February is right around the corner, and you’re probably thinking of a particular day: Valentine’s Day. The romantic holiday sounds cute, but there’s one more special occasion you might’ve forgotten: it’s leap day!
A leap day or leap year day appears on the calendar during years that are divisible by four. It’s easily forgettable since it only appears every four years. While that may be the case, it’s all the more reason why you should take advantage of February 29!
Adding an extra day to your calendar can benefit your business and give you the chance to offer promos, discounts, and many more. You can take the opportunity to give your customers something to look forward to this February 2020! Just look at these brands that didn’t miss the chance to incorporate leap year into their marketing campaign.
Brands That Perfected Leap Year Marketing
Nokia
In a simple yet effective manner, Nokia managed to connect with their audience without costing money. With one tweet, the company attracted hundreds of Twitter users.
What Can You Learn From It?
Nokia’s short and sweet marketing strategy is something all brands can try out. In less than 20 words, you can reach out to your audience without breaking a sweat!
The trick is timing your posts and making them relevant, which in this case, was leap year day (2016). Perhaps you could do the same too? This upcoming leap day, try social media marketing on Facebook or Twitter by publishing posts and sharing relevant images related to the rare occasion.
Google/WWF (World Wildlife Fund)
Top to bottom: Google and WWF
The reason why we’ve combined two brands in one section is to show our love for animals, mostly the hopping kind. Check out these leap year ads that exhibit two of the “hoppiest” animals in the kingdom, frogs and rabbits!
What Can You Learn From Them?
If there’s a perfect animal to represent leap year, it’s a bunny or frog. Not to mention, they’re too cute to miss! What exactly can you learn from this strategy anyway?
The keywords here are relevance and humour. Rabbits and frogs are adorable (unless you have a phobia) and it’s Leap year; put two of them together, and you have a good sense of humour!
In marketing, it’s all about relevant content and being creative. If that’s the case, then what’s a better way to draw attention to your brand other than to post pictures of hopping animals on Leap year? Plus, most people can relate with frogs and bunnies since they’re too darn cute!
Besides using animals as visual design elements, you can utilise other examples as well, just like this picture of an actual person leaping. If that isn’t straightforward marketing, then what is?
Pizza Hut
Ever wondered what happens to people born on leap days? They can celebrate their birthdays either the day before or after Leap year day. While it isn’t complicated for leap year babies aka leaplings or leapers, it can be unfortunate to celebrate a birthday on an inexact date.
Fortunately, Pizza Hut is there to make sure leap babies will have a joyous birthday bash! In 2016, Pizza Hut offered free slices of pizza to leaplings. All they needed was a valid ID as proof to get their personal pan pizza!
What Can You Learn From It?
Pizza Hut focused on a key principle: personalisation. They added a personal touch to their marketing strategy aimed at a niche audience—the leap year babies. While the plan was to target consumers born on a leap day, the approach also resulted in positive reception by other audiences, thanks to the thoughtful and personal gesture of the said strategy.
Overall, we can learn two lessons here: To personalise your content and target a niche audience. Even if leap year isn’t the topic of discussion, personalising your content should help you gain the customer’s trust and build your brand. It’s an even more effective marketing plan if you target the right audience, which in this case are leap year babies.
Summary
To summarise, it’s a good idea to grab the opportunity to market your business while leap year is coming close. Adopt the said marketing strategies as leap year day is fast approaching.
With that said, here are some of the key ideas that you should keep in mind based on what we’ve reviewed:
- Kickstart your social media marketing campaign to attract your Singapore audience, especially on Facebook and WeChat.
- Consider creating comedic or lighthearted content that most audiences can relate to, same with how Google showcased their cute bunny doodle.
- Try showing thoughtfulness and reach out to your niche audience, just like how Pizza Hut gave away free pizza to leap year babies!
These are just some of the ideas that you can incorporate in your marketing strategies. Keep these thoughts in mind before you begin your leap year marketing campaign!
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