The Challenge
Capture the hearts of a new city, already flush with its own line-up of festive events, to create Seattle’s newest holiday tradition.
The first ever Seattle Christmas Market required an intensive marketing effort with attention-grabbing creative and a refined strategy, but how do you advertise an event that’s never happened before?
This is not our first rodeo. Having marketed the Vancouver Christmas Market for the past 3 years, we had a proven multi-channel marketing strategy that worked. At least… in Vancouver. Carefully customizing copy, graphics, content creation, digital ads, partner & sponsor initiatives and more, we planted seeds in the local community to grow for years to come. Liaising with the team in Seattle, Kipling outperformed nearly all targets for a blockbusting inaugural year for the Seattle Christmas Market.
The Objectives
Spread awareness and drive ticket sales
The first ever Seattle Christmas Market - who, what, where, when & why you need to be there
Ensure the success of this season – and of seasons to come
Secure, maintain, and deliver upon partnerships and sponsorships
Get the conversation started
Create innovative content for our marketing channels, including dynamic graphics, social media content, photo and video
Our Solution
Spreading the Word
Partnerships, Sponsorships & Newsletters
Kipling coordinated with over a dozen sponsors, all signing onto a brand new event. These sponsorships and partnerships with valued community pillars such as Nordstrom (the presenting sponsor), Gesa Credit Union, Pacific Science Center, Seattle Children’s Museum, the Seattle Times and many more, earned us 190k in media value equivalency.
Introducing the city to their newest holiday tradition, our launch newsletter had double the industry average click-through rate. By season-end, our newsletter subscriber count had risen 522%.
How we did it:
- Pushing pragmatic messaging on ticket purchasing, practical event details/visitor information, sales and promotions, as well as inspirational copy capitalizing on growing holiday sentiments.
- Curated gift guides featuring offerings from top vendors
- Custom creative: festive photography, stunning graphics and illustrations, and attention-grabbing GIFs.
- Leveraging sponsor and partner subscriberships
Campaign Performance
Digital Advertising, Social Media, Paid Media Buy
We’ll start with this: In our very first season, we saved nearly $20,000 in media spend while exceeding coverage targets, amassed over 19,000 followers on social media from scratch, and garnered over 7 million impressions through digital advertising.
Not bad.
Borrowing what we know from marketing the Vancouver Christmas Market, we positioned known popular attractions like the Merry Go Round, decadent Euro food vendors, artisanal gifts, and exciting festive activities to convey the essence of the Market to a new audience. We leveraged partnerships with iconic Seattle institutions and well-established influencers to integrate ourselves into the local community and boost online conversation. Pushing strong campaigns through a mix of digital ads, organic social media, and paid media buy, we were able to generate tremendous hype and sell 125% of our ticket goal. Online search data shows that this season, the Seattle Christmas Market was the top trending Christmas Market in the world.
‘Tis the Season for Creativity
Graphic Design, Photography, and Content Creation
We’d long developed a comprehensive creative kit for Vancouver Christmas Market, which we had at our disposal. So how do we visually communicate the Seattle Christmas Market’s status as a sister-Market, while setting it apart? Retain brand integrity, but angle it for Seattleites?
To fit in with our neighbours across the border, the Kipling design team created a series of magical illustrations that distilled iconic Seattle ethos: coffee culture, a certain rainy reputation, The Seattle Great (ferris) Wheel, the mystique of bigfoot, and the majestic skyline – crowned by the emblematic Space Needle.
We created ad graphics and media buy creatives to spread the word across the Seattle Metropolitan Area…a new European Village was coming to town. We curated a 4-week plan. We used first leveraged lifestyle photography, showcasing the Market’s heartbeat and the incredible vendors, and ended with illustrations for a sneak peek of what was in store.
On a single team visit down to Seattle, we were able to capture hundreds of photos and hours footage to be used for years to come!
The Results
125%
Sold of the Ticket Goal
7.3 Million
Impressions across social/web ads
19K+
Followers amassed on social media
