If you’re in marketing, you know that the holiday season starts right after Labor Day. Or maybe it’s Fourth of July? But now here we are. Halloween has come and gone. If you listen closely, you can hear Mariah Carey warming up the old pipes. And yes, Black Friday is coming. If you don’t have all your holiday assets locked down by now, you might be starting to panic like a turkey in November. Don’t.
Breathe. You got this. There’s plenty of places to get the content you need to surprise and delight your audience all the way to New Year’s Day. And don’t worry. We’re not talking about stock. Stock is the fruitcake of content. (Yes, there is good stock. There’s also good fruitcake. But it’s hard to find. And you gotta pay a lot for it. And in the end, it’s still fruitcake.) No, we’re talking about authentic moments featuring real people doing real holiday stuff with your product.
We’re also talking holiday magic from artists and filmmakers. Some famous. Some waiting to be discovered by you. And local holiday celebrations from towns and villages all over the world. Or in your backyard.What about old holiday cartoons in every language? And archival footage from as far back as there was a way to record people giving each other presents and drinking weird egg-noggy drinks?
It’s all out there. On the internet.
All I want for Christmas is ME!
Want to give your audience a real treat this holiday season? Show them people just like them doing things you want them to do. Unwrap some Found Content of people unwrapping your product. All you need is the internet. And everything that has ever been uploaded to it. And a workshop full of curators.
A good curator, well briefed, can find shots that will resonate with your audience and bring all the emotion of the holiday season to life in a real way. And capture the essence of your brand by showing the people who made your brand what it is: your audience. Why? Found Content has a 400% higher click-through rate than traditional ads. And people trust real Found Content over influencers by a wide margin.
Wrap it up
Our curators have probably gathered more Found Content than anyone in the world. They do it every day for brands like Nike, Meta and Amazon. They recommend starting by searching your brand on last year’s social feeds for the week between the gift-giving holidays and NYE. Many customers that got your brand as a gift last year posted it online. You may have missed them at the time (remember how busy you were?) and then thought it was too late. It’s not. Those videos are gold. And nobody knows what year it is these days anyway.
Want to get ahead of next year? Ask your audience to do something special this holiday season. Remember Starbucks’ Red Cup campaign? What can you do to help your customers make holiday-themed posts for their users? Or maybe ask for reviews. Or videos of your stores. Or share a hashtag like we helped Lincoln do last year. Or celebrate family togetherness like The Honey Baked Ham Company.
So get out there. Find your audience wherever they are. Making their lists. Checking them twice. And when you find the perfect piece of content and you want to use it in your campaign, just drop it into the Catch+Release licensing engine. We’ll handle clearance, licensing and even full indemnification.
Santa has elves. We've got curators.
Even the big guy at the North Pole needs some help to do his magic. If you need curation help, we got you. Catch+Release Found Content curation bundle offers are available to you through the end of the year. Just the Book A Briefing Call button on our website.
Whether it's a pitch, a manifesto, a rip or a full up project - our curation team will help you search and expand your options for holiday-appropriate Found Content footage, stills and even music.
And yes, we have agreements with all the stock houses. And we know where they keep the good stuff. We’ll even find fruitcake. If that’s what you’re into. Cheers!
