its first ever 35-page holiday catalog in 2021 to create “unexpected moments” to connect with holiday shoppers. 

Even virtual adaptations can be a lucrative source of organic traffic, both through search engines and social media posts—think Pinterest boards and saveable images on Instagram. Gift guides also work well as promoted content through native advertising platforms, as well as sponsored or branded content in mainstream publications.

5. NORAD 1955: Inspiring Google years later

Google may have digitized Santa Claus tracking, but it certainly didn’t invent it. That honor belongs to NORAD—the North American Aerospace Defense Command.

In a happy coincidence, in 1955, Sears put a holiday ad in a Colorado Springs newspaper for kids to phone Santa. But a one-digit misprint led curious and excited children to reach CONAD, the Continental Air Defense Command (and NORAD’s predecessor) instead.

Not wanting to crush children’s dreams, CONAD played along and reported Santa’s location to their young callers. And that’s how a top-security-level federal government agency in America became the tracker of sleighs and flying reindeer.

Fast forward more than 50 years, when Google decided it could do better. It used the Keyhole EarthViewer, the original name for Google Earth, to create the Santa Tracker. Google improves it every year with more games and interactive experiences for children of all ages.

The lesson: Google took an incredible idea (tracking Santa Claus) and used its intelligence (Google Earth images) to bring it to life.

6. Norelco 1960s: Cutting-edge advertising (literally)

In 1964, NBC and Rankin/Bass Productions broke new ground by airing the first stop-motion animated holiday film: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. It instantly became a modern classic.

What you might not know is that Norelco—a Philips brand of electric shavers since 1939—was the first to use this emerging technology for a holiday retail campaign. On the heels (or rather, the hooves) of Rudolph came Santa, riding a host of Norelco products.

In the commercial, you can hear clever lines like “Christmas is a time for closeness, and closeness is what Norelco razors are all about,” as well as “Norelco: Even our name says Merry Christmas.” During that last line, the word Nöelco shows up on the screen (Nöel is French for Christmas).

Throughout the late 1960s and into the 1980s, Norelco improved upon the quality of production. People loved it back then and still remember it fondly. The company created an ad in this style again in 2011, but the modern production didn’t land—the sparkle had worn off.

What’s the lesson?

Much like Macy’s window displays, Norelco moved fast to integrate the latest tech into their holiday ads—and it paid off for a couple of decades.

7. Coca-Cola 1995-present: The infamous big red truck

People are wired to crave consistency. When you use it in holiday marketing strategies, you can build a routine where consumers actively seek out your campaigns every year, rather than being just another ad in a sea of Christmas-themed messages. 

Coca-Cola’s infamous big red truck is a prime example. Every year, people eagerly anticipate the return of the Christmas Truck—a tradition that started back in 1995 and features festive games, merchandise, photos with Santa, and cola giveaways on a mobile truck that visits cities around the world. 

The premise of Coca-Cola’s truck experience has stayed largely the same, but it’s since evolved to focus more on charitable donations as a way to help visitors spread holiday cheer. In 2024, for example, the British truck donated profits to FareShare. For every customer who visited the Truck Tour, Coca-Cola donated a meal for a person in need.

8. M&M’s 1996: Time to mash up the merry

You know those M&M’s characters that have legs, arms, and the ability to speak? They’re known as M&M’s spokescandies, the company’s mascots that started appearing in its ads back in 1954.

Parent company Mars’ take on a holiday marketing campaign for its M&M’s brand is the 15-second TV commercial called “Faint,” released in 1996. In it, two spokescandies are preparing M&M’s candies for Santa, wondering if he’d like red and green ones.

But as they walk into the living room to finish their quest, it turns out that Santa has already arrived—and both Santa and one of the spokescandies faint.

If your ecommerce brand has its own mascot, like an animal or a fictional character, consider creating a story in which it interacts with a well-known holiday character. This holiday ad campaign, in particular, is so iconic that it has returned to TV screens every year since 1996.

9. Starbucks 1997 to present: A yearly signal that the holidays are here

Almost wherever you are in the world, you’ll come across a Starbucks.

But it’s not the coffee that stands out—the brand’s trademark “product” is the cup in which actual products end up in customers’ hands. During the year, the Starbucks cup is white and features the recognizable green Starbucks logo.

In 1997, Starbucks released their first holiday-themed cup in place of their plain white one. The first version was purple, but within a couple of years, the now well-known Starbucks holiday cup became recognizably red.

As years passed, Starbucks’ holiday cups became a symbol of the winter season. Each year has a theme (2024’s theme was Merrier Together). The annual designs are now part of popular culture, with people excitedly waiting to see what Starbucks comes up with each year.

This holiday campaign drives user-generated content and media coverage and boosts Starbucks’ reach every holiday season. 

