What brands can learn for Gift With Purchase from the most exciting Advent Calendars of 2024
In the evolving festive retail landscape, the iconic advent calendar has become a crucial touchpoint for innovation to drive increased brand engagement. Brands in all sectors are now creating a unique offering beyond the traditional 24 doors of chocolate, to delight and connect their target consumers.
Brands can draw valuable lessons from advent calendar releases for with purchase (GWP) strategies by observing how they elevate a brand experience and identity while delivering added value, fostering deeper connections with consumers. Similarities also exist in their consumer attraction – through enticing shoppers to trial new purchases –, as well as strengthen a brand’s emotional impact through a moment of self-gifting.
In 2023, adm Group shared an in-depth report on the key trends in the advent calendar market, primarily focusing on beauty alongside other retail sectors. View the full report here.
This year, we’ve looked at 2024’s most exciting and unique calendars to see which similar themes are visible, alongside fresh influences from wider retail trends. These learnings can support brands in building their future promotional strategies moving into 2025.
Brand Experience
Continuing from 2024 and going into 2025, brands are focusing on strategies that enhance their overall consumer experience. Advent calendars are an ideal vehicle to deliver a microcosm of the whole brand in an interactive way that drives active engagement. We are seeing this more frequently, as more niche brands enter their options into the market.
Lifestyle brand Daylesford has released an advent calendar capturing the essence of their Cotswold farm shop, through a spectrum of daily gifts from food to fragrance. This allows consumers a complete experience of their aspirational lifestyle outside of their idyllic countryside hub, bringing their key identity to life for the consumer in a more accessible way.
Similarly, Anthropologie’s beauty-themed advent calendar expands their image beyond their store’s heart (here in the form of sector with their primary homeware and clothing) highlighting the potential of advent calendars to broaden brands’ ability to attract new audiences.
Economic Adaptation
In times of economic uncertainty, brands must strike a balance between offering luxury and being mindful of shopper’s financial concerns. This demonstrates a genuine understanding of consumer desires and builds a lasting relationship.
Boots, in collaboration with MacMillan, have introduced an advent calendar that not only supports a charitable cause (hence consumers feel their spend has increased value), but is also included in a 3-for-2 gift deal, creating economically savvy choice. In also offering calendars with skincare and beauty-only options, Boots demonstrate how flexibility in addressing different consumer needs can mitigate economic hesitations.
Likewise, Sephora caters to a wide range of budgets with multiple price points for its advent calendar range, broadening the target audience in those who engage with this premium festive experience.
Sustainability
Sustainability remains a consumer concern, and within the advent market, the key for brands is to highlight how their calendars are not just more products of wasteful, excessive consumption. When delivering a promotional strategy, brands need to ensure they maintain a sustainability mindset, so even when presented with something not typically sustainable (such as GWP materials), consumers see their environmental concerns are being heard.
The MakeBox & Co Embroidery Advent Calendar leaves consumers with a reusable decorative keepsake after the 24 days of December, creating something that can be enjoyed for future years to come. Additionally, the mindful daily activity to create the finished result builds personal memories for the consumers, which in turn enhances the brand's memorability.
Fortnum & Mason have engaged in a waste-reduction approach through a yearly refill pack for their House of Chocolate calendar, ensuring that their luxury identity does not have to be sacrificed for sustainability.
Brand Collaboration
Brand collaborations are abundant in the current landscape market, and this is no different for the holidays, with partnerships that enable a greater advent experience. Cross-brand collaboration has been long established in the beauty advent sector, but its extension into other sectors signals new opportunities for growth not just in product development, but in GWP as well.
John Lewis’s Ready-to-Drink Cocktail Advent Calendar showcases a variety of drinks from brands across multiple different beverage groups, offering maximum variety and an enriched experience.
Whilst not a collaboration with another brand, Benefit’s Gorgeous Grocer advent calendar embodies cross-sector collaboration by adopting a food theme - its release also accompanied with a food-themed POS pop-up in Selfridges Food Hall. Collaborations such as this demonstrate the potential for brands to enter new spaces and attract different audiences, a valuable consideration for promotional strategies.
For more analysis on The Rise of Brand Collaborations, read our two articles here.
Premiumisation
Premiumisation continues into 2025, with consumers willing to spend more if they feel they are receiving added value in return. Brands should consider how they can elevate their perceived value to create a brand experience that consumers are willing to invest in.
In the already-luxurious advent calendar sphere, we are seeing more select offerings but with greater curation. 12-day calendars are more prominent but they are elevating – Harvey Nichols have released a 12-day fragrance calendar with a curated selection that, while smaller, emphasizes quality.
Similarly, British Vogue’s £350 advent calendar may be at the top end of the price range for editorial beauty calendars (Harrods, Cult Beauty etc), but theirs feature ALL full-sized products, a rarity in the advent calendar space.
Digitalisation
Incorporating digitalisation elements into GWP strategies is essential in modern retail to meet consumers in both physical and digital spaces and provide a cohesive omnichannel experience. Advent calendars are an inherently physical brand strategy loved by consumers, so when incorporating digital elements, the key is to ensure they utilise the right channel – not just a digital experience for the sake of it.
Sephora’s Moving Lights calendar includes QR codes that link to Instagram makeup tutorials, seamlessly connecting the physical product with the digital world their consumer spends large amounts of time engaging in. Makeup tutorials on Instagram generate authentic brand connections so harnessing this creates brand trust.
Liberty’s advent calendar does not use digitalisation straight away to detract for their beloved physical calendar, but rather to extend the experience. They have produced an online version of the calendar that links consumers directly to the product pages of full-sized versions of each day’s gift, streamlining the journey for the customer to repurchase their favourite samples.
The key with these two examples is they do not detract from the unique selling point (USP) of an advent calendar – the reliable and immediate receipt of a gift. This consumer appeal mirrored with instant impact of GWP, brand must prioritise not losing this pillar when harnessing digital.
The Key Takeaway
The advent calendar market of 2024 offers brands valuable lessons in innovation and consumer engagement. From creating immersive brand experiences to adapting to economic realities, prioritizing sustainability, and embracing digitalisation, advent calendars present a microcosm of larger retail trends – especially within the area of value-add for brands.
Brands that incorporate these lessons into their GWP strategies will be well-positioned to meet consumer demands, offering engaging, premium, and sustainable experiences that resonate year round, not just during advent.