What We Remember From Holiday Campaigns (And Why)

It’s that time of year when brands show up with tinsel in their hair and optimism in their copy. Snow falls where it never has. Families gather in suspiciously large kitchens. Someone learns the true meaning of something, usually just in time.

And then January arrives. Decorations go back into boxes. Emails stop saying season’s greetings. And almost all of it disappears from memory.

Almost.

Because every year, a handful of campaigns linger. Not because they were star-studded or algorithmically flawless, but because they understood something simple and stubborn about how people remember.

Memory responds to meaning.

Cognitive science tells us that memory is emotionally indexed. We store information alongside how it made us feel. Which is why you forget most holiday campaigns, but remember that one.

Take Apple’s holiday films. They rarely mention a product. Often, they barely mention Apple at all. Instead, they tell small, human stories like learning to communicate, rediscovering a part of oneself, reconnecting with something time nearly erased. The technology is present, but it refuses to be the point.

You don’t remember what the product did. You remember the feeling of being understood and thinking that’s me, or I know this, or I’ve felt this before.

This is where many campaigns go wrong. They assume feeling must be manufactured and layered on through swelling music, spectacle, and scale. Clearly unnecessary.

The holidays, after all, are not a blank canvas.

People arrive in December already full—of nostalgia and stress, grief and hope, obligation and memory. It’s a very emotionally crowded month. Which means you don’t need to add more feeling; you need to navigate what’s already there. Case in point, the  John Lewis’ Christmas films. 

That is what powers good holiday marketing. The recognition of who we are, what we care about, and what matters to us. Not a flashy effect, nor a perfectly timed reveal. 

Merry Christmas, y’all!