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THE UGLIER
THE BETTER
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Secret Delivery
Uber partnered with ugly Christmas sweater company Tipsy
Elves in a four-hour promotion in 2015 that was launched with a push notifi-
cation to customers that contained a secret code to unlock the UberELVES
option. Customers then used one-click ordering and, for a $10 delivery fee,
the sweater conveniently showed up, perfect for Millennial procrastinators on
their way to ugly holiday sweater parties, who then Tweeted, Snapchatted
and Instagrammed about their experience.
•
Wear To Win
Port Canaveral-based Victory Casino Cruises celebrated the
day by entering ugly Christmas sweater wearers into a contest that gave
them a chance to win one of three free-play prizes. They promoted the event
on social media.
•
DIY Design
Coke Zero took the ugly sweater theme a step further by
building a Coke Zero Sweater Generator, which allowed users to
design an ugly Christmas sweater online with minimal Coke
branding. Each sweater designed went into an online
gallery where people voted on best and worst designs.
The top 100 sweaters were actually made and sent to
their creators—who most likely bragged about them
(while modeling them) on social media sites.
•
Christmas in August
The Williamsport Crosscutters,
a Minor League baseball team, held a “Halfway to
Christmas” promotion by wearing ugly Christmas
sweater jerseys for a game in early August 2014. The
ugly jerseys were then auctioned off after the game—
visual social media marketing opportunities galore.
•
Damage Control
Starbucks handed out free ugly
mini-sweaters for its cups last National Ugly Christmas
Sweater Day to customers who came to Starbucks on
that day, bought a Frappuccino and paid for it with a
registered Starbucks Rewards Card. It was a smart pro-
motional move from the company that had aban-
doned its Christmas-themed cups in favor of plain red
holiday cups, to the chagrin of Christmas-loving, caf-
feine-addicted people everywhere.
AUGUST 2016 •
PPB
• 29
SWEATERS
IT’S TIME TO START THINKING
about unique promotional
ideas for your clients to use for National Ugly Christmas
Sweater Day, which is Friday, December 16. These five
recent ugly sweater promotions may inspire you.