10. Office Depot (OfficeMax) 2006: Turning two billion people into elves

Standing out in the busy holiday shopping season is tough. So the execs at Office Depot hired a creative agency to develop 20 holiday-themed websites in lieu of traditional 30-second TV ads. That’s what led to OfficeMax (an Office Depot brand) launching Elf Yourself, a website where users can turn themselves into an elf in a saveable photo. 

In 2006, the site was getting more than 200 hits per second and got featured in the biggest TV shows and media sites in the US. In 2008, Elf Yourself got over 400 million visits and 40 million media impressions. As of 2020, two billion elves had been created with Elf Yourself.

Year after year, the holiday campaign went viral, giving OfficeMax more reach than any short TV ad probably could.

The campaign’s success proves that you don’t have to spend exorbitant amounts of money on retail advertising, especially during the heavily competitive holidays. With digital, you can use the web to do the heavy lifting at a fraction of the price—and often, with greater and quicker results.

11. Old Spice 2011: MANta Claus is coming to town

“The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” is a viral marketing campaign from 2010 that brought Old Spice droves of commercial success and awards. 

In it, actor Isaiah Mustafa talks in a hyperbolic and over-the-top manner to female viewers, asking them to compare him, a stereotypically strong, muscular man, to their partner. It’s what made the campaign hilarious.

The brand brought Isaiah Mustafa back for the 2011 holiday season in a series of videos called MANta Claus. This time, Mustafa goes on a quest to “give a gift to every single person on Earth this holiday season.”

In each video of this holiday ad campaign, he addresses a group of people or a specific person and shows the gift he prepared for them. Old Spice took their familiar theme of being ridiculous and kicked it up a notch for the holidays.

Year-round consistency—being on-brand, in season and off—is what makes this a great holiday marketing campaign.

Chubbies, a Shopify merchant, also excels at this approach with their “Thighber Monday” campaigns on YouTube and social media. On top of launching hilarious, captivating videos each year, Chubbies partners with influencers and promotes campaign-specific pages on their website.

12. LEGO 2012: Resurrecting a brand with holiplay

LEGO had a near-death experience in 2003 when the company was reportedly $800 million in debt.This isn’t about that story. This is about how innovation has repeatedly helped the brand stand out—and even resurrected it.

LEGO wanted to bring their bricks to life (before The Lego Movie existed) and be a part of the real world. They created Happy Holiplay, a website featuring videos with instructions on building holiday staples like a Santa face, snowmen, and elves. Children were then encouraged to take photos of what they created in the real world and upload them to the site as part of a contest.

User-generated content came from 119 countries, and the holiday campaign received more than 150,000 views over three weeks.

By creating an emotional bond between people and their product, this advertising example brought everyone back to their love of LEGO. The lesson: You’re never too old to enjoy toys and games—and reminding people of an emotional connection will help build excitement and restore your brand values.

13. Pourri 2017: You’re doing the holidays wrong

Every carbon-based life-form has one thing in common: we poop. And humans also share the common holiday stress of “What do I get Sharon from accounting for Secret Santa?” Shopify merchant Pourri (formerly PooPourri) takes care of any distress associated with either process.

Holiday gift-giving is challenging, to say the least. Pourri went with a funny—and on-brand—ad featuring comedian JP Sears, known for his satirical humor, to address the challenge—and it works perfectly. Watch:

The holiday marketing takeaway is to use common holiday-season struggles to unite your customers. Even if your brand isn’t this funny, making light of stressful times is a great way to bring a little levity to your products during the holidays.

14. Spotify 2016-present: “Wrapping” customer data

The digital music giant Spotify is no stranger to relying on data intelligence to create a hilarious, engaging out-of-home (OOH) campaign. 

The first iteration was a campaign dubbed “Thanks 2016, It’s Been Weird”—an assortment of billboards that rounded up users’ most unique listening habits, like the person who played Justin Bieber’s “Sorry” 42 times on Valentine’s Day. 

Spotify’s holiday campaigns have since evolved into Spotify Wrapped: an annual event that rounds up each of the platform’s 675 million users’ listening habits. Each person gets a personalized playlist of their most loved songs throughout the year. This data gets presented in social media-worthy snippets that show each user’s personality. 

“We learn about what you like based on the ways you interact with Spotify, and our personalization technology takes into account a number of signals that you, as users, provide,” says Molly Holder, Spotify’s senior director of personalization.

“For example, as you add songs to a playlist, listen to an entire song, skip a song, or engage with an artist, it sends us clear signals that help us tailor our programming to your taste.”

The lesson to take from Spotify’s awesome campaigns is to use your customer data for good. If you have some interesting and fun insights like Spotify does, sharing them is a unique way to get engagement.

15. IKEA 2019: Silence the critics

Not everyone goes into the holiday season in high spirits. It can be a stressful time for hosts, especially people who don’t have the perfect Instagram-worthy home. Toys everywhere—cracks in the bathroom wall—it can all dampen the festive spirit.

IKEA leaned into this and encouraged people to host Christmas parties in their home. Their holiday campaign uses humor to discuss a personal and emotional topic (how someone feels about their home). 

Animated objects rap along to a song about common household imperfections, until the embarrassed owners fix the problems or cover them with IKEA items—like covering the cracks in the wall with photo frames.

Apply this to your own holiday marketing efforts by using humor to tackle sensitive topics. Calling out exactly what your consumers’ inner critic says can go a long way in establishing a rapport with them. They’ll think, “It’s not just me who feels this way!”

16. PacSun 2022: Into the metaverse

If there’s one thing that consumers crave, it’s experiences. Studies have shown that people, especially millennials, spend more on experiences than physical items. The metaverse is powering these experiences without forcing people to come together in a physical location.

Apparel retailer PacSun, for example, relies on the metaverse to unite loyal customers despite their sprawling network of retail stores. Back in early 2022, they opened a virtual mall on Roblox. Players could own and operate their own mall—and even invite their own friends to join the 3D shopping experience. 

This metaverse became the foundation for PacSun’s holiday marketing campaign later that year. Their 2022 Christmas video ad shows a group of friends unwrapping their Christmas presents—one of which is a virtual reality headset that allows her to access the so-called “PacVerse.” 

Alongside the video, PacSun worked with influencers and brand ambassadors to promote the metaverse world. They even launched a virtual holiday gift shop inside the Roblox virtual mall. Users could “try on” clothing from the collection on their virtual avatar, giving holiday consumers an engaging experience wherever (and however) they prefer to shop. 

17. Amazon 2024: Midnight Opus

The holidays are a time to give. Give joy. Give love—and, of course, give presents. And Amazon, the ecommerce giant, wanted to remind everyone of the importance of giving with their 2024 holiday marketing campaign titled “Midnight Opus.” 

The ad follows a janitor working in a theater who has a passion for singing. His coworkers learn about his passion and set up a surprise stage for him to live out his dreams. Thanks to Amazon’s speedy delivery, they can get the janitor a last-minute tuxedo to complete his look.

Here’s what you can take from this example: a heartwarming story can get your customers in the “feel good” mood. Endorphins makes people feel less stressed and improve their mood—both of which can impact their receptiveness to buy. 

18. Patagonia 2024: Black Friday needs a fix

Patagonia is a brand that stands tall on its values. Over the years, they’ve released a bunch of holiday campaigns that tie back to these values. 

In 2011, Patagonia took out a full-page ad in The New York Times that told people not to buy one of their jackets—instead, they should reduce, repair, reuse, or recycle an existing jacket they already had. 

Then in 2016, Patagonia donated 100% of profits generated from Black Friday to grassroots organizations that protect our air, water, and soil. 

Patagonia continued these environmental themes throughout their 2024 holiday campaign. The brand worked with award-winning documentary filmmaker David Byars to produce The Shitthropocene—a 46-minute documentary-style film that calls out our overconsumption habits.

The movie ad explores how we got to the age of so-called “cheap crap” and how lack of impulse control is affecting humans. 

This unique angle gives Patagonia a way to stand out from competitors. The landing page for their ad diverts people to products that help consumers help the environment through smarter purchases, like items bought through their recycling program and clothing made with recycled fishing nets. 

19. JCPenney 2024: Really big deal reveals

Department stores have long had their place in the holiday marketing Hall of Fame. JCPenney is no different. 

Last year, the retailer launched “Really Big Deal Days”—a weekly series of video ads that run during Amazon Prime Video’s Thursday night football slot. Each ad had a unique deal or exclusive offer, and featured a well-known celebrity. 

According to RetailDive, the department store averaged 13% to 15% new customers each week of the holiday campaign—and around 15% of the new customers made repeat purchases within three weeks..

Some deals proved especially lucrative. The brand’s holiday promotion of their towels, for example, drove over one million product sales. Their $20 denim deal exceeded expectations by over 200%. And three-quarters of existing JCPenney customers who bought the promoted Lionel Messi fragrance had never bought a fragrance from the department store before. 

“This progress has put us in an excellent position to meet customers exactly where they need us this holiday season as we round the corner, to reinvigorate the emotional connection between our customers and the JCPenney brand,” says CEO Marc Rosen.

Get into the holiday spirit with cleverly crafted campaigns 

What these brands all showed is that holiday marketing ideas can make a real mark long after the festive period is over. It’s the time of the year that rewards innovative and stand-out campaigns.

Don’t be afraid to think big. Take a step outside of the traditional Christmas present box. Go beyond your usual campaign parameters and hit your audience in their feelers—happiness, empathy, laughter—if you want to hit your own holiday marketing goals